Announced in May, the Digimax i5 is Samsung’s smallest digital camera and is housed in a stylish, stainless steel body that will be available in silver, black, and red. The camera is about the same width (3.53″) and height (2.35″) as a credit card and only .68″ thick - or should I say thin. Samsung has definitely designed the camera to be simple to operate by reducing buttons and confusion on the camera body itself. The clean, simple design will make it very comfortable for almost anyone to pick up and use. The Digimax i5 features a internal 3x optical zoom, which means that the lens doesn’t extend out like it does on many small cameras. This keeps the camera thin and compact even during use. Other features include a whopping 50MB of internal memory, full screen video (640×480, 30fps) mode with sound and zoom capability, and a bright, large 2.5″ TFT color display.
There is a lot to like about the Samsung i5 and a few things not to like. The camera performed satisfactory under most lighting conditions, but performance was only average. Start-up time was fairly quick at 2 seconds, but shot-to-shot times were very slow. Even in continuous shooting mode the best I could achieve was 1.5 seconds between shots and in this mode the screen goes completely dark while the camera captures frame after frame. Since you can’t see exactly what the camera is capturing after you press the shutter release, the continuous shooting mode is more pot-luck than anything else. In single-shot mode, it took the camera about 2.5 seconds before it was ready to capture another image. Shutter lag was almost a full second, a pretty slow time when compared to other newer cameras in this class. Shutter lag times can be decreased by pressing the shutter-release halfway in order to pre-focus the camera. Pressing the shutter from this half-way position reduced shutter lag to about 0.5 second.
The stainless steal body, sleek compact design, internal 3x optical zoom lens, layout and overall feel, docking station, rechargeable battery, 50MB of internal memory, integrated lens/flash cover, large 2.5″ TFT color LCD display, easy-to-navigate menu system, and 30 fps MPEG-4 video mode with audio and zoom are reasons to consider the Samsung i5. The camera also features a superb super macro mode which should be considered if you often take pictures of small objects (think ebay auctions). Long exposures (night mode) seem to be one of the high points of the Samsung i5. A 12-second exposure taken in a dimly lit room yielded bright, sharp, clean results. This was very unexpected especially considering the camera lacks a tripod mount - a necessity when shooting with long exposures. To get around the lack of a tripod mount, use a bean bag or table along with the self-timer to keep the camera steady when shooting.