The camera application can be launched via the main menu, or given a shortcut from the standby screen. The camera on the i600 is a 1.3mpx CMOS camera, which can shoot still images up to 1280 x 960 pixels and video up to 320 x 240 pixels. The application is fast to start up, and displays the viewfinder full screen with icons littered around the top and bottom of the screen, indicating active settings. The icons disappear after a small idle time.

Although the i600’s camera isn’t exactly top of the line, it does include the advanced features some manufacturers have started leaving out of their lower end camera phones. In still image mode, the i600 has three capture modes: single shot, mosaic, and multishot. Multishot shoots 6 images in quick succession (the speed can be changed to normal, low, or high speed), and the mosaic mode creates a 2 x 2 board of images.

Resolutions available for still images are: 1280 x 960 (1.3mpx), 640 x 480 (VGA), 320 x 240, and 176 x 144 pixels. Super fine, fine, normal, or economy can be selected for JPEG compression quality. The white balance can be changed to automatic, daylight, cloudy, tungsten, or fluorescent. A self timer of 2, 5, or 10 seconds can be activated – the handset even has a small chrome window next to the camera lens to aid in self portraits. A black and white, sepia, or negative effect can be added to images pre-capture. There are also 10 different fun frames to select from.

Moving onto video mode – there are two resolutions: 320 x 240, or 176 x 144 pixels. The recording mode can be changed to ‘Limit for MMS’, where the 320 x 240 pixel resolution is removed, or ‘Normal’ – which limits to 60 minutes (memory depending). Quality can be changed to fine, normal, or economy. The same white balance settings for images are available in video, as is the effect options. Audio can be enabled or disabled at any time pre-capture.

While recording video, the recording can be paused and then resumed later – but the camera application itself cannot be closed. Video is recorded in 3GPP format, which is the standard for mobile phone video.

The quality of the video and images on the i600’s 320 x 240 pixel display is quite good, and when compressed down to MMS message resolution they look a little better. When viewed on a larger display like a computer monitor there is a noticeable difference – but this is to be expected. At the end of the day, the quality of the images and video what you’d expect from a 1.3mpx digital camera.

I’ve included quite a few example images and video clips so you can make your own decisions regarding the quality!

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Samsung i600 BlackJack

Table of contents:

Overview (Page 1)
Camera & Video performance (Page 2)
Major features (Page 3)
Problems/Issues (Page 4)
In Summary/Checklist (Page 5)