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Home > Consumer Camcorders > Camcorder Reviews > Samsung Camcorders > Samsung Other Media > Quick Review Camcorders: Samsung SC-X210L

Quick Review Camcorders: Samsung SC-X210L

by Michael Perlman
Published on February 12, 2007


If you’ve ever grinded a kinked rail or busted a sweet bar-spin over a tabletop jump, you know what it means to be extreme. Wouldn’t it be even more extreme to capture that frontside 360 on a camcorder? Samsung has the answer. The SC-X210L sports cam ($599 MSRP) has a weatherproof housing, fits snugly into a pocket, and comes equipped with a helmet cam. But does the video quality and choice of auto/manual controls match its practical design? Grab your board and hang ten to find out.
 
The Samsung SC-X210L is equipped with two separate lenses. The primary lens on the camcorder body features a standard 1/6” CCD with 680K gross pixels, while the secondary helmet cam has a 1/4” CMOS sensor with just 320K gross pixels. In optimal lighting, the primary lens failed to impress with a blurry, washed-out image.
 
As far as the helmet cam, don’t even bother to use it in bright light—like when you’re hitting the slopes. The X210L’s secondary lens yielded an image that looked as though it had survived every war since the inception of moving pictures. It was exceedingly bright with no fine detail, rife with a wheezing color palette, and looked like it had been sepia-tone filtered before being baked under a blazing sun.
 
In moderately low lighting, the X210L’s primary lens produced a noisy, color-drained image. In our lowest test, the noise ran amok and the image proved unusable. The helmet cam displayed a much brighter image in low light, but suffered from heightened blurriness. At the lowest light setting, the X210L’s external lens was still much brighter than the primary lens, but lacked even more detail.

 
Beginners should feel at ease operating the X210L, thanks to its simple menu and intuitive joystick control. The super-compact design makes slipping it into a pocket for a tubular session at the skate park a cinch. However, because the X210L is so small, it is somewhat cumbersome to operate if your hands are bigger than a kindergartner’s, or if your veins are coursing with taurine. Also, the fish-eyed helmet cam requires some finagling to get the angle right.
 
Automatic controls on the X210L are nothing special. The auto focus functions well at a low zoom, and the auto exposure snaps into place quickly. There are very few manual controls (focus and white balance), but who needs to fuss with aperture or frame rate while they’re cranking a 540 on the half-pipe?
 
The X210L records video on SD and MMC cards up to 2GB. The MPEG4 format offers two video sizes, the larger for standard television and the smaller for streaming web video. You can choose the video size and quality (Super Fine, Fine and Normal) in the menu, but the bottom line is that MPEG4 video will look notably more pixilated than any MiniDV camcorder.
 
If you’re a hardcore extreme sports enthusiast who doesn’t care about compromised video quality for the sake of capturing something truly “radical”, then this is the camcorder for you. The Samsung SC-X210L was outperformed by every other camcorder in its class regarding video quality and manual and automatic controls, but it’s small, it’s cool, and it does include that all-important helmet cam. Is it truly worth gambling $599 when you could spring for a cheaper, higher quality MiniDV camcorder like the Canon Elura 100, or explore other options like the Archos Helmet Cam? You be the judge, dude.

 

Samsung SC-X210L - THE BOTTOM LINE
Rating: 141.01


   

 
Likes
-Small, pocket-sized design
-Simple menu
-Two lenses
Dislikes
-Poor video quality
-Limited auto/manual control
-Uses SD and MMC cards instead of MiniDV



Samsung SC-X210L Compared to the...
 

Canon Elura 100  
Rating: 218.30

Sony SDR-S150  
Rating: 204.18

Sony DCR-SR40 
Rating: 172.95

JVC GZ-MG37  
Rating: 168.87

Samsung SC-DC164
Rating: 163.125

Better

Better

Better

Better

Better

-Video Performance
-Video Resolution
-Automatic Control
-Overall Manual Control
-Zoom
-Focus
-Exposure
-Shutter Speed
-White Balance
-Still Features
-Still Resolution
-Still Perfomance
-Low Light Performance
-Zoom Ratio
-LCD / Viewfinder
-Audio
-Battery
-Compression
-Media
-Editing
-Widescreen
-Value

-Video Performance
-Video Resolution
-Automatic Control
-Overall Manual Control
-Focus
-Exposure
-Shutter Speed
-White Balance
-Still Features
-Still Resolution
-Still Perfomance
-Low Light Performance
-LCD / Viewfinder
-Portability
-Battery
-Compression
-Media
-Widescreen
-Value

-Better
-Video Performance
-Automatic Control
-Overall Manual Control
-Zoom
-Exposure
-White Balance
-Still Features
-VCR Mode
-Low Light Performance
-Zoom Ratio
-LCD / Viewfinder
-Portability
-Battery
-Compression
-Media
-Widescreen

-Video Performance
-Automatic Control
-Overall Manual Control
-Zoom
-Exposure
-White Balance
-Gain
-Still Features
-Still Resolution
-Zoom Ratio
-Wide Angle
-LCD / Viewfinder
-Battery
-Compression
-Media
-Widescreen
-Other Features

-Video Performance
-Overall Manual Control
-Zoom
-Focus
-Exposure
-Shutter Speed
-White Balance
-Still Features
-Low Light Performance
-Zoom Ratio
-LCD / Viewfinder
-Audio
-Battery
-Compression
-Media
-Widescreen
-Jacks / Ports / Plugs

Equal

Equal

Equal

Equal

Equal

-Gain
-Other Manual Control

-Zoom
-Gain
-Other Manual Control
-VCR Mode
-Zoom Ratio

-Focus
-Shutter Speed
-Gain
-Other Manual Control
-Ease Of Use
-Still Perfomance
-Wide Angle

-Focus
-Shutter Speed
-Other Manual Control
-Audio

-Automatic Control
-Gain
-Other Manual Control
-Wide Angle

Worse

Worse

Worse

Worse

Worse

-Ease Of Use
-VCR Mode
-Wide Angle
-Handling
-Portability
-24P/Scan Rates
-Jacks / Ports / Plugs
-Other Features

-Ease Of Use
-Wide Angle
-Audio
-Handling
-Editing
-24P/Scan Rates
-Jacks / Ports / Plugs
-Other Features

-Video Resolution
-Still Resolution
-Audio
-Handling
-Editing
-24P/Scan Rates
-Jacks / Ports / Plugs
-Other Features
-Value

-Video Resolution
-Ease Of Use
-Still Perfomance
-VCR Mode
-Low Light Performance
-Handling
-Portability
-Editing
-24P/Scan Rates
-Jacks / Ports / Plugs
-Value

-Video Resolution
-Ease Of Use
-Still Resolution
-Still Perfomance
-VCR Mode
-Handling
-Portability
-Editing
-24P/Scan Rates
-Other Features
-Value

Area Weight Raw Adj. Poss.
Video Performance 4.00 3.00 12.00 20.00
Front 0.20 5.00 1.00 2.00
Right 0.30 5.00 1.50 3.00
Back 0.25 8.00 2.00 2.50
Left 0.20 6.50 1.30 2.00
Top 0.15 5.50 0.83 1.50
Automatic Control 0.50 3.00 1.50 5.00
Overall Manual Control 0.60 2.25 1.35 6.00
Zoom 0.75 4.00 3.00 7.50
Focus 0.70 4.00 2.80 7.00
Exposure 0.65 0.00 0.00 6.50
Shutter Speed 0.60 0.00 0.00 6.00
White Balance 0.55 4.00 2.20 5.50
Gain 0.50 0.00 0.00 5.00
Still Perfomance 1.20 3.25 3.90 12.00
VCR Mode 0.30 8.00 2.40 3.00
Low Light Performance 4.00 1.80 7.20 20.00
LCD / Viewfinder 0.60 5.25 3.15 6.00
Audio 1.00 4.00 4.00 10.00
Handling 1.25 8.25 10.31 12.50
Jacks / Ports / Plugs 0.80 6.00 4.80 8.00
Other Features 0.70 6.00 4.20 7.00
Value 1.25 3.50 4.38 12.50
Total (weighted) 73.81 170.50