Home > Consumer Reviews > Samsung L310W Digital Camera - Black (13MP, 3.6x Optical Zoom) 2.7 inch LCD

I've been looking for this combination of features at a good price for ages: the wide angle lens and dual optical image stabilisation means this camera is great at getting images in low light, and with 13 megapixels there's masses of scope to crop images and still have a hi-res photo at the end of it. The ability to shoot video at 800x592 is a bonus - it's not quite hi-definition but it's not far off and you can zoom while shooting too which some cameras can't. The only down side is that there's no SD card in the box so you'll need to order one.

This camera is excellent value and very easy to use. The quality is well up to Samsung's usual standards, yet advances in miniaturisation have made it almost too small. The camera can take SD cards, and I found an 8 gb card for £19 which meant that in -practice I can take pictures without having to worry about running out of space. The 13.6 mp highest resoution is more than most people will need, however it is very useful if you subsequently want to zoom in on a section of a picture or if you want to make large prints of the pictures. Like most digital cameras, it isn't brilliant at taking shots in limited light, because its automatic response is to open the shutter for longer, rather than making the aperture larger. This has the effect of blurring any night pictures taken without a tripod. Even though there is an image stabilisation facility, this is not that effective. The optical zoom is good, but uses a lot of battery. Thankfully, if you keep this camera fully charged, the battery has quite a long life. The digital zoom is a little pointless as any zooming of this type loses resolution and could be done in post-production. The movie function works really well, to the extent that the quality is good enough for web upload, with a basic sound recording facility. The charger is clever because the camera can be plugged into a USB port for both charging and data upload purposes, then the same USB connector will attach the camera to the mains transformer. The device comes with a television output, which could be useful for a modern-day slide show. The camera comes without a case, but a small one can be bought reasonaably cheaply from a supermarket. This represents surprising value for money, and out-performs cameras costing twice its price.

I own bigger, more expensive cameras for doing "serious" photography, mostly landscape, but I wanted something that I could stick in a pocket to carry around all the time and didn't cost a fortune. This ticked most of the boxes, under £100, with the 28mm wide angle zoom, large screen, anti-shake and even a manual exposure setting (of sorts). Works great as a point and shoot, but if you want to get creative there's plenty of scope. Things like white balance, picture size and exposure comp. are all there with the one button (Fn). 13MP is probably over the top for a camera like this (my DSLR "only" has 12!) and the picture quality does suffer because of it, but hey, I'm still impressed. At low ISO it's very good and even higher up I've seen a lot worse. As someone already pointed out, It's one thing looking 100% on a monitor, but run a few off on any modern A4 printer and you'll be very pleased with the results. Thing is, I look at the DSLR now, with the bag and all the other stuff that goes with it and I'm tempted just to grab the wee Samsung! I know I'll still come back with some decent photos.

Bought this camera @ crimbo and i cant fault it. as to the guy complaining about smoothed out edges try getting your photos developed and stop looking @ the small screen of coarse the picture wont be as good on your camera, they look amazing once printed.

If yor thinking of buying this camera then i would recomend
great quality at a great price

I bought my Wife this camera for Christmas, and find the results from it outstanding, the best Digital camera I've found for quality and price on the market.