Samsung SC-X210L Camcorder Review

The Front (5.0)
The Samsung SC-X210L is specifically marketed as a “Sports Camcorder” and the unique design of this model reveals that Samsung has gone to great lengths to appeal to a market that values ease of use, durability, and action-oriented shooting with the external camera. As the tour will show, some aspects of the camcorder’s design are thoughtful while others leave much to be desired, while overall there have been some improvements over the first generation of this Sports Camcorder, last year’s SC-X105.

Beginning in the front, at the top of the camcorder sits the very small lens, with roughly a 22mm filter diameter. The true size is not given in the specs, but there is no thread and it could not take a filter. Unlike the rest of the camera, the lens is shiny and metallic and protrudes slightly forward from the body, making it potentially vulnerable to impacts. The camcorder has a 10x optical zoom, focal length of 2.4mm – 24mm, a maximum aperture of 1.8 in wide angle, and a minimum illumination of 3 lux.

Protecting the lens (the most delicate exposed part of the camera) with rubber, like the external lens, could have helped to address this vulnerability. Directly below the lens is a tiny flash bulb. Below the flash is a slim vertical door housing the USB port and the SD/MMC card memory slot. Unfortunately, this door is made of flimsy plastic and is prone to flipping open with the slightest pressure, and the hinge is weak. For a camcorder supposedly designed for some rough treatment, this is a big liability. If the door accidentally popped open during shooting, it could easily break off exposing the USB port and card slot to dirt, sidewalk scum, blood etc. While some medical tape could remedy the door’s weakness, Samsung should have made the door and hinge more robust.

The Right Side (5.0)
The right side of the SC-X210L holds the battery, and the design shows some improvement over last year’s SC-X105L (Review, Specs, $349). While the battery protruded out slightly from the camera body in the first-generation of this camera, this year it sits flush with the body (in fact it’s so closely integrated it’s easy to overlook) and is covered with the same black rubber as most of the camera. This placement both gives the camera cleaner profile, and should improve durability. The one major drawback to the battery design is the battery release button, which is tiny and requires a lot of pressure with a thumbnail to release. Needless to say, releasing the battery under adverse conditions would be tough. However in another thoughtful bit of design, once released, the battery pops up enough to enable easy removal, but is still held securely in the battery bay. This feature makes it unlikely that the battery would fall off of the camera while swapping batteries on a chairlift or dangling from a hanging belay.

The Back (8.0)
As with the SC-X105L, the back of the SC-X210L features most of the camcorder’s interface, and has been significantly reengineered. Many of the changes are good – but not all. Starting from the top is the tiny zoom toggle which sits inside a disc-style button. Pressing the left side of the button engages Play while the right side of the button is for Record. Using the disc button requires fine finger control, and the fact that it surrounds the zoom toggle is questionable; it puts all the major image capture controls within about 5mm of one another! While this certainly saves space, keeping the record and zoom controls separate as in the SC-X105L seems a better bet for the active target market. The zoom toggle is also tiny, and zoom control allows for gross adjustments, but not fine ones. Using any of these important buttons would be impossible with a gloved hand. Snowboarders interested in this camera should be forewarned.

Below the disc button and zoom toggle is a menu navigation joystick, new this year, and a big improvement over last year’s model as it enables quick access to menu features, and works intuitively – pressing left moves left, up moves up, etc. Pressing down on the joystick selects the highlighted menu option. A small Menu button, used to call up the menu is below the joystick, and below that is a Mode button which switches quickly between the SC-X110L’s various modes (video, still camera, mp3 player, etc.) Below the Mode button is the DC-in, recessed into the camera body and covered with a plastic hatch. On our test model, the DC-in hatch fit poorly and was prone to popping open. While that may not sound like a big deal, poorly engineered details like this (and the previously mentioned USB/flash memory hatch) do not inspire confidence in a product. Finally, below the DC-in port is the proprietary AV jack.

The external camera plug uses both the AV and 1/8 jack (the latter likely used for ghost power). This means, however, that you cannot use the jack for headphones., Unlike all the camcorder’s other ports, the AV multimedia jack is not protected by a hatch, leaving it prone to the usual dust, snow and grit that one encounters during extreme shooting. Finally, at the base of the camera’s back is a strap hook where a lanyard can be attached. While very small, the strap hook seems to be sturdy enough for a camcorder of this size.

The Left Side (6.5)
The left side of the SC-X210L features the 2 inch LCD screen, which rotates though 270 degrees and has a 230,000 pixel resolution – truly impressive for a camera in this price range, but a feature that is a bit lost when considering the poor-quality video that the camcorder produces. Below the screen are two buttons, Display and Delete. The Display button turns the on-screen text on or off, and the LCD itself on or off, presumably to lengthen battery life, though without the LCD you’d be shooting blind. We’d hate to see you miss a distant shot of sick move on the other side of the skate park. The delete button is used to call up the delete function while in File Browse mode. When open, the LCD bay reveals the built-in speaker, the “MP3/External Camera Module HOLD switch” which and most importantly the POWER button.

Interestingly, Samsung has placed the built-in microphone on the outside or back of the LCD screen. During active use, it is likely that users would take advantage of the 270 degree rotational ability of the screen, and that would probably in turn affect the microphone’s performance. For example, if shooting an ollie from low-angle a couple of inches from the street, with the LCD screen positioned up for easy viewing, the mic would be pointed directly at the ground. If sound quality is important to you, take note of the on-camera mic placement on a component that will not always be facing the action. On the plus side, as with the battery, the LCD screen folds flush with the camera body, and is rubberized for a sleek and low-profile look.

The Top (5.5)
The top of the SC-X110L has nothing but a Record/Power/Charging Indicator. When charging, the light glows yellow; when the camcorder is on, the light turns blue, and when recording, the light turns red like most camcorder tally lights. When the unit is off, the light turns off. There is no accessory shoe, nor could Samsung have fit one if they tried.

External Lens (no score)
The external lens will be a main selling point of the SC-X110L for many users, if responses to our review of last year’s SC-X105L had anything to say. The barrel, covered in the same rubber as the main body, measures a little over 3.5” long and is 1 1/2” wide. The business end of the barrel features a lens protected behind clear plastic and surrounded by black rubber. New this year, the external lens is phantom powered from the main body. To turn it on, you push a button located about 2/3 of the way down the connector cable. The in-line button doubles as both the external lens power on/off button, and as the Record on/off button, and is placed on an oblong housing. Also on the oblong housing is an indicator light that glows blue when the external lens is on; red when in Record mode. On the reverse side of the oblong housing is a sturdy plastic clip large enough to affix to bulky fabric (i.e. a snowboard parka) or a climbing harness.

The bottom of the external lens (top), the power button on the cable, and the back of the power button 

The ability to run this camera independent of the camcorder body is one of SC-X210L’s cooler features. Yet another cool part of the external lens design is the fact that you can rotate the lens relative to the lens body through 180 degrees. This means that if you strap the camera to the side of your helmet, you can still get a normal vertically-oriented picture by rotating the lens about 90 degrees from the body. This feature did not exist on last year's model. But missing this year is the extension cord for the external lens that shipped with the X105.  A screw hole on the underside of the external lens attaches the unit to the adjustable strap - included with the SC-X210L. The screw hole also fits many standard tripod heads, but the tripod screws we tried were too long for a getting a tight fit.  While this annoyed us during testing, the fact that the external lens can’t be attached to a tripod without modification should not be a drawback to most users. Given a choice, why would you want to attach this little lens to a tripod when the main camcorder produces a much better picture, and attaches easily to a tripod? Finally, on top of the lens near the front as a tiny built-in pinhole microphone.