Samsung SC-X210L Camcorder Review

Ease of Use (9.25)
The Samsung SC-X210L is a preeminently easy camcorder to use, which should come as a relief to the skaters, snowboarders, surfers, and astronauts for whom it is designed. Switching between video, still, voice recorder, and MP3 player modes is all done with the “Mode” button. Navigating through the menus is equally simple: you push the button labeled “Menu” to find the menus. The joystick is small, but makes trolling through the menus fast and intuitive. Even beginners should be able to pick up this camcorder and be recording within seconds.

Handling (8.25)
Handling is often a problem with ultra compact camcorders, as the manufacturers are forced to get overly creative with finding places to stick all the features. This tradeoff is inevitable when you swap size for features – and it’s one that buyers of ultra compacts should expect. The SC-X110L is a stripped down product, with only a few features in each mode; the handling is correspondingly simple, if not always intuitive.

The main navigation tool on the SC-X110L is the joystick, aided by the Menu and Mode buttons. Pushing down on the Mode button brings up the mode menu. Once in a menu, pressing up and down on the joystick jogs vertically through menu lists, pressing left and right jogs horizontally, and pressing in on the joystick selects menu items. The Record button and “Up” on the Zoom Toggle also select menu items, a function duplication that is confusing and seems unnecessary. Overall, the menus are easy to navigate, but require some practice to use efficiently.

When it comes to shooting with the SC-X210L, another tradeoff appears: people with hands larger than a four-year-olds will have trouble. Operating the interface with my medium-sized male hand is difficult. The zoom and record buttons required me to contort my hand into a position that quickly became uncomfortable. Yet operating an iPod, a cell phone, a PDA, or any other device with proportions similar to the SC-X210L’s is never easy. People who are concerned about shooting comfort might take the time to build some kind of modified grip for this camcorder.

The external lens has even bigger handling quirks. It’s small, it seems to be durable (and is probably more so than the main camcorder) and you can do things with it that few other consumer products on the market allow. Yet, in another trade-off, there is no picture control over video produced by the external lens. Its fixed aperture and lack of manual controls on the barrel mean that what you see is what you get. In fact, the few video options that are available when using the main camcorder are simply disabled when the external lens is active. Video from the external lens is also fish-eyed due to the fixed focal length.

Additionally, the external lens is intended for use as a strap-on camera, and controlling the horizontal alignment (“ Which way is up,” in layman’s terms) can be difficult. Than again, when the goal is capturing POV footage during an SBX competition, a base jump, or just a leisurely speed climb, “up” might not be the most important factor. If it is important to you, the bundled video editing program (Ulead VideoStudio 9SE) enables rotation of the video image during post. Also, the lens can now be rotated 180 degrees, independent of the rest of the body. Last year’s external lens required turning the entire body to adjust horizontal alignment.

Portability (9.75)
The SC-X210L is a highly portable camcorder: about the size of a first-generation iPod. The main camcorder easily slips into a pocket or purse, and users will no doubt make use of this. While no electronic device does well when mingled with keys and gum in the grinding mill of a Levis pocket, the rubber exterior and rounded shape of this camcorder should make it more durable than other compacts. SC-X210L also includes several carrying accessories: a strap that can be attached to the bottom rear of the main camcorder and a sturdy carrying pouch with a belt loop that snugly holds the camcorder, external lens, and accessories. The carabiner included in last year’s SC-X105 has been dropped.

The external lens is also extremely portable, though it cannot be disconnected from its cable. This makes it slightly less portable than the main camcorder body, since fitting it into a pocket requires coiling the unruly cable. The rubber coating of the external camera only is rated as weatherproof: “…protected against water sprayed from a vertical position above the center of Sports Camcorder top (power LED facing up) at 15 degree angles.” There are numerous ways to wear this lens using the included mount and strap, and MacGyver-types will have fun creating their own mounting systems.

LCD/Viewfinder (5.25)
As an ultra-compact, the SC-X210L has no viewfinder, so you'll have to rely on the small LCD screen to frame your shots. On the plus side, while the LCD screen on the SC-X210L is a mere 2", Samsung packs a whopping 230K pixels into that space: 123K would be a more typical pixel count in this price range. You'll be hard-pressed to see a difference, given the small size of the screen, but this is one of the few instances of over-engineering you'll find on the SC-X210L. Despite the high pixel count, the screen solarizes when tilted – and it’s likely that people who truly use this as a sports camcorder will tilt the LCD more often than during conventional shooting. 

There are some marginally useful LCD adjustments: brightness and color. Brightness is the more useful of the two and is represented as a seemingly arbitrary percentage value. The system default is 30%, which presents a balanced image in moderate light. At 0%, the LCD is dim but legible, and above 80% it is flat, blown out, and nearly white. As with all LCDs, it's not easy to see the video image in bright sunlight, but the brightness adjustment provides some compensation, albeit at a cost to contrast.

Battery Life (8.1)
The SC-X210L ships with the SB-P120A battery, a custom battery especially for the sports cam series that has the same weather resistant rubber coating as the rest of the camera. It is tall and slender, and fits neatly into the right side of the body. The manual lists the battery as having a continuous recording time of 1 hour and 20 minutes with the backlight on and a charging time of close to two hours. Samsung also offers a longer life version of the battery, the SB-P190A, with a reported 2 hours and thirty minutes of recording time.

Never one to take a manual at face value, we tested the battery ourselves for continuous shooting. We left the LCD open and the backlight and image stabilization on. When the memory was full, we plugged in the DC power, erased the last clip, then continued. In total, the battery lasted 81 minutes and 21 seconds (1 hour, 21 minutes, and 11 seconds.)