Samsung Announces HD Video-Recording Digital Cameras

My wife has the uncanny ability to be able to take self-portaits effortlessly, but for the rest of us, Samsung has you covered with their new TL220 and TL225 cameras. They have two LCD screens–front and rear. The front screen can either be used for taking self-portraits, getting a child’s attention, or showing how much time will elapse before the self-timer will snap the picture. These are also the first cameras we’ve heard of with both optical and electronic image stabilization.

These two cameras, along with the CL65 (which trades the front LCD screen for the ability to connect to Wi-Fi networks and automatically geo-tag photos) can record 720P video at 30 frames/sec.

In the same vein as these announcements from Samsung, keep your eyes peeled for our next camcorder buyer’s guide. This buyer’s guide will be the first of ours to include devices most of use would ordinarily think of as still cameras; as long as the device in question fits into our quantitative definition of “camcorder” (e.g. ability to record 20 minutes of video of at least 640×480 resolution at 29.97 frames per second; a tripod screw receptacle, a lens with an optical zoom), it’s fair game to be listed in the buyer’s guide. So this takes us to an interesting crossroads. What will become a camcorder in the future? We don’t see cell phones ever being listed; but then again, there are specialized cell phone tripods in the wild, using either a clamp or some kind of sticky pad to keep the phone in place. So one could make a case for listing anything that can capture video into the buyer’s guide. But it just goes to show: it’s easier (and cheaper) than ever to get into video.