Samsung seems like the company that totally would try to get into the itty bitty camera game. So when we saw the new NX Mini camera that they’re announcing tonight, it really just made a lot of sense. But this isn’t your typical NX camera. In fact, it has a brand new mount under the moniker of the NX-M. With the new mount comes a smaller 1 inch sensor at the camera’s core.
Tech Specs
– 20.5MP 1 inch sensor
– New NX-M mount
– 460k dot LCD screen
– Contrast AF
– 1/16,000 shutter speed
– 21 AF points
– ISO 12,800 tops
– 6fps shooting
– 1080p 30p HD video
– Bundle with Lightroom 5
Ergonomics
The new NX Mini comes in white, black, brown, mint green, and pink. Though the mint green and white look very nice, we’d review the hell out of the pink version. Indeed, this seems like the one that may sell the most considering the audience that they’re going after.
Samsung’s intention with the camera during the design phase was to go after the stylish consumer crowd. Originally, they were targeting it just at women but when they did further research, they found that men also wanted a small, stylish camera.
Small is the name of the game with the NX Mini. As you can see from the front of the camera, it’s very devoid of controls with the exception of the lens release button.
The top of the camera is where you’ll find certain controls like a port for a new type of flash, direct linking, on/off, and shutter release.
When you view the back of the camera, you’ll notice that it is very much like the Nikon 1 Series and the Olympus EPM cameras in that there isn’t a dedicated mode dial. You’ll find directional controls, video record button, menus, playback, and of course the LCD screen.
This screen flips up to let you take a selfie if you’d like. You know–because selfies are important.
In fact, we took a ton when we were in the office trying the camera out. Still though, this is how guys should take selfies.
Just to let you know, this is the 9mm f3.5 lens that is included as a kit lens. But there is another option for you to place in front of that 20.5MP 1 inch sensor.
Also being announced today is 9-27mm f3.5-5.6: which is uber small lens. Not shown here is the 17mm f1.8, which will be coming later.
If you choose, you can also mount NX lenses onto the camera via an adapter.
Build Quality
The camera is super slim and very sleek. With that said, we dropped our demo unit. One suggestion that I made is more grippy material on it desite the leather-like texture on the camera. I can see myself putting Gaffers Tape on the camera to avoid the effects of butterfingers.
Ease of Use
Samsung’s NX Mini will be very straight forward for consumers looking to set it in auto, shoot and forget about it all. If you’re looking to do more though, then it may get a tad hairy–or at least we thought so when working with the pre-production model that we handled today.
The camera features NFC amongst many other cool additions.
Autofocus
To be very honest with you, we spent most of the time that we shot with the camera either taking selfies or getting awkwardly close to someone’s face. It worked fine both ways and the autofocus consistently was fast. We’re going to need to test a production model before we give the final word though.
Image Quality
Since we handled a pre-production model, we couldn’t put a card in to get images from the camera.
First Impressions
The Samsung NX Mini is a camera that will do very well with the right crowd if marketed effectively to them. As it is, Samsung told us that they’re now at the #2 spot in America for mirrorless camera sales–and that means that they’ve outdone both Micro Four Thirds and Fujifilm. While that sounds a bit odd to us, we believe that Samsung is trying quite hard and getting more aggressive with their camera lineup. However, if their marketing was anywhere as good as it is for their Mobile division, they’d be wiping the floor with many other manufacturers.
And they truly have the potential to do it.