If ever there's a market that feels as though it's close to saturation, it has to be the one for compact digital cameras. As most of them have roughly the length and width of a credit card, the only latitude is in the degree of slimness.

Similarly, they all have video as well as stills capability and the differences are measured in size and resolution of image. Finally, they all aim to be eye-catching and to provide a solid framework, depending on the build budget and the audience they're aimed at.

With all this in mind, how does the Samsung ST50 attempt to stand out from the crowd? Well, starting with style, it comes in funky black, red and silver colours and is encased in chic brushed aluminium, so it's less likely to suffer damage when you drop it. As it's being trumpeted as ultra-slim, you won't be surprised to learn that it's just 16.6mm in depth and weighs around 121g, thus being ideal to slip into a top pocket or handbag.

Be aware, however, that the 6.3-18.9mm lens (35-105mm 35mm equivalent) extends as soon as you switch on so you'll have to remember to switch off before you pocket it. In addition to the standard four-way circular controller and assigned buttons for Menu, Playback and Delete, there's a slide control on the back for switching between still and video capture modes.

What you may not be familiar with is the Smart button on the top which sits alongside the power button, both of which are backlit in cool blue when activated.

Unlike virtually all of its rivals, the ST50 offers you an Auto mode (i.e. Smart, which in this case is supposed to instantly recognise 11 possible lighting conditions from Backlight Portrait to Macro and Action) but no option to choose your own scene modes. That's fine if you just want to point and click, although the Smart technology frequently gets confused about which is the optimal setting.

That's not to say that you don't have manual control over several other functions. If you switch Smart off then you can alter sharpness, contrast and saturation on a sliding scale, as well as vary portrait images to smooth embarrassing lines (Beauty Shot) and detect smiles and blinks.

Aperture and shutter speed can't be tinkered with but you do have some say with exposure, flash, white balance and continuous shooting. Once captured, your photos can be re-ordered in the camera using Smart Album which organises them by time, content and colour.

The video mode doesn't offer HD but it does shoot in MPEG-4 format at SVGA quality (800 x 592, 20fps) which is higher spec than many similar cameras, and you can make use of the zoom while you're shooting, which several others can't manage. Nevertheless, you only have a 3x optical zoom and there's no optical image stabiliser, just Samsung's Digital Image Stabilisation to help reduce blur.

The 2.7-inch LCD provides effective (but not exceptional) colour tones and clarity and there's a fun Frame Guide facility that lets you set up clever shots like holding up the leaning tower of Pisa or tapping the Eiffel Tower, etc. On the other hand, we would have expected the 12.2-megapixel resolution to have produced pin-sharp images and vividly authentic colours, yet the results on the whole are rather bland.

Verdict
Attractive, slim and sturdily constructed on the outside, the ST50 is nevertheless something of a mixed blessing, with above average video capability and some clever image effects, yet the finished images lack quality and the Auto Smart mode is not as bright as it thinks it is.

Company: Samsung

Contact: 0845 726 7864

Tags: image stabilization samsung group eiffel tower mpeg-4 liquid crystal display digital camera leaning tower of pisa zoom lens