It’s been three weeks since I had the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom and my user experience is enormous! At first I doubted it could satisfy my craving for a good performing smartphone with a better camera on an average smartphone. Well I am not a good photographer to begin with, but at the same time not a bad photographer too as I could still take good looking photos at times. Well, in this review I would like to talk about my entire experience since the day one till today. One fact that you should know before you start reading my review, ” best phone to use as a daily driver” very true and feel free to correct me if I am wrong about it.

Display

To show how much Samsung cares for their Zoom series users, they have implemented their best every display technology the Super AMOLED Display sized at 4.8-inch fitted perfectly to the Samsung K Zoom resulting in a pixel density of 306ppi. You get a 720p Display which means the resolution is at 1280 x 720. Personally, anyone who uses AMOLED Display would not complain much about it as it is really a totally different experience with it giving a bright glimpse to a dull image. The viewing angle is pretty good, no blurriness noticed even when its at 90 degree viewing angle. Watching videos or viewing documents are not a problem when you’re using the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom with the Super AMOLED Display.

Design Language

The design of the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom is outstanding. From a glimpse of a look, you will find the design to be extremely attractive with it having a plastic back still, but with that impressive dotted design which was introduced on the Samsung Galaxy S5, it seems to blend perfectly with the camera lens which looks like a compact camera’s lens that has a bulging out structure. Overall, I love the stylish looks of the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom as the whole idea of implementing a high end camera with optical zoom feature with a high end smartphone seems to work correctly this time out for Samsung.

You still get the trademark home button, and of course you get a dedicated physical camera shutter button designed for your comfort of capturing images quicker. From the front, it would look as though its another Samsung Galaxy S series smartphone, probably a S3 or S4, no difference, but on the back as mentioned before you get such a gorgeous looking dotted design together with metal edge bezels while the speaker is placed on top of the rear camera.

Under the hood?

Inside, while you unbox the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom and switch it on, you will get Android 4.4.2 KitKat OS providing you the latest and probably eligible to the upcoming Android L update pretty soon once made available. Next, the processor. The Samsung Galaxy K Zoom comes with a Hexa core Exynos 5 processor clocked at 1.3GHz Quad core A7 while the other clocked at 1.7GHz featuring a Dual core A15 CPU which acts as a booster when you need that extra boost for a much heavier processes when necessary. When it comes to the RAM capacity, you get 2GB of it built in and able to optimize your processing speed and overall performance of the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom without any noticeable lag nor stutter.

When you get to the ROM ( Internal Storage) section, you only get 8GB of it, probably some of you would think, ” this smartphone comes with such a high Megapixel camera, how would 8GB be enough for me?” Well don’t worry too much as you still get to expand your storage up to 64GB with the option of micro SD card slot made available so that you can  easily expand your storage capacity by getting the card separately of course 😛

Mouth – Watering Camera and Video!

When it comes to the camera, the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom is currently the King of Camera when it comes to Android OS perhaps? Or maybe there is a pretty close competitor to it in the same league. So you get a 20.7 MP main camera with a CMOS sensor which has a very large sensor capable of capturing huge amount of light which results in a better looking image. Getting to the cool part of the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom is the 10x optical zoom! You can literally zoom 10x without losing a single quality of the output image, in addition to that you still get 5x digital zoom which proofs to be useful at times and performs well too.

You know with optical image capability, you are almost as par as some digital camera which has similar 10x optical zoom as well right? Not only that, sometimes when you zoom in all the way till 10x, you will realize that your hand tend to be shaky and its kind of hard to get a perfect shot or rather a stable shot for a clear sharp image.

With the existence of OIS ( Optical Image Stabilization ) instead of DIS ( Digital Image Stabilization)  which comes in any standard smartphone these days, the OIS on the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom will provide you an easier way of capturing stable image without losing the quality even though your hands are a little shaky it will tend to adjust accordingly without looking as horrible as how it would look like having a digital zoom all the way and capturing it will give you pixel-ed full of noisy image. Another great feature isn’t it?

Pro suggest feature on the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom

Manual camera mode on the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom

You get similar camera software that exists in the S5 itself except for the additional manual mode where you could find some features such as adjusting the exposure, ISO and focus mode. You will also find a ” Pro Suggest ” feature within the camera app itself  which suggests a particular modes or filter films by auto detecting the scene.  The Auto mode performs well enough for those who rather don’t want to mess around with the settings manually.

Widely known features such as HDR, panorama, continuous shots are available too. However, do take note that the True Tone HDR which means the HDR view is available before even taking the shot isn’t available on the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom, instead you get to take continuous shots and combines them into a single photo. This does take a little longer as it alters the picture, so such situations are expected to be seen. The amazing Xenon flash is present on the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom which gives better and clearer images taken during low light condition or even somewhere there is no light too, you can still get a pretty decent looking photo yo! 🙂

The picture sizes made available on the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom are 20MP ( 5184 x 3888), 17.9MP ( 5184 x 3456 ), 15.1MP ( 5184 x 2916), 8.3MP ( 2880 x 2880 ), and 5MP ( 2592 x 1944 ) which comes in aspect ratios of 4:3, 3:2, 16:9, 1:1, and 4:3 respectively.

Below are some examples of photos taken from the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom itself.

This is a sample zoomed shot from the image above this one.

A maximum zoomed image. Not bad right? That’s the power of the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom.

Zoomed view of the image above this one. I can read the words clearly!

This one is hard to realize. It’s actually a maximum zoomed image of the one above this. That’s a great zooming range bro.

Moving on to the video capturing quality. You can expect a decent video footage to be taken via the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom with all the features mentioned above made available. You can capture videos with the resolution of Full HD ( 1980 x 1080 ) in either 60fps or 30fps, HD mode ( 1280 x 720 ) in either 60fps or 30fps, or VGA quality ( 640 x 480 ) in 60fps.

 Almost forgot, the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom comes with a front camera as well, set at 2MP and able to capture decent looking selfie photos. In case you wonder how to capture a selfie using the main camera, just use the ” Selfie Alarm ” feature made available for you in the camera app itself which captures when it detects your face in the box perfectly.

In addition to all this, you get a built-in Samsung’s Studio app which allows you to edit photos and videos.

Sound, Battery, etc.

On the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom, the sound quality isn’t bad at all despite its speaker being quite small in size. Even when it is in my pocket I could hear the notification sound loud and clear almost in any type of environment including a noisy one. The battery capacity on the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom is set at 2430mAh and its a removable back case, so you can actually have a spare battery just in case to hot swap it. Battery life seems pretty decent as it could last up to 4 hours on pretty heavy usage of the camera itself. This includes with my mobile data turned on too. Not bad isn’t it? Just in case you need to save up the battery when you’re only left with 10% of battery, worry less as there is also the Ultra Power Saving Mode, the same one featured on the Samsung Galaxy S5 too.

You get the standard notification light placed at the top right corner which is the same on featured on the Samsung Galaxy S5,

Connectivity, SIM slot, etc.

You’re NOT equipped with 4G LTE connectivity and limited to only HDSPA+ . Well 4G LTE which of course is still limited here in Malaysia as not many mobile network carriers offering LTE at the moment so it’s not something to be fussy about at least for now. The Samsung Galaxy K Zoom requires a micro SIM to enable to mobile cellular. Others such as NFC, Bluetooth v4.0, GPS are all made available for your usage. You’re also eligible to use the Download Booster feature that was introduced on the Samsung Galaxy S5 which allows you to download files using the combination of WiFi connection and mobile data.

TouchWiz UI

The users of Samsung Galaxy K Zoom will enjoy the latest TouchWiz Android Skin over version that is made till date, the exact one made available on the Samsung Galaxy S5. As mentioned, it comes with Android 4.4.2 so the combination of TouchWiz and KitKat you will be resulted with extremely smooth and flawless performance on the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom. Do take note that you will not have the Samsung’s native app  S Health simply because there is no pedometer or even the heart rate sensor made available for you. However, you still get the swipe to left My Magazine app, S Planner, and S Voice.

 Conclusion

Honestly, I was craving to get this phone for review for quite sometime until it was made available. As how much I loved to use it, it did not disapoint me as based on my experience using the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom, I totally forgot rest of the smartphones that I was having with me and continued to use it until the very day I have to return the gorgeous smartphone. It might not be the ideal replacement for a compact camera or a DSLR being said it could be as good as that, but if you just need a better photography experience on a Android based smartphone this could be your cup of tea as there are always complaints when it comes to having a phone but with a camera not up to your standards. This is still a personal preference, I tried the Samsung Galaxy S5 too, would prefer that simply because of its size and I am not so into photography, but using the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom itself slowly changed me into a photography enthusiast.

Price and Availability 

The Samsung Galaxy K Zoom is priced at RM1699 and is available widely in any Samsung Experience Stores and retailing outlets nearby you. It is available in three colors, the Charcoal Black and Shimmery White which was made available quite sometime ago with the Electric Blue joins the Malaysian market recently which could be your type of attractive color. I personally would love to own the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom in Electric Blue color itself!

So what do you guys think of the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom? Would you spend your cash on it? Does the magnificent camera specification impresses you to at least try it out for yourself? Do leave your feedback and suggestions in case you have something to add on or even something that you disagree with me. 🙂