"Intelligent Face Recognition Technology means the S850 can find and

focus on this face, even though it's not in the centre of the frame"

and its not sharp. camera shake or misfocusing?

"Intelligent Face Recognition Technology means the S850 can find and focus on this face, even though it's not in the centre of the frame"

Given the fuzzy example provided, clearly some meaning of the word "focus" that is not the one I am familiar with.

It's not the camera's fault. The camera knows there's no "intelligent face" to recognize, just a dummy...

After throwing your money away on throwaway Duracells on page one I was glad to see the penny had dropped by page four:

"But do invest in a set of rechargeable batteries first."

But then you forgot about it again at the end.

"Either way, you'll spend the rest of your life buying sets of AA batteries."

The problem of short battery life in digital cameras when using alkaline AAs is certainly not unique to these Samsungs.

10 mps on that size sensor does not for a good picture make, it's kind of like fitting her step-sister's feet into Cinderella's shoes.

I am constantly amazed by the "megapixel" war, thank goodness it doesn't (yet?) happen on the DSLR genre.

Very good review. I've used an S850 since the Spring, when I needed a quick replacement "throwaway" camera that used SD card storage and AA batteries. My experience has been that alkaline batteries last a bit longer than the review stated (perhaps the reviewer accidently bought counterfeit batteries), but I do own a large number of rechargeable LiMh AA's which I use regularly.

The reason that I call the S850 a "throwaway" is that it's just a transitional form. Features that will be upgraded in future models are, no sound while zooming; focus problems when partially zoomed in; default to flash mode when turning camera on every time [drives me nuts]; failure to hold the "S" priority settings if I turn the camera off while on that setting; lack of an optical viewfinder; and numerous other small things that irritate me. I won't own this camera forever. In a couple of years, I'll replace it with something better.

In the meantime, its best features are indeed its excellent anti-shake capability (a tripod is simply not needed any more) and phenomenal picture detail. The ASR is superb. Recording videos is weird when seeing a 1/2-second delay between what I'm recording & what's on the screen.

All in all, the S850 is an okay camera, as long as I think of it as a throwaway.... Thanks for the review.

"In one of the preset portrait modes, the background is blurred out of focus around the cutout in the shape of a person"

It's not a "cutout", it's called limiting the "Depth of Field", and I would hope that anyone writing a camera review would be enough of a photog to at least use the proper term for it and know how it works...

Actually mate it is a cut out, these samsungs donts have proper depth of field control. Just a choice of 2 pre focused areas in the centre of shot. So blame the camera not the reviewer

I echo the comment above about rechargeable vs non-rechargeable batteries: only a profligate fool whose hobby is destroying the environment uses non-rechargeables in such a device. But why "Duracells"? You're just falling for, and paying for, the TV advertising. Those bunnies aren't compared with those using generic *alkaline* batteries - they are compared with those using zinc-carbon batteries which seem to exist purely to show Duracells up in a good light. If you must use dry cells, don't waste your money on Duracells but buy generic alkalines instead.

I have a S1000, which from the article seems to be pretty identical to the S1030 and IMO the noise reduction is a minus.

At 50% pictures look great, but viewed at 100% on a TFT the picture is quite ugly. I would prefer generic noise or (some) jpeg artifacts over the look of this noise reduction.

It's not really a major issue, just don't think about using (a part of) the picture for screen display at "original" size (that equals almost 40" - probably what the author meant with not making poster prints).