Well done Samsung and other camera reviews

You may remember, back in August, I blogged about my Samsung camera being broke.

Every picture had a purple line funky effect on it. Not good. I posted about it here and on Flickr. Chris searched on Fixya and came up with an answer. The image sensor was broken. Which sounded pretty accurate to me.

So, since August I've been using my iPhone as a camera. And you know what, it ain't bad. It ain't brilliant, but in the daylight it's fine. I've done a summer holiday, a kids birthday and a US trip armed with only an iPhone camera. And it's done the job just fine.

Meanwhile I called Samsung who said they would fix it for me, for free. Even though it was a month or two out of warranty. They posted me a neat little cardboard net which deftly folded into a secure box to send the camera back in. They even rang me to ask me why I hadn't posted the camera back yet. Now, interestingly, Samsung assign you a customer reference number which lasts  your entire Samsung buying life. Apparently, every time you ring them, about any Samsung product, they'll call up all your details etc etc.

Now, there's a lot of this datastuffomatic around and most of it is rubbish but in my short experience (admittedly with only one product) it worked really efficiently. It's only a small thing but that's the kind of thing that would make me buy a Samsung TV over a Sony TV.

Anyway. It was January before I finally got round to sending the camera off. It was returned last week fixed. In fact, I think the picture quality may be better than  before. Super job. I've missed that little fella.

Between August and January, I tried really hard not to buy a replacement camera, which would be the usual way of fixing something, obviously. And I did pretty well. For a bit. Until I spotted this beauty on Amazon with 50% off.

Yes. Half price. You gotta buy it if it's half price right? It's still available now for just over £200. It's a truly wonderful camera and that is a wonderful price. It's not a £5K MEGA SLR, but it's still great. You should buy one.

I've have loved using an SLR again. Looking through the viewfinder as opposed to an LCD screen.

Depth of field. Remember that? Wonderful.

So, to sum up. iPhone camera - not as bad as you lot say it is. Samsung - great customer service so far. Nikon D40 - fabulous camera at a fabulous price. More product reviews coming soon.

Comments

[Neil Martin]

That's some really nice DoF and customer service.

As for that Nikon, as I read your post, I thought "Yeah, it's nice, but I wish DSLRs were cheaper" and then I read the price. 42% off! That's impressive.

Do you think Amazon would mind keeping that price for say, another few months while I go find myself a well paying design job?

[m]

best price for new d40 nowadays is around 200 quids. not bad.

[Andy C]

I miss depth of field so much. It makes lugging round a big camera worth it.

I use my iphone camera alot and it's fine although the colours are sometimes a bit bland (I just add saturation in photoshop and it seems to bring the shots to life) The main problem I have with the iphone is you have to spend ages waiting for the camera to load up (I counted 10 second once...people can't smile for 10 seconds)

[Andy C]

Can I ask a question. Does ANYONE out there know of a small compact camera that has depth of field?

[Wil]

Andy C - I use a Panasonic LX 3, it has good depth of field and a good wide aperture of 2.0

[John]

Why did it take until January for you to send it in? Was it in storage?

[Jesse]

You'll have to let us know if you encounter a lot of noise with the Nikon. It's their nickname you know, noisy Nikon. At work we switched to Canon because of it.

[GilesMDavis]

I swapped from a Canon to the D40 and I *heart* it. Not noisy. Apart from the shutter sound. The best thing about the D40 is that you can use almost any old manual lens on it - like Ben says, it's photography all over again.

[digital camera reviews]

i like the d40. i have never had a problem with it.

[Jhon Monsi]

Hello.This article was really fascinating, especially because I was browsing for thoughts on this issue last week..... i really enjoy your blog
www.screen-repair.com