Samsung i85 Camera/Media Player

Dec. 15, 2007 — -- An analyst we know at Jupiter Research cited a survey in which people were asked how many electronic gadgets they were willing to carry at one time. The answer: perhaps two.

That's why you've seen all sorts of combinations. The camera phone. The cell phone/mp3 player. The PDA/web browser. And, in case you've been totally offline for a year, the iPhone, which is three or four devices in one.

Into this fray steps Samsung, with the i85, which it bills primarily as a compact digital camera. Except that most digital cameras don't come with ear buds.

As a camera, its specs are pretty good: 8.3 megapixels, a 5x zoom, a 3-inch LCD touch screen, Advanced Shake Reduction, Face Detection. The body is metal. It comes in black, silver, gold or red. It's smaller than most people's wallets, and for a street price of $260-275, it won't totally empty yours.

The pictures are up there with other snapshot cameras in this price range. And there are a number of menu options to allow you to tweak colors, add audio notes, even a picture frame or the "bubble" for words if you want to turn your picture into a cartoon.

But then, deep within its menus, you'll find how to play a music file or video -- or even, if you're on vacation in a place you didn't bother to check out, how to activate a World Tour Guide feature that provides pictures and information on famous attractions in 30 countries. Here you may get a little bit lost. Nice to have these things, and once you master them they work well -- but, wait, you just missed a great shot because you didn't have your camera in camera mode.

Another analyst we know likened combo devices to the Swiss Army knife. Sure, the knife has a corkscrew, a screwdriver, a nail file and several blades. But would it really be your tool of choice if you needed to cut down a tree?