Samsung TL225 DualView 12.2MP Digital Camera with 4.6X Optical Zoom and 3.5-Inch LCD Screen and 1.5-Inch Front Screen (Orange)

by Samsung

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 2 x 5.2 inches ; 14.4 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B002LGXYJ0
• California residents: Click here for Proposition 65 warning.
• Item model number: EC-TL225ZBPOUS
• Batteries: 1 Lithium ion batteries required.
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,243 in Camera & Photo (See Top 100 in Camera & Photo)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 2, 2001

Product Description

Samsung TL225 Point & Shoot Digital Camera - Orange 12.2 Megapixel - 16:9 - 4.6x Optical Zoom - 5x Digital Zoom - 3.50

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

78 of 81 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great Camera with a ton of features! Also SUPER COOL!!, February 9, 2010

By 

Ryan S. Martin (Albany, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Samsung TL225 DualView 12.2MP Digital Camera with 4.6X Optical Zoom and 3.5-Inch LCD Screen and 1.5-Inch Front Screen (Orange) (Electronics)

I would guess that ninety percent of you reading these reviews are prospective digital camera buyers. You are reading these honest reviews by average people in an effort to learn more about buying this camera, you're asking that question "Is the dual-view TL225 right for me?" I don't know if it is, but keep in mind as you're reading my review that I'm writing this review for you because I was you the perspective buyer with numerous questions and concerns just one week ago.

Comparatively this Camera does not take the best picture of all the camera's in its price range. (The sub $300 digital camera category.) There are other camera's in the TL225's price range the give a better representation of color, perform better in low lighting, take better action photographs, take higher resolution HD movies or are smaller and possibly more convenient in some ways. The TL225 is not the pinnacle of digital photography in any category that I could find. It is however, on par with or above average for its class in just about every category; from iso, to HD-Movie capabilities, picture resolution, delay time between taking pictures, and etc. Make no mistake, this camera is no chump! It's just not a champion in any particular category. Overall I think it's the best fit for the average person that needs a digital camera for taking pictures of nights out, sight seeing, family events, etc. It's also quite sleek, I might suggest, nay, I implore you go to bestbuy and see just how sleek this device is before buying it.

Some of the other reviewers have been a bit harsh. I wonder however, how many digital cameras they have owned in their life. If the answer is 1 or 2, then they really aren't in a position to make accurate criticisms of this device. Or, perhaps they are, but only after they actually read the owner's manual. By reading this owner's manual, which, btw, is very detailed and can be downloaded from Samsung's website (in pdf form so you easily browse to whatever section you'd like to read about); you'll find the answer's to many of the little questions/problems/concerns you've had about this device! You can even read the owner's manual before you buy the TL225! Egads man!

As opposed to the aforementioned negative reviewers, I however, love this camera! This is an excellent replacement for the Kodak EasyShare P.0.S. that I had before. The TL225 comes with a ton of features on board. There's a slide show you can setup with a push of button, there's red-eye removal (which you can activate both before and after you take pics), blemish removal, and a ton other effects you can put on the pictures without having to even transfer the photos to your PC. The touch screen is very responsive and the dual view front screen works as advertised.

With its 12.2 megapixel sensor this camera takes some beautiful pictures. It also takes excellent HD movies recording them at 720p and you have the ability to zoom while recording the movies (a lot digital cameras can't do that or if they do you'll get this buzzing noise while zooming (This camera makes no such noises!)).

There's a bunch of on board features for the movies too after you've recorded them so you can edit them, just like the photos (brighten, trim movies, etc) on the camera without transferring them to your PC. I can't talk enough about how many little convenient features are included on board this camera, and they are just all so easy to find with the little pop-up menus. These features are why this camera is a "must own" 5 out 5 star device! Well, haha, that and it takes some pretty darn good pictures too!

Previous reviewers have complained about blurry photographs, well the first thing is to check the ISO level. If you know you are shooting in a dark room and are not using flash, turn the iso up manually. Yes, the auto features are good but not perfect, conventional wisdom says "the great carpenter never blames his tools". There's really something to be said for that, basically, ya know have a brain people! And two, play with your camera, enjoy it before you take it out and use it for your real world events. This camera has a lot of features but you have to use the right one for the job and know all the tools it has to offer and how to use them.

***NOTE*** Digital Camera's and HD Camera's as a whole don't tend to perform as well in low lighting as your regular film camera's they have come a long way and the technology is developing but this isn't a $500-600 professional camera, this a sub-compact point and shoot camera, keep that in mind when grading.

The other thing is this camera has pre-set features that come turned on that you can turn off which will help/hurt picture quality. One of them is facial recognition if this is on and if you are not taking a picture of someone or not trying focus on a face it will cause the picture to come out blurry. That's just the way the software on the camera is written. So you need to make sure you have the camera set in the correct modes. Furthermore, this all goes back to reading the manual and playing with your camera for awhile when you first get it.

To address some of the other concerns:
-- The battery life sucks, SUPRISE! Welcome to the world of portable electronics. I suggest only turning on the dual-view then you need it (this is the major batter drainer) and I also suggest buying another battery and the external battery charger.

-- Yes, it also sucks that this camera comes bare bones without a Micro-SD card, additional battery, or some the other nifty accessories you might need. What are you gonna do? I bought all the additional items (extra battery, charger, case, and micro-SD) and it only cost me $30.00.

-- The fact that it uses a micro-SD at all is also kind of annoying. While I think they could have tried to fit a standard SD in this camera, I'm glad they didn't. It's very sleek and stylish, slim and sexy. I guess having to use micro-SD is the price of beauty.

-- You need to buy a $50 dock to connect this camera to your TV using HDMI. Yes this is certainly frustrating, especially since one of the touted features of the TL225 is it's HDMI out, but really who cares? You can buy a USB adapter for your micro-SD and just plug it into your HDTV or PS3 directly.

**SIDENOTES** If you are debating between TL225 and the TL220, I'd say it's worth it to pony up the extra $20-25 for the TL225. The rear LCD screen is a bit bigger on this camera and the resolution on that LCD is much higher so you'll a have more accurate representation of your pictures after you take them. Also just having a larger, higher resolution screen will just add to the wow factor when you show this camera off to your friends. Another note, the orange color that the TL225 comes in is really more of a Red than an Orange; you'll see what I mean when you behold this camera in person. Sorry cuse' fans!

BOTTOM LINE:
This camera is great, if you are looking for a sleek point and shoot digital camera with a ton of features. The TL225 takes reasonably good pictures when compared to others in the same price range but where this digital camera really excels is by ease of use and innovative design with its responsive touch screen, pop-up menus, plethora of on-board features and cool dual view LCD. 5 stars!

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fun, Fast Camera, Poor Image Quality, February 15, 2010

By 

Brian Mantel "Kevlar" (Beaverton, OR) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Samsung TL225 DualView 12.2MP Digital Camera with 4.6X Optical Zoom and 3.5-Inch LCD Screen and 1.5-Inch Front Screen (Orange) (Electronics)

My previous camera was a 4MegaPixel Canon S410 which I purchased about 7 years ago. I figured it was time for an upgrade and first I purchased a 12.2 MegaPixel Canon SD980 which is about this same price as the Samsung TL225 and also has a large touch screen. The features and touch UI weren't nearly as good as the TL225. The picture quality of the SD980 was poor and after looking more closely at reviews, I realized I wasn't the only one having issues with it. So, I returned the Canon and purchased this Samsung (mostly because I still wanted the nice touch screen but thought it would have better, not excellent, but good, picture quality). I have been relatively disappointed in the picture quality on this camera. Even in great light conditions, the picture quality isn't all that great. I took my new Samsung TL225 and my old Canon S410 out to the Zoo today to do some comparison shots. It's really sad that my 7 year old, 4 MegaPixel camera is taking far better quality pictures than this brand new, 12.2 MegaPixel camera. Somewhere along the line, the CCD manufacturers must have given up quality in the race to say they had the highest MegaPixel count in their device. There is no excuse for the 4MP to look better than 12.2. Before someone comes along and tells me that I just need to tweak this or that setting, I will say, both cameras were set to auto mode in the comparisons so that things were fair. Also, I don't want to mess with settings, I want to point and shoot and get a decent (not professional) picture. Most of these pictures look OK when zoomed all the way out, but don't think you are going to be able to zoom in and crop a little just because you have 12MP to work with. Any zooming in on the picture on your computer reveals how washed out the image is.

Pros:
Very nice user interface.
Small/Slim.
Feels sturdy.
Cool front LCD feature.
Very responsive / powers on and takes pictures very quickly

Cons:
Picture quality is not very good at all for a 12.2MP point and shoot in this price range. (compared to the Canon S410)
Even with the flash on, this camera is terrible in low light conditions (also compared to the Canon S410)
Front LCD is difficult to turn on. (no big deal)
Bad battery life as expected (but they could have given us an 1100 mAh battery instead of the 750mAh to make up for this)
Computer (Win7) recognizes this camera as a storage device, not as a camera. This is generally not a problem because windows
will import pictures using its own software, but I prefer Windows Live Photo Gallery and it will not import from the
"AutoPlay" menu because it doesn't know it's a camera.

Overall, I'm not too upset about the picture quality because of the other good features, but when I would still suggest looking for something with better picture quality if you don't already own this camera.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars its a touch screen world out there now, October 19, 2009

By 

R. Wilson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Samsung TL225 DualView 12.2MP Digital Camera with 4.6X Optical Zoom and 3.5-Inch LCD Screen and 1.5-Inch Front Screen (Orange) (Electronics)

This is my 1st touch camera. I have owned many small point and shot cameras and this one is the easiest one to work for me and takes great pictures.

I bought this camera 1 month ago and went on vacation to wine country Napa/Sonoma
I downloaded the disc manual that comes with the camera and read it complete on the plane. I am glade I did. Being a touch screen you have no controls to turn like basic cameras.
for anyone looking to buy this samsung, read the manual the funtions are mostly symbols and once you know all the touch funtions you will be taking great pictures.
If you have a touch phone your halfway there. Amazining pictures and it gives you so many was to take your shots. The quality is great and the 3.5 in screen is outstanding just slide your finger on the screen and veiw or delete. As for the the front view screen in works good but on sunny days you may have to angle it a bit could be brighter.
rear screen is fine.
some reviewers complain about fingerprints on the screen.. no problem with me, you just wipe them off, you do want to keep it clean.
The camera is thin to store anywhere. I went to a my verizon phone store and bought a phone case leather and has a clip for your belt. It work great when I was wine touring.
Bottom line go and play with one but remember read the manual this camera has funtions that are not listed on the box..enjoy