There’s no doubt that 5-megapixel resolution currently defines the sweet spot of point-and-shoot digital cameras. Samsung’s 5-megapixel ultracompact entry, the Samsung Digimax i5, offers a competitive snapshot feature set housed in a nondescript but slender metal body. Interesting features, a bright 2.5-inch LCD, and a VGA movie mode, however, don’t compensate for listless performance and just so-so image quality.
The camera turned in an average performance at best and elicited mumbles of frustration in the continuous-shooting mode, which blacks out the screen while capturing less than 1fps. Both start-up time and shot-to-shot time exceeded two seconds–and twice that with the flash. Autofocus worked relatively quickly with high-contrast subjects but otherwise wandered and searched before locking in, often on the background rather than the subject. You can turn on the autofocus-assist lamp to improve matters somewhat.