Samsung NV7 OPS review

The 2 seconds it takes between consecutive single images puts it slightly behind the competition, though the 2.3 seconds it takes with flash enabled puts it ahead. Unfortunately, its continuous shooting is fixed at about 8 frames and 0.8fps, regardless of image size.

Shooting speed (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Typical shot-to-shot time

Time to first shot

Shutter lag (dim)

Shutter lag (typical)

Canon PowerShot A710 IS

1.8

1.6

1.2

0.4

Casio Exilim EX-V7

1.6

1.5

1.2

0.5

Samsung NV7 OPS

2

3.1

1

0.5

Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3

1.3

2.3

1.3

0.6

 
Image quality
On one hand, the NV7 maxes out at ISO 1,000, which is pretty low from a spec comparison standpoint. However, the NV7's photos have so much noise -- unless scaled down, anything above ISO 200 looks more Impressionist than Realist -- the availability of any higher settings becomes a moot issue.

In addition, the NV7 has some of the poorest white balance we've seen in a while. When set manually, photos render fine, but the automatic setting yields extremely pink results under incandescent, fluorescent and outdoor light, and the tungsten preset still succumbs to a yellow cast under tungsten lights.

You can record 30fps (frames per second) VGA-resolution movies with the NV7, which it encodes as AVI files using the Xvid codec (provided on CD). The codec is pretty efficient -- 49 seconds of video took 15.64MB, or 327KBps -- but the video doesn't look particularly good. And though the zoom works during movie capture, the camera intentionally -- and irritatingly -- drops audio while you're zooming.

Conclusion
The Samsung NV7 OPS shows a promising interface, but is held back by sluggish performance and so-so photos. Though it's hard to find the combination of manual features and longish zoom range in its price range, you should probably check out some alternatives such as the Pansonic Lumix DMC-TZ3.

Additional editing by Nick Hide