Samsung SC-X300: First Impressions

So I have been eying this little camcorder for the last few weeks ever since my son and I spotted it in a self-vending machine at the Macy's at the South Bay Galleria in Redondo Beach.

Buying the camcorder at Macy's
So the Samsung X-300 was on sale for $349.99 (370.86 with tax).  I walked up to the machine, tapped a few buttons on the screen and then I was prompted to insert my credit card.  Once I did that, everything was good to go and the robotic arm whizzed around for a few seconds and deposited the camcorder in the pick up slot, the same way regular vending machines dispense a can of soda or a piece of junk food.

Unboxing the Samsung X-300
The very first thing that struck me was how incredibly small the actual camcorder is.  This thing is almost swallowed  up in my hand.  I can tell right away that I am going to really enjoy the ergonomics of this unit when having to do long recordings.

Inside the box you find:

• The camcorder
• A small lens cap with a strap
• A wrist strap for the camcorder itself
• Battery
• Composite video cable to connect it to a television set
• Earphones (the unit plays MP3's also)
• Standard USB cable
• Power adapter
• documentation and a software CD

I bought this camera to do quick and dirty videos and so this review is going to focus on that function of this unit.

Initial Setup
Assembling the camera and getting it ready to record a movie for the first time was brain dead symbol.  I didnt even open the manual until after like an hour of just messing around with the camcorder. 

Video quality
I thought that the video quality was more than good enough.  As a matter of fact, I knew it was good enough because it passed the "wow, that looks great" test from the wife, who knows nothing about Technology and cares even less. Bottom Line:  If it's good enough to records family events for her and to throw up the occasional video on the Internet, then this camera will have served it's purpose with flying colors.

Ease of use
Simple and intuitive are the words of the day.  Press the menu button and you use a small joystick to "jog around' the functions.Into the settings, set the date and time, set your other functions and you're good to go. Insert an SD Card (4 GB maximum.  It rejected my 8GB card but thankfully I had a 1 GB card lying around and I was able to use that) and press "Record".  Press Record again to stop the recording.  Couldn't be easier, really.

Viewing your creations
After recording a small 2 to 3 minute movie, I walked into my office, sat down at my mac, popped out the card and popped it into the Sandisk card reader attached to my Mac. 

1st show stopper: The file was recorded in .AVI format and Quicktime on the mac refused to play the file.  Also, I was unable to pour it into iMovie 08, as it also turned it's nose up at the .AVI file format. A few minutes of Googling and I found a plug-in for Quicktime called 3ivix that allowed me to play the MPEG-4 file in Quicktime.

I thought that the quality and sound of the movie were just fine on the computer and that's what i wanted.  A way to get video onto the computer and eventually on to YouTube with as little hassle as possible.  This little video camera will allow me to do just that.

Conclusion
The SC-X300 is a lightweight, easy to use, hassle-free fun little camcorder that makes it easy to record events and share them with friends and family without devoting a week of your life to the whole process.

Recommended.

 

Comments

[MomiPessPsype]

favorited this one, bro