01 Perfect TL225
The advent of the Different TL225
People always want more. If something comes true, they start to want something different. However, the desire develops better, prettier, and more innovative things. From film cameras pushing the shutter every time, better, slimmer, and lighter digital cameras have been released. Touch screen and smile shot become a basic, and 3D cameras or built-in projector camera have been released. However, every time the new products are released, we still want newer. And now the TL225 shows up with various new functions such as Dual LCD, 1.152K pixel 3.5 inch touch wide LCD, and haptic effect vibrating itself by touching, it supports wide angle, smart auto, and Dual IS which have been great things of Samsung cameras. I’m sure that this special product would stop the blame regarding the number of the products for Samsung Digital Imaging.
(For this review, engineering version camera has been used. Therefore, I think it shows 70~80% completion of the product for sale.)
Strong main functions
Here the specification of the TL225. Most of all, it has a 12.2M pixel 1/2.3 inch CCD sensor. The Schneider lens in the TL225 supports 27mm wide angle with 4.6x optical zoom. From wide angle to telephoto angle, it covers all the ranges to take shots. Besides, it has the functions which users want for easy and fun shot such as the Samsung’s famous smart auto mode with 16 scene modes, Dual IS (OIS + DIS), HD video recording, face recognition up to 20 people, various retouching in the small body.
Twice the fun, Front display
The most remarkable thing of the TL225 is the front display. For the first time in the world, this has 1.5 inch sub LCD monitor on the front side, and it shows the scene as it will be taken. The front display is activated by tapping it, so it’s very convenient to use and perfectly suitable for self shot. Also the front display is useful when taking a baby. When changing the mode to children mode, the funny animation is displayed on the front display and it captures the eyes of children, so that you can take a picture more easily. When running the timer mode, the countdown is displayed, so you can get a better shot, of course.
LCD delivering the vivid quality
The LCD on the back of the TL225 is the world best. It has about 4 times better 1,152K pixel than the LCD of normal digital cameras. The LCD of the TL225 is the same as the LCD of Samsung TV or cell phones. It means the high quality image. The 3.5 inch wide touch screen is also noticeable. Besides, it has adopted the haptic technology. Tilting the camera up / down, it moves to another folder called the Smart Gesture UI.
Beauty of Temperance
The design of the TL225 is simplicity without any unnecessary parts and straight without protrusion, simply and elegantly. It succeeds the simple from the previous model, but it looks more elegant and sharp. From the simple body, the circular lens part and red color are the design points. (On the black body, different colors will be released. There will be black and orange for domestic market and gold, orange, purple, and black for world wide.) These 2 points give spirit to the simple design. The front display is not seen unless looking at closely or activating it. However, this material might be weak to fingerprints.
All interfaces work by touch, so the whole back of the camera is filled with the LCD screen. It has only 4 buttons such as power, shutter, zoom, and play mode. On the power button, you can see the blue dot which is identity of Samsung. Like other compact cameras, it has no grip part, so you’d better hang a strap on you wrist. When you want to activate the front LCD or grap it with one hand, the camera is easy to vibrate by unintentionally touching the LCD. Lightly holding it with 2 hands or making the weight leaning front, there’s no problem to use.
For interesting Photo life, TL225
Looking at the TL225, I think this understands the mind of people. So far, we have taken the self shot by turning back the LCD, but now we have the front screen, and it’s easy to use the camera by tilting it. For those who want to have beautiful picture and not to retouch pictures, it adopts the beauty shot mode, and for those who feels difficulty, the smart auto helps them. Not just for bragging the technology, it has the functions which users need. Not just the function. It has also great specifications. It comes from nowhere for those who enjoy the photo life. Especially, female users will love this product. Let’s go over the charming points of the TL225 one by one through the review.
All of them are linked to original
02 Dual enjoy TL225
The strength of compact cameras is the convenience. You can take a camera and push a shutter any time because of the light weight. Besides, using various functions, you can make fun pictures. Most of the people want a camera which can take fun and light pictures, not some artistic pictures. They want to record the day and the face they love. They want ‘a toy’ which can be easily touched, not ‘a valuable thing’ which is kept in the house. In that, the TL225 is a very good model. It’s easy and fun. Let’s take a look at the noticeable features such as front display and haptic.
Perfect function for Self shot, Front display
So far, the best camera for self shot is the 180 degree rotational LCD screen. But it costs the thick LCD or cutting picture caused by wrong angle. The TL225 supports the front LCD for the first time in the world. 1.5 inch front display shows the same scene as the back LCD. That means you can foresee the result.
The front display is activated by selecting ‘Front display on’ from the display information menu, or tapping the front display. This automatically goes in to the portrait mode, so if your face is in the screen, face recognition and smile shutter are also automatically activated. That means once you smile, the camera takes it. We can see the picture through the front display, so I recommend this for users who enjoy self shots. However, we can’t guess the time of the smile shutter, so we need some patience to wait after smiling. Sometimes it recognizes right away, or takes some time.
Smile shutter shot after activating the front display
Front display giving information
There are some other ways to use the front display. It’s also used to show information. Most of all, it can be used to take a self timer mode. Usually, we guess the time by looking at the blinking AF. However, when we fail to count or count wrong, a lot of time we fail to take a self timer shot. The TL225 counts the time through the front display. It shows 3, 2, and 1, so we can take a self timer shot with better pose and face. Of course the AF is also blinking, so the odd to fail decreases more.
Displaying counts on the self timer mode
There are 3 ways to set the front display. It’s possible through selecting the display on the LCD such as front display on showing the same scene as the back LCD, function info showing flash and focus information, and shutter info showing smile icon which allows the object to prepare the shot.
3 types of front display can be selected
Suitable for Children shot! Children mode
Isn’t it so wonderful if we take the smile of my kid? Every parent wants this, I think. The TL225 supports the children mode for the smile of baby. Selecting the children mode among the scene modes, fun animation is played on the front display. Taking the camera to the baby, he/she focuses on the animation in the front display. We just need to push the shutter at the right moment. Even though we push the shutter, the animation is not stopped, so we can easily get the pretty face of children.
Response when touched! Haptics and Smart Gesture UI
The LCD of the TL225 has adopted the haptic effect which activates vibration after touching the LCD. Every time we touch the button, we can get the vibration, so we will know what we are doing exactly. The intensity of the vibration can be adjusted to off, low, middle, and high. The ST10 also adopted the haptic effect. However, the TL225 has more upgraded effect. You can change the shot mode by touching the mode icon. You can also change it by tilting the camera up/down or rotation while pushing the motion reorganization icon. From the play mode, you can move to file protection, slideshot, and bookmark. It seemed inconvenient for me first, but after accustomed, it’s rather convenient, because it can be controlled by one hand. Tapping, rotating pictures by touch, and deleting by X are the Smart Gesture UI.
Simple mode change by Smart Gesture
EasyFile flipping and delete
03 Smart TL225
Smart TL225
Through the review so far, we could find out that the TL225 has great specifications, elegant design, front display, and Smart Gesture. Let’s take a look at the shooting performance and the advantage of Samsung cameras.
Just push the shutter. Smart auto
There are a lot of functions having ‘Smart’ in Samsung cameras. It means that it provides functions that users need smartly. The most remarkable one is the smart auto that Samsung has started to support for the first time. The smart auto is to automatically change the scene mode when putting the lens on depending on the situation. Users don’t need to change the mode. Just putting the camera on the objects, it automatically changes the mode. It’s loved by not only beginners, but also users who want to enjoy shots easily. Especially, it’s great for portrait and macro modes. The recent mode WB1000 has 11 scene modes. However, the TL225 has 16 modes now with zoom-in portrait, blue sky, natural green, and so on.
All of them are linked to original
Smart auto changes the mode by automatically recognizing the situations.
Forever Beauty! Perfect Portrait System
There’s nothing like a compact camera to record the life simply, and most of them are portrait shots. We used to take shots of people in gathering, travel, or just self shots. The TL225 has various functions called the perfect portrait system for satisfactory portrait shot.
Great recognition rate
The most important thing when using the face recognition mode is the success rate. The TL225 has a great rate as much as recognizes small faces on a monitor or magazine. It can recognize up to 20 faces, so there’s no problem for group pictures. When activating the front display, the face recognition function is running on the front display, so it’s more useful for the self shot. The smart face recognition is not just to recognize face. It remembers faces which are frequently taken, so when there are a lot of people, the camera gives a priority to the faces which are recorded in the camera for focus and exposure. For the better rate of the face recognition in the TL225, the my star function which stores up to pictures for each person from different angles has also been added.
Beauty shot, we don’t need the photoshop
The beauty shot is enthusiastically loved by female users. It takes 2 more seconds when using the beauty shot mode. For this time, the camera automatically compensates the skin, and makes more whitish and shining eyeballs. You can adjust the brightness and skin compensation with 3 levels. At the beginning of the beauty shot function in the Samsung camera, people said it’s not natural, but it’s much more natural in the TL225. You can set the beauty shot mode from the scene mode, or retouching is also possible after taking shots.
Normal Face recognition mode
Beauty shot mode
Never miss the smile, Smile shot
Setting the smile shot function, the camera recognizes the face in the frame, and when it smiles, it takes a shot automatically. However, due to the different intensity of smile for each person, it’s unpredictable. Generally, it detects the movement of the corner of the mouth, and is activated for big smile. Keeping smiling for a long time or sudden smile is the way to raise the detection rate. And I think not being aware of the mode could be the good way to take a natural shot.
Smile shot after setting the beauty shot
No worry for blinking more! Blink detection
There are people blinking when the camera takes the shot. For these people, the TL225 supports the blink detection function. Using this function, the camera takes one more shot if someone closes eyes. We don’t need to argue over selection files for group pictures. It’s a very useful function.
Automatically taking one more shot when it detects blinking
Smart touch AF
The TL225 supports 4 AF modes such as central, multi, one touch, and smart touch. The one touch is to take when touching an object for a certain time with setting the focus. I recommend this for those who have shaking pictures. The Smart touch AF keeps following the object once it gets the AF, so even after pushing the shutter, it keeps the focus.
One touch for focus and shot, One touch shot
Using the smart touch AF, the focus follows the movement of the object
Searching simpily, Smart album
Suppose we use 4GB memory. The large number of pictures can be taken with this. It doesn’t matter if you delete unnecessary files all the time. But if you don’t, it’s not easy to delete files to secure more space. Then you can use the smart album function. Selecting file, date, color, bookmark, and face, it composes picture files according to the items. You can simply find the picture you want. You can set flipping effect, background music, and interval for the slideshow function. Trash bin function is also useful when you mistakenly delete files.
It’s easy to search files by category through the smart album
Various timer modes
The TL225 supports various timer functions such as 2 sec shot, 10 sec shots, double timer 10 sec shots 2 sec after pushing shutter, 6 sec after the shutter, motion timer after the object stops moving. Selecting the timer mode, the front display is automatically activated, so using both together, you can decrease the rate of failure for self timer shots.
Pictures taken with double timer
Motion timer takes a shot after the objects stop moving
04 Powerful TL225
Main function of Camera, The power of the TL225
Even though the camera has various functions, if it has insufficient pixel and resolution, it’s not a good camera. Through the next review, let’s take a look at the main camera function of the TL225 such as resolution, quality, and user convenient function.
All of them are linked to original
Quality test of the TL225
The TL225 has 12.2M pixels 1/2.3 inch CCD sensor. It’s the brand new model of ST series supporting haptic mode. It has more upgraded pixel, CCD sensor, and zoom than the ST10. After analyzing it using the quality chart, we can see 9 lines can be distinguished for both horizontal and vertical to 2000. It has better quality than the ST10
From ISO 80 to 3200
The TL225 supports ISO80 to 3200. Up to ISO 200, it’s quite clean. Noise starts to come from ISO 400. Considering it as a compact camera, it’s quite stable. I could see the real color noise from ISO 800, and on ISO 3200, the pixels are so rough. Considering the test has done with the engineering sample model, I expect the real product will show more stable quality.
All of them are linked to original
Holding it tight, OIS and Dual IS
You don’t need to worry about tremor in the hand any more, if you use the TL225, because it supports Dual IS mode which consists of OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) and DIS (Digital Image Stabilization). The OIS can be selected from program, auto, and menu bar of each scene mode. You don’t need to intentionally change it to off. On the other hand, the Dual IS can be selected from the shot mode. You can think of this as a automatic mode preventing hand blur. When using them both, it can compensate the shake up to 5 stop, so it’s good for dark / indoor shot. Instead, it might raise the ISO, so you’d better be careful. I tested it to see how we can use it more effectively in dark indoor. We can see the difference and performance of the Dual IS. However, the dual IS raises the ISO more than OIS only. You need to consider this when taking a shot.
Natural ACB
All people have one of the hardest things when facing the backlight. The TL225 supports ACB(Auto Contrast Balance) function. Using it aggressively, you can get satisfactory pictures under backlight or big difference of contrast between objects and background. The ACB can be set from the menu bar.
Stable White balance
The TL225 supports 7 users setting such as auto, sunlight, cloud, fluorescent light H(Orange), fluorescent light L(White), light bulb, and custom. There’s some green cast on the white balance auto mode, but it’s good enough. However, to get a picture closed to the original color, the custom mode using grey card is good.
Strong Macro effect
The macro mode is the most frequently used shot mode in compact cameras. The TL225 supports not only normal macro, but also super macro which takes objects in 3~8cm. The AF can take objects in more than 80cm, so the distance looks quite far. However, the distance less 80cm can be taken with the normal macro mode.
Photo style selected by tastes
The TL225 also supports the photo style mode applying the feeling you want. There are 10 modes such as normal, soft, vivid, forest, retro, cool, calm, classic, negative, and RGB (Custom). Not only before taking, but also retouching after taking is possible. From the color adjustment mode, you can adjust contrast, vividness, and chroma from -2 to +2
It’s not late! Various picture editing function
After taking shots, you can retouch the pictures using the editing function without the photoshop program. It’s so fun to use Image rotation, size change, image compensation, effects, and face deco.
Face deco and outfocusing effect
HD quality video providing clean quality
It’s so natural to have the video recording function in the compact camera. The TL225 can take 1280x720 videos. You can choose 2 HD modes such as HQ and normal, and it also supports 640X480, 320X240. 30 fps and 15 fps can also be selected. On top of that, various effects such as exposure compensation, white balance, photometry picture style, and OIS can be applied.
HD quality normal video
Recording with the successive shot function
Recording setting the negative mode
Tool to record our life enjoyably, TL225
Like our life, we need to give up something to get one thing. When selecting a camera, once we want quality, we need to give up function or weight or vice versa. Suppose we don’t need the super image quality of SDR and considering the quality of compact cameras, the TL225 is a charming model having both function and main features of cameras. The sharp design is also enough to be a bragging item. Most of all, the fascination of the front display can be changeable to anything. However, the high temperature body when using both haptic and front display and the short battery time are not satisfactory. Besides, it sometimes missed the AF, so more accurate AF function would be needed. With the vivid wide touch screen LCD and the world’s first front display, the TL225 will become a very popular model and be loved by more people the most, I expect.
