Gadgetory

hey what is going on guys long hear from Android authority and it's a phone and a camera combined into one but is it worth the additional bulk to have some more legitimate camera optics well let's find out this is the samsung galaxy k zoom when it comes to the design of the galaxy k zoom for the most part it looks like many other Samsung devices it's made entirely of plastic with a fake metal trim around the perimeter and Samsung savings your home button with capacitive keys below the display the majority of the buttons and ports are in their usual places with the 3.5 milimeter headset jack up top microUSB on the bottom and the power button on the right side there is also a dedicated camera shutter key and the volume rocker that's usually on the left side has been moved to the right side above the power button the left side however does house a micro SD card slot which you'll most likely need as degauss K zoom only has 8 gigs of internal storage with only 5 available to the user the back of the Galaxy K zoom is where it starts to get interesting if you didn't know any better you would mistake it for a normal port and shoot camera because that's pretty much what it looks like but besides the camera optics which we'll talk about more in a sec the back of the Galaxy K zoom has the same perforated design that we first saw on the galaxy s5 and it's not the prettiest thing in the world but it's a lot better than anything else Samsung has used in the past and it's very practical providing a lot of grip while detracting finger prints the back is also removable giving you access to the battery and your SIM card slot also in the back located above the camera is the single speaker and it's just another typical average run-of-the-mill single speaker it's nothing that's going to blow you away but it gets the job done just fine and being on the back means that audio will be firing away from you but since it's on top of the phone you don't have to worry about accidentally covering it with your hand when holding in portrait on the front of the galaxy k zoom is a 4.8 inch Super AMOLED display with 720p resolution and in today's smartphone standard 720p is considered mid-range but since it's on a 4.8 inch screen it's got a pretty respectable PPI and overall it looks as good as any other AMOLED panel that Samsung has put out as of late with very punchy colors great viewing angles and it gets plenty bright so outdoor visibility isn't an issue for a somewhat mid-range phone the Galaxy K zoom comes packed with some decent specs with an Exynos hexa core processor inside that consists of a dual-core 1.7 gigahertz cortex a15 and a quad-core 1.3 gigahertz cortex a7 2 gigs of ram and a Mallee t6 24 GPU through day to day usage performance has been just fine I haven't had any issues with responsiveness or lag whether it was navigating through the UI swiping scrolling opening and closing apps or playing graphically intensive games at all seemed just fine and I was able to play pretty much any game I wanted without any noticeable lag or dropped frames so the overall experience has actually been very pleasant now obviously the focus and the main selling point of the galaxy k zoom is the camera it's a twenty point seven megapixel sensor but unlike many smartphone cameras the Galaxy K zoom features 10 times optical zoom optical image stabilization and a xenon flash since the galaxy k zoom features much more advanced camera optics over your average smartphone I was expecting the camera UI to be very different from other Samsung smartphones but that actually wasn't the case for the most part it's exactly the same camera interface that we've seen on other Samsung phones like the galaxy s5 so you've got all the same options and shooting modes from the s5 but there are a few modes made specifically for the zoom like the pro suggests feature that lets you shoot with a variety of different filters and you can even download more from Samsung's own pro suggests market there's even a selfie alarm mode that will automatically take a photo of you just by looking at the camera because after all who wouldn't like taking selfies with a 20 megapixel sensor as far as the image quality goes I think the Galaxy K zoom is capable of taking some great looking photos with 20 megapixels there's no shortage of detail to go around images look very sharp with great colors and the camera does a great job with white balance and exposure photos tend to be on the colder side but turning on HDR can help you achieve a much warmer looking shot the biggest advantage of the camera on the Galaxy K zoom is the 10 times optical zoom meaning you can actually zoom in on subjects without losing detail unlike most smartphone cameras which use a digital zoom that usually results in some pretty bad looking photos the optical zoom is really nice but it's got a variable aperture range of 3.1 to 6.3 so photos will tend to appear darker when fully zoomed in well I think the picture quality on the Zoom is great I don't necessarily think it's leaps and bounds beyond other smartphone cameras especially with how much smartphone optics have improved over the last several years but if you absolutely have to have optical zoom on your smartphone the galaxy a zoom is probably going to be your best bet all right so we've talked a lot about the image quality on the galaxy k zoom now here's just a quick video clip so you guys can get an idea of the video quality that you're going to get on the galaxy k zoom and what the audio is going to sound like and there is a is so you do have optical image stabilization and just as I'm walking here and looking through the viewfinder it seems to be doing a pretty decent job it doesn't look too shaky but the interesting thing about this 20 point seven megapixel sensor is that there's no 4k recording it actually tops out at 1080p at 60 frames per second which is an ideal breaker necessarily but I just thought it was interesting interesting enough to mention but let me go ahead and just kind of pan up to the sky here and then we'll go ahead and pan back down just so you can guys can see how quickly the camera just in terms of exposure and then I'll go ahead and do a little zoom here just so you guys can see how far this lens actually zooms and you can see it actually zooms in really far the 10 times optical zoom works really really well but yeah this is just a quick video clip on the Galaxy K zoom so you guys can get an idea of the quality of the video and the quality of the sound but let's go ahead and jump right back into the review the size of the battery on the Galaxy K zoom is nothing impressive coming in just shy of 2500 milliamp hours which is rather small in today's standards and the actual battery life is even less impressive I've yet to be able to make it through a full day with this phone and that's just using the Galaxy K zoom as a phone if you plan on snapping photos all day you'll definitely have to recharge midway throughout the day or at least bring a spare battery with you and for a phone that's meant to be used a lot as a camera it's kind of disappointing that the battery life can't keep up on the software side the Galaxy K zoom is running on the latest version of Android with 4.4.2 kitkat and the most recent version of Samsung's TouchWiz interface on top it's the same version of TouchWiz that we first saw on the galaxy s5 and most of the features like toolbox smart stay smart pause and my magazine have made its way over to the Galaxy K zoom but there are some notable omissions like multi window air gestures s-health and the fingerprint scanner that didn't make the cut but I don't think many people will mind that some of these features were left out and overall it's practically the same experience as any other recent Samsung device there's no plans for the Galaxy K zoom to come to the United States so if you want to pick one up you'll have to go through third-party retailers like eBay or Amazon and I've seen the price range between 500 to $550 it does support 3G and LTE but if you're on t-mobile or AT&T in the United States you'll be limited to 3G only as the Galaxy K zoom does not support t-mobile or AT&T LTE bands but there you have it for the samsung galaxy k zoom it's a phone and a camera combined into one but there's not really a whole lot about it that makes it stand out as a phone it's basically a mid range device and as a camera it's got an edge over other smartphones because of its optical zoom and it takes pretty nice photos but nothing that can't be achieved on other high-end flagship smartphones whether it's worth it or not will depend on how much you have to have optical zoom but for the most part it's just an average phone with a slightly above-average camera but that is it for this review hopefully you guys enjoyed it and if you did please give it a thumbs up down below and also subscribe to the channel which is also down below and once you're done doing all that make sure to check out the website at Android Authority comm once again thank you so much for watching and keep it locked on Android authorial your source for all things Android