Samsung Galaxy K Zoom Review

A few months ago, Samsung has launched their smartphone with a main focus on camera. This isn’t their first smartphone to have a camera like this. If you could still remember, their first try was the Samsung Galaxy Camera and then there’s the Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom and then here’s the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom.

Construction

The first thing that you’ll notice is that the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom is very thick. If you think the Nokia Lumia 1020 is thick, this one is thicker. It is already expected since this smartphone needs a lot of space for the camera. Samsung Galaxy K Zoom borrowed some elements from the Samsung Galaxy S5 like the perforated back and its flat design and UI. Don’t worry about its thick design because ergonomics is still good because of its curved back.

Since this is a camera smartphone, there’s a dedicated shutter button so you can easily access the camera app from sleep by pressing the volume up and shutter button simultaneously. Unlike the Galaxy S5, this smartphone doesn’t have a heart rate sensor.

There’s an 8GB of internal storage inside but you can expand it via MicroSD. I strongly recommend you guys to use a MicroSD card since you can’t fully use that 8GB internal storage since you have to install apps on that which will left a half of that. OTG is supported on this device, so yeah, you won’t have too much problems if you want to watch movies that are stored in your flash drive.

The speaker grill of the Samsung Galaxy K zoom is placed at the top back and the quality was okay but I was expecting that this device would have a louder and better audio quality since it has a thick design. Thankfully, there’s LTE on the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom but there’s no NFC on this one.

Display

The Samsung Galaxy K Zoom has a 4.8” HD Super AMOLED display. The display isn’t on par with the Samsung Galaxy S5 and the Galaxy K Zoom’s display feels more like the display of Samsung Galaxy S3. But hey, most point and shoots can’t match the Galaxy K Zoom’s display. The outdoor visibility is good and the touch is very responsive on this smartphone.

Software and Performance

Samsung Galaxy K Zoom is powered by Android 4.4.2 and the UI is very similar to the Samsung Galaxy S5. The wallpapers, icons and the features are very similar but sad to say, there’s no multi-window and fingerprint sensor on this Galaxy smartphone. Those are the biggest feature on Galaxy smartphones but hey, at least there’s ultra power saving mode on this device.

Unlike other smartphones that packs an Octa-Core or Quad-Core processor, Samsung Galaxy K Zoom uses a Hexa-Core Exynos processor with a 2GB of RAM. When it comes to gaming, it can do pretty well and the performance is better than the Snapdragon 600 but not better than Snapdragon 800. I got an Antutu score of 37504 which is pretty good. I didn’t expect the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom would have that score.

Battery Life

When you used the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom, it performs pretty well but when you used the camera more often along with the xenon flash, you’ll have to bring a powerbank or your charger. At average use, it can last up a day but if you’re using it as a camera don’t expect that it can last up to half a day.

Camera

Samsung Galaxy K Zoom managed to combined a point and shoot camera and a smartphone. Samsung Galaxy K Zoom has a 20.7 Megapixel with a 1/2.3-inch sensor, which is common on most point and shoot cameras. This camera smartphone can also manage up to 10x zooming, which is good for shooting faraway objects.

There’s OIS and Xenon flash but there’s no LED flash on this one. There are a lot of scene modes available in the camera app and you can even do manual control on the settings to suffice you with your shot. You could do a lot including automatically adding a watermark on a photo.

Overall, Samsung Galaxy K Zoom is one of the best in the Android smartphone market. It can’t replace most point and shoot cameras and SLRs but it can definitely give you the best photos on a smartphone. Check out the photos that I took at Flickr.

Verdict

Samsung Galaxy K Zoom is a camera centric smartphone. If you’re looking for a smartphone that can take photos similar to the quality of point-and-shoot then better get this one. This smartphone is actually handy if you don’t want to bring your camera on parties & events because despite its size, this one already fits in your pocket.

If you don’t want a thick device, there’s the Samsung Galaxy S5 that can take good photos too (However, not on par with the Galaxy K Zoom) and if you want a much bigger Android device, there’s the Samsung Galaxy Note 4. Again, if you want an android smartphone that can take good photos, get the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom.