Does anyone have the zoom if so how do you like it? Does it feel comfortable in the hands? and how is the camera?
Does any one have the zoom?
- Thread starter nickgalaxys4
- Start date
I wish I had ! I'm starting on a 6-weeks vacation coming august 21 and don't klnow what to do if by then the zoom isn't in the shops here (Holland) yet. I have been waiting for such a phone/camera for years. Don't know if the guarantees will work here if I get it from England. Samsung.NL told me they just can't tell me when it comes here. :-[
Oh, now I see it is available from several Dutch websites already.
Oh, now I see it is available from several Dutch websites already.
Last edited:
I got mine today (ordered by internet). But it is also my first smartphone, so I am pretty much overwhelmed with all that functionality of which I still have to find out how to operate it. The so much mentioned "bulkiness" doesn't bother me at all. But then that may be personal. And to judge the camera I first have to find out how to transfer photos and videos to my computer to see them on a larger screen. I'll report here on my experiences as they come about. In the mean time, if anybody has specific questions, you can always try ...
I guess most of my comments about the S4 Zoom have to do with my being new to Android and to any smartphone, so they will not be so interesting for most members of this forum:
Problems:
-often I have to touch a spot on the screen (link, icon, ..) several times until it works. Sometimes I can't get it working at all.
-I have many video files on my own home cloudserver, .avi format (recorded TV programs). But I haven't managed to play them on my phone. Tried to install Android versions of VLC media player, Gom player, and BSPlayer, all from Google play, all didn't work.
-I had hoped I could just connect the Phone with a USB cable to my (Windows 8) PC to acces the phone's files from my PC (transfer photos, videos, ..) but that didn't work either, don't know why. Do I really have to install an extra app for that ? Or can I maybe access the SD card directly from the PC, with a USB reader ? I'll have to try, I guess.
-I find such a nuiscance that several online services (facebook, gmail, ..) show up in a sort of truncated version on my phone, even if I access them via an internet browser, not via a dedicated app.
-often the only way I can stop an app is via "Act. apps". But if I do it that way I get a threatening warning: "If you force an app to stop, it can cause errors". Should I take that seriously ? Isn't there a decent general always working way to stop an app, like the little cross in the top right corner of a Windows window ?
-I had been looking forward to enter tekst by speaking. But that was a big dissappointment. It misunderstands me all the time (with the correct language), so it took me more time correcting than if I type it in all the way.
- I had hoped to use the translation function for Turkish and Indonesian (coming vacations) but those languages it doesn't appear to know.
I have no experience using the phone as a phone yet, waiting for my new provider's number, keeping my old number.
The camera:
I am very happy with it, no problems yet (exept the above mentioned problem of touching an icon. For instance to switch between photo- and video mode: I had to touch the video icon many times untill it worked, very annoying !). So many features, I haven't tried them all out yet.
In general I'm happy with the quality of photos and videos.
But here again my background is not very experienced: only point and shoot cameras and one simple video camera.
One special thing I tried was the panorama function, really great ! On my previous cameras I had to carefully choose the different shots and then run a computerprogram to stitch them together - here the shooting and stitching is all done automatically by the Phone, fantastic !
what I find still a bit difficult is to handle it while shooting. The cameras I used to have were easier in that respect (video camera with pistol grip). Needs getting used to I suppose.
Problems:
-often I have to touch a spot on the screen (link, icon, ..) several times until it works. Sometimes I can't get it working at all.
-I have many video files on my own home cloudserver, .avi format (recorded TV programs). But I haven't managed to play them on my phone. Tried to install Android versions of VLC media player, Gom player, and BSPlayer, all from Google play, all didn't work.
-I had hoped I could just connect the Phone with a USB cable to my (Windows 8) PC to acces the phone's files from my PC (transfer photos, videos, ..) but that didn't work either, don't know why. Do I really have to install an extra app for that ? Or can I maybe access the SD card directly from the PC, with a USB reader ? I'll have to try, I guess.
-I find such a nuiscance that several online services (facebook, gmail, ..) show up in a sort of truncated version on my phone, even if I access them via an internet browser, not via a dedicated app.
-often the only way I can stop an app is via "Act. apps". But if I do it that way I get a threatening warning: "If you force an app to stop, it can cause errors". Should I take that seriously ? Isn't there a decent general always working way to stop an app, like the little cross in the top right corner of a Windows window ?
-I had been looking forward to enter tekst by speaking. But that was a big dissappointment. It misunderstands me all the time (with the correct language), so it took me more time correcting than if I type it in all the way.
- I had hoped to use the translation function for Turkish and Indonesian (coming vacations) but those languages it doesn't appear to know.
I have no experience using the phone as a phone yet, waiting for my new provider's number, keeping my old number.
The camera:
I am very happy with it, no problems yet (exept the above mentioned problem of touching an icon. For instance to switch between photo- and video mode: I had to touch the video icon many times untill it worked, very annoying !). So many features, I haven't tried them all out yet.
In general I'm happy with the quality of photos and videos.
But here again my background is not very experienced: only point and shoot cameras and one simple video camera.
One special thing I tried was the panorama function, really great ! On my previous cameras I had to carefully choose the different shots and then run a computerprogram to stitch them together - here the shooting and stitching is all done automatically by the Phone, fantastic !
what I find still a bit difficult is to handle it while shooting. The cameras I used to have were easier in that respect (video camera with pistol grip). Needs getting used to I suppose.
Fortunately I solved some problems:
-Transferring of files between my PC and the phone is most easily done by putting the SDHC card in a USB-card reader. With Windows media player worked for me only one way: phone->PC. But with the cardreader it works much more convenient, creating and moving folders and files around on the phone. I don't understand why the userguide only mentions the more difficult ways.
-I am improving on touching icons etc., although it is still sometimes difficult.
-Stopping apps: by hitting the "return" button as often as necessary. Doesn't always work. Is this the only way ???
-For typing in long texts I bought a Bluetooth-keyboard, nice and small to take along when traveling but big enough for convenient typing. From RAPOO. ?40.-
-I spent a very long time figuring out how to process videos, made with the phone. I was used to do that with Virtualdub which I like very much. But it only takes avi files. And with a plugin I got unsatisfactory results. So I tried several other programs, most of which were crap, until I came across Smart cutter: Frame Accurate H.264 AVCHD Editor Without Re-Encoding. Really excellent. Even much faster than virtualdub because it doesn't recode, only cut and paste. Costs $50 but that is more than worth it for me.
I am very happy with the performance of the video camera, main reason why I bought this phone.
-Transferring of files between my PC and the phone is most easily done by putting the SDHC card in a USB-card reader. With Windows media player worked for me only one way: phone->PC. But with the cardreader it works much more convenient, creating and moving folders and files around on the phone. I don't understand why the userguide only mentions the more difficult ways.
-I am improving on touching icons etc., although it is still sometimes difficult.
-Stopping apps: by hitting the "return" button as often as necessary. Doesn't always work. Is this the only way ???
-For typing in long texts I bought a Bluetooth-keyboard, nice and small to take along when traveling but big enough for convenient typing. From RAPOO. ?40.-
-I spent a very long time figuring out how to process videos, made with the phone. I was used to do that with Virtualdub which I like very much. But it only takes avi files. And with a plugin I got unsatisfactory results. So I tried several other programs, most of which were crap, until I came across Smart cutter: Frame Accurate H.264 AVCHD Editor Without Re-Encoding. Really excellent. Even much faster than virtualdub because it doesn't recode, only cut and paste. Costs $50 but that is more than worth it for me.
I am very happy with the performance of the video camera, main reason why I bought this phone.
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