Testing Out Samsung's 5 Megapixel SCH-S250

Samsung SCH-S250Thanks to Wireless Imports, I had the chance to play around with one of the big hitters in the cameraphone market, Samsung's 5 megapixel SCH-S250. The S250 is a CDMA handset that Samsung designed for their home market of Korea. Excluding those S250s available from importers such as Wireless Imports, it is not sold anywhere outside of Korea.

The SCH-S250 is a very large phone, to be sure. It weighs a whopping 143.2g (5.01oz) and measures 116mm x 50mm x 31mm (4.57" x 1.97" x 1.22") when closed. The main body of the phone isn't all that wide, though, measuring a full 10mm (.39") thinner than the part with the camera. When opened, the SCH-S250 extends another 22mm in length to 138mm (5.43"). Unlike some of the newer multi-megapixel cameraphones that have been announced since its launch, the SCH-S250 does not have a zoom lens that extends from the body of the phone when the camera is activated.

Similar in principal to Samsung's "matrix phone" that the company made for Sprint PCS in the USA, the extending top of the SCH-S250 conceals part of the display when it is closed. The camera's lens and assist light are also protected from the world when the phone is closed. When opened, the full QVGA (240x320) resolution display is revealed, with all of its blinding 16 million colors. The display is truly fantastic, and is the equal of the best displays manufactured by Sharp or anybody else that I have come across. When viewed in person, it has that almost unreal look to it that makes you wonder if you are looking at a non-functioning mock-up with a photo pasted inside. The photos of the display that you'll see in the galleries that follow do not do the display justice at all.

Other than the obvious photo implications, the gorgeous display has another good use in the S250: 3D games. Lost Planet 2 is a first person shooter that looks much like an early Doom game. While it was a bit hard to target foes at a distance due to the lack of an analog controller, the experience was still a good one. Haunted School was the other game that was preloaded, and it appeared to make use of the same game engine as Lost Planet 2, even going so far as to make use of the same auto-mapping function. Sadly, since I can't read Korean, I was unable to play the game. It appears to be more of an adventure game with occasional room descriptions, having no obvious weapons.

Of course the reason we are here is not the killer display, nor the MP3 player, 3D games, or the phone's 92MB of internal storage and RS-MMC card slot. Everybody wants to know about the camera. Well, I spent a decent amount of time with the camera, getting a good feel for it. The short version: it's good, but not on par with a dedicated camera. The long version? Read on....

The S250 is capable of shooting photos with resolutions ranging from QVGA on the low end, all the way though 2560x1920 at the top end of the spectrum. In the middle you will find settings for 3mp, 2mp, 1.2mp, and VGA. The camera offers 3 quality levels: high, mid, and normal. All of our test photos were shot at the high quality setting. The S250 offers automatic white balance as well as dedicated settings for sunny, cloudy, incandescent, and florescent lighting conditions - I'll touch on how well it works later. The "film speed" can be set from ISO 100 through 800, or left on automatic, which is what I used for my test shots. 3 metering modes are also available, which was a real surprise to me. You have the option of using spot, center weighted, or whole image metering. I used center weighted for the test photos. There are also a few effects (such as gray scale and sepia) as well as a few frames available.

 

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