In 2012, Samsung announced the Galaxy Camera alongside the Galaxy Note 2. It was a rather interesting product. It was basically the Galaxy S3 on the back, and a nice point-and-shoot camera on the front. I actually reviewed the Verizon variant in early 2013, and really liked it. But I didn’t feel it was good enough to replace my point-and-shoot the Sony RX100. Now in late 2013, Samsung announced the second generation of the Galaxy Camera, dubbed the Galaxy Camera 2 (as opposed to the all new Galaxy Camera). We learned a lot about it, and it was on display at CES last month. But up until now, we had no idea when it would be released or the pricing on the Galaxy Camera 2. But now we do.
This morning Samsung issued a press release that the Galaxy Camera 2 will be going on sale in mid-March and will be priced at around $449.99. Which is pretty similar to the price of the original Galaxy Camera. There’s still no confirmation of the HSPA+ or LTE model of the Galaxy Camera 2, but I’m sure those are coming. As the original Galaxy Camera was available on Verizon and AT&T.
As far as specs go, we’re looking at a 16-megapixel BSI CMOS sensor, with 21x optical Zoom, optical image stabilization, a 1.6GHz quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 4.8-inch HD Super Clear Touch LCD Display, 8GB of internal storage, microSD card slot, 2000mAh battery, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, GPS/GLONASS, as well as WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n rounding out the spec sheet. Additionally it’s running Android 4.3 – Jelly Bean on board along with some Touchwiz. It’ll also feature 28 “SMART” shooting modes. Which is quite a bit more than what the Galaxy Camera had, and it’ll be interesting to check all of those out next month when we get our hands on a review unit.
So this is the third Android-powered Camera from Samsung. The Galaxy Camera, Galaxy NX Camera and now the Galaxy Camera 2. I wonder how much it’s improved since the original?