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LAS VEGAS -- Samsung's booth at CES 2009 is huge. So huge that, when I turned up early to take a look at the new cameras, I still ended up 10 minutes late for my appointment. But there are some advantages to being a company that makes, well, everything. For instance, it means that the company can stuff 64 whole gigabytes of solid state storage into one of its camcorders. That's enough to record 12 hours of HD video (although you'll need to take three spare batteries to do it).
This seems to be a trend at CES this year -- Canon, too has a Hi-Def, high-capacity camcorder in the 32GB HF S10, and camcorders in general are making a comeback against the video-capable digicam. Why? I asked a Samsung representative and he's convinced that rising camcorder sales are being driven by the adoption of hi-definition TVs. You have that big, beautiful display and your old standard def cam just wont cut it.
So how is the HMX-H106? It has a touch screen to control it although thankfully there is still a real red button to record. The camera will also shoot 4.7 megapixel still and even has a built in flash.
Specs aside, the thing that is really getting people excited is the hand-grip (seen below). It swivels. This means that you can shoot normally, with the strap comfortably caressing your hand, but then the whole assembly, strap and all, can be twisted.
This means you can change your grip without removing the strap from your hand. It sounds simple, and it is. The Samsung guy at the stand even said that it "probably only took around five minutes of R&D
time". But, apparently, people love it. It's like Photobooth on the
Mac. It's easy and junky but it has sold many a computer.
Price? Take a guess. Samsung, like everyone else, is waiting until these ship to see if the economy has recovered enough to allow them to overcharge. In fact price is generally the most noticeable thing at CES
this year. Nobody is wiling to commit to pricing gear that might not be in stores for another six months.
Press release [Samsung]
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