VR-Zone

Our review unit comes in a nice designed box with the product image and model prominently at the top. 

The 12.2-megapixel Samsung ST550 is compact, weighs a mere 166g and sports a black exterior with purple fringe. And if purple isn't your favorite color, you can select black, gold or orange design instead.

When powered on, the lens cover will open up and pop-out the Schneider-KREUZNACH lens. A 1.5-inch touchscreen display is at the front, below the flash. You can activate the frontal display when you give the screen a hard enough tap once. To disable the display, simply tap the screen again.

At the rear is the 3.5-inch touchscreen display which acts as the elctronic viewfinder and allows you to access the menu and camera settings. As you probably noticed, there is no buttons at the rear (except the playback button at the top). Its ST500 sibling is about the same size as the ST550 with dual LCD screen, except that the rear touchscreen display is only 3-inch which is slightly smaller.

The power button, shutter, zoom controls and playback button are neatly placed at the top of the digital compact camera. The power button glowed a blue light when you turned it on.

At the base, we found the compartment that houses the Samsung SLB-07A 3.7V 720mAh Lithium-ion battery and microSD memory card; the proprietary port for charging the camera's battery, transfer of images and video output to external displays; and the tripod mount.

Bundled with the ST550 are the common accessories such as battery pack, power adapter, USB and A/V cables, camera strap, quick start manual and user manual CD-ROM. The microSD card is not included with the unit though, so you might want to check with the vendor as some do provide a free microSD card when you purchase the camera.