Samsung NX20 Review

Samsung NX20 Review

by Dan Havlik, Shawn Barnett, Mike Tomkins, Dave Etchells, and Zig Weidelich
Preview Posted: 04/19/2012
Review Posted: 10/19/2012

Taking up the top position in Samsung's more complete lineup of compact system cameras, the NX20 naturally sports the most deluxe feature set. It shares a 20.3-megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor, as well as the new WiFi functionality, but its claims to fame include an electronic viewfinder (EVF), a 3-inch AMOLED Swiveling display, a shutter speed of up to 1/8,000 second, and a built-in pop-up flash.

A slightly more pronounced grip features on the NX20, with a soft, rubber texture. A rather large hump rises above the lens mount for the EVF and pop-up flash, making the Samsung NX20 look more like an SLR than most compact system cameras.

The front of the Samsung NX20 has an AF-assist lamp, a Depth-of-field Preview button, and a Lens release button. The features are similar to the NX11, but the overall camera design is different, with more sloping shoulders and less apparent bulk. Note how large the APS-C sensor appears inside the small mount.

Stereo microphones flank the Samsung NX20's EVF hump. The flash pops up with a press on flash button to the left. A small Mode dial stands tall enough to turn easily. We like the power switch surrounding the shutter button, though it's a little stiff, and the jog dial on the top deck is great for quick exposure adjustments. Note also the use of metal lugs for a quieter cloth-to-metal interface, rather than reliance on noisier D-rings, as are found on the Samsung NX210 and NX1000.

The only camera of the three to have an articulating 3-inch AMOLED screen, the Samsung NX20 is more versatile than its underlings. The graphical interface on the screen is both impressive and well done.

The NX20's control cluster is similar to the NX210's, but with the addition of the AEL button, something missing on the latter camera. The main graphical adjustments are accessed by pressing the Fn button, which brings up the Smart Panel, a menu navigated via the four way and the rear wheel, and options are changed via the dial on the top deck.

Found on the side of the lenses, Samsung's i-Function button allows the user to quickly adjust a small range of settings in combination with the focus ring. When pressed in PASM modes, the camera toggles among shutter speed, aperture, EV, ISO, White Balance, and intelli-Zoom. Once you've reached your desired setting, turning the ring adjusts that parameter.

The NX20 has a 221 segment metering system that operates on data from the main image sensor, and considers the scene as a grid of 17 x 13 distinct areas. Multi, Center-weighted, and Spot metering modes are available, and the working range is 0 to 18 EV (ISO 100, 30mm, f/2.0).

Exposure modes include Program, Aperture- and Shutter-priority, Manual, Smart Auto, Lens Priority, Magic, Scene, Movie, WiFi, and Custom. Shutter speeds range from 1/8,000 to 30 seconds in 1/3 EV steps, plus a bulb mode. The fastest speed is reached courtesy of an electronic shutter. The bulb mode has a hard limit of four minutes. +/-3.0 EV of exposure compensation is available, again in 1/3 EV steps.

There are no less than ten Smart Filter modes (Vignetting, Miniature, Fish-Eye, Sketch, De-fog, Halftone Dots, Soft Focus, Old Film1, Old Film2, and Negative), twelve Picture Wizard modes, and a new Selective Color filter which desaturates most of your image, while retaining one of four colors. The NX20 offers none of the consumer-friendly Magic Frame modes found on the simultaneously-announced NX210 and NX1000, however.

You can also create panoramas in-camera with the Live Panorama function.

Another new accessory for the NX20 is SR2NX02 remote shutter release, which is not backwards-compatible with the NX200. This cabled remote plugs into the NX20's USB port.

The NX20's video mode allows high-def movies to be captured at a maximum resolution of 1080p (1,920 x 1,080 pixels, aka Full HD), with a rate of 30 frames per second. The NX20's movies are recorded in MP4 format using H.264 video compression and AAC audio, in one of two quality levels. Manual and priority exposure are possible for movie capture. As with the NX200, there are also slow-motion modes, and you can apply certain Smart Filter functions in movie mode.

Perhaps the coolest feature for our money, though, is the ability to connect to your phone or tablet, and get a live viewfinder feed on the remote device.

Connectivity options include a Micro USB 2.0 combined data / AV out / remote port, a Micro HDMI (Type D) 1.4a high-def video output, and the previously-mentioned external mic / flash hot shoe connectors. You can also use the NX20 with the company's WGS84 GPS module. Images tagged using this module can be viewed in Google Maps through the bundled intelli-Studio software package, and location names can be viewed on-screen in English or Korean.

Power comes courtesy of a 7.4v BP1310 lithium-ion rechargeable battery pack, rated at 1,300mAh. Battery life is CIPA-rated to 360 shots on a charge. No DC input jack is provided, however the battery compartment door has a cable channel for a dummy battery powered by an AC adapter, though Samsung currently doesn't offer such an accessory.

The Samsung NX20 stores images and movies on an SD/SDHC/SDXC memory card, however the camera does not take advantage of faster UHS cards.  Samsung doesn't seem to recommend a minimum card speed for recording Full HD video, however Class 6 should suffice.

WiFi. We've all seen WiFi cameras come and go over the years, but this time may be different, for several reasons. First, WiFi itself is more ubiquitous than ever, with WiFi antennas even found recently on ski lift towers: WiFi is becoming the near-universal connectivity fabric of modern society.

What's different this time around is that these latest cameras have a whole lot more smarts to deal with WiFi interfacing, and there's also a new "WiFi Direct" protocol that makes it easy for devices to communicate with each other without the fiddling with network names, encryption types, etc., that was needed in the past. If there's an open WiFi network available, these new NX models can use that; but if not, they'll publish their own network to let a phone or computer connect to it.

Suddenly, rather than being islands unto themselves, cameras become true photo sharing hubs, able to email photos or upload to Facebook and YouTube or to a Samsung-provided cloud directly, automatically backup photos to your computer, let you use your smartphone or tablet as a remote viewfinder and shutter release, and connect to your cell phone for photo sharing even when there's no WiFi network around.

We think this is just the first ripple of a wave that's going to sweep through the camera industry in the next few years: Two or three years from now, this sort of connectivity will be expected in cameras, rather than an unusual feature. You can wait for the coming wave, or get onboard now with these latest NX models from Samsung. One way or another, the WiFi wave is coming.

Shooting with the Samsung NX20

by Dan Havlik with Shawn Barnett

The 20.3-megapixel Samsung NX20 is a mirrorless, compact system camera (CSC) that so closely resembles a digital SLR, you sometimes forget it's not a DSLR. The potential for mistaken identity carries over to people who see you shooting with the NX20, with several folks asking me what kind of DSLR it was when I took it out for a spin in New York City's Central Park recently.

Despite its generous handgrip, which makes holding and shooting with the NX20 a comfortable experience, this CSC is a notch smaller than entry-level DSLRs but bigger than most other CSCs. The Samsung has no optical viewfinder, though it does have a decent electronic viewfinder (EVF) and a very nice, swiveling, 3-inch AMOLED display on back to help you compose photos from unusual angles.

The NX20 is Samsung's flagship NX model, so it's packed with a kitchen sink's worth of features. While the NX20 uses the same APS-C CMOS sensor as the slightly smaller NX200 -- which I reviewed for Imaging Resource earlier this year -- it adds WiFi functionality, a pop-up flash and ramped up performance overall, including a fast-motion-freezing shutter speed of 1/8,000 second.

Along with its ability to shoot 1080p HD, the Samsung NX20 can record in stereo thanks to its top-mounted microphones, and it has enough manual and automatic functionality to suit a range of photographers, either those jumping up in class or newbies just getting started.

One of the NX20's most intriguing features is its WiFi functionality. Many manufacturers -- including Samsung -- have tried to add ways to connect cameras to the Internet to share images across social networks, but most have failed, often because the process is too complicated.

In the hand. What's nice about the Samsung NX20 is that it's an easy camera to use. This is no small feat. As with many of Samsung's recent models, the NX20 is a "Smart" camera, which means it's designed to do a lot of the work for you.

I've encountered such "smart" or "intelligent" devices before, whether they're cameras, refrigerators or televisions, and oftentimes their automated features are so over-thought, they're more trouble than they're worth. The Samsung NX20, on the other hand, is a fairly straightforward and familiar-feeling camera that works smoothly.

The all-black Samsung NX20 has a larger handgrip than was on the previous model, but with dimensions of 4.8 x 3.5 x 1.6 inches (122 x 90 x 40mm), it feels slightly smaller overall. The grip's soft, rubberized texture felt comfy in my hand and I didn't get the sense it was going to slip out as with some competing small CSCs. Part of the reason the Samsung NX20 reminds me so much of a DSLR is probably because of the curved bump on top of the camera, which seems like it should be for an optical pentaprism; but since this is a mirrorless camera, the bump is for the EVF and pop-up flash.

The previous flagship CSC in Samsung's lineup, the NX11, was bulkier overall and I prefer the NX20's more curvaceous design with sloped shoulders and a trimmer look and feel. Again, it feels smaller but not petite, so even those with big hands won't have a problem getting a handle on it. At the same time, the Samsung NX20 takes up barely any space in a photo bag and at approximately 22.5 ounces with the kit lens attached, it's not going to weigh you down too much.

The front of the camera is fairly spare, with just the AF-assist lamp, Depth-of-field Preview button and Lens Release button. The top of the camera is dominated by the relatively large, knurled Mode dial, which juts out about a quarter of an inch from the right shoulder.

I didn't mind that Samsung made the dial so prominent on top of the camera -- I used it frequently to adjust settings, though I did find it slightly stiff to turn. The Shutter button is small but well placed for even those with long fingers, and I liked the easy access Jog dial and Multi-function "green" button on the top deck for changing exposure, white balance, color temperature, flash, focus points, and other settings on the fly. On either side of the pop-up flash are the stereo microphones for recording sound while shooting 1080p HD with the NX20. (Make sure your fingers don't accidentally cover them!)

Flip-out screen. The Samsung NX20 has one of the better articulating screens I've tried on a camera recently. Its 3-inch AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic LED) displays 614,400 dots of resolution and features a PenTile array, which means each pixel is comprised of only two subpixels instead of the more typical three. This unique array, which staggers narrow columns of green subpixels with wider columns of alternating red and blue subpixel, is designed to produce the same luminance resolution as a 921,600-dot LCD panel and improve the life of the display over AMOLEDs with RGB striping.

Whatever the science is behind it, the display offered crisp, seemingly high-resolution playback and Live View with 100% coverage. I'm someone who loves using vari-angle, articulating screens for composing shots from up high, down low or from side-angles, and the NX20's 3-inch flip-out display was a helpful tool.

For me, the biggest downside of CSCs in general is that their EVFs can't compare to an optical viewfinder on a DSLR. This is true for the Samsung NX20, as well, though it has a better-than-average EVF, with SVGA (800 x 600) resolution and approximately 100% coverage. The NX20's EVF also has an "Eye Contact Sensor" designed to automatically turn Live View on in the EVF while turning it off on the rear display. As with most cameras that have a similar switching function, I found the sensor to be just a step slow to react. With a wide +/-4 diopter correction though, it's a good fit for most eyes.

The controls and buttons on the rear of the NX20 are similar to the layout on the other CSC cameras in the Samsung NX line and I had no trouble figuring everything out. I like that Samsung has added an AEL (Autoexposure Lock) button on back of the NX20, which is a nice advanced feature I lean on a lot when shooting with a DSLR in mixed lighting situations.

Smart stuff. I've reviewed several Samsung cameras in recent years and continue to be impressed with how logically they integrate external controls with a clear and helpful graphical interface. Returning to the "Smart" theme mentioned earlier, the Samsung NX20's Smart Panel function is a carryover from the NX200, and I was impressed with how it was implemented then as it is now.

Smart Panel, which is called up by pressing the Fn button on the rear of the camera, lets you forego having to dive through menus to change basic camera functions. Instead, pressing the button calls up a friendly display with easy ways to adjust ISO, White Balance, Exposure, burst shooting and many other functions. It's a good system giving you direct access to important features.

I also like Samsung's similar i-Function button on the side of the kit lens -- the feature is available on several of Samsung's CSC lenses -- which lets you change a range of settings quickly. When you're in the PASM modes and press the button, you can choose shutter speed, aperture, EV, ISO, White Balance and other features.

Once you've found what setting you want to adjust, turning the lens ring changes its parameters. The NX20 offers i-Function 2.0, which gives you additional control over features using the lens ring, including Smart Filters and intelli-Zoom, which is a digital zoom / crop function.

Mixed-bag performance. The Samsung NX20 is a relatively nimble camera to use overall, but it probably wouldn't be my first choice to shoot sports or action, despite its spritely 1/8,000th of second maximum shutter speed. (Note: The Samsung NX20 hits that fast speed via an electronic shutter; the mechanical shutter tops out at 1/4,000.) Meanwhile, the NX20's maximum flash sync speed of 1/180 second is good for a CSC, but this is also probably not a camera to use to capture fast motion in the studio.

Don't get me wrong though, the Samsung NX20 is generally quick for a CSC, and its maximum eight frames-per-second shooting speed combined with that fast maximum shutter speed will help you capture some sharp images of motion when shooting a burst of images. Like many cameras in this class, though, the NX20's eight-frame raw or 11-frame JPEG buffer is a hindrance if you're trying to shoot several sequences in a row. The buffer clearing speed is also quite sluggish, taking 15-16 seconds after shooting a full burst of JPEGs or 25-31 seconds after shooting a full raw sequence.

So the Samsung NX20 is not for shooting professional sports, but if you use it for something like street photography or youth athletics it should be fine. As a general rule, I'd recommend shifting to the NX20's slower, three frames-per-second burst speed, which will let you shoot up to 15 JPEGs before slowing down to clear the buffer. Waiting for the camera to catch up to your shooting flow can be frustrating, and sometimes three-frames-per-second is fast enough.

Also I'd keep the NX20 powered on as much as you can because it's a little slow to get started, taking 1.6 seconds to be able to capture an image after you turn it on. Shot-to-shot cycle times were also not impressive, with our lab timing it at 1.4 seconds between large/superfine JPEGs and 1.32 seconds for raw files. Those numbers were pretty close to what I experienced in real-world testing. The Samsung NX20 is definitely a camera you want to do a fair amount of prefocusing on because once it's locked in, the very minimal shutter lag will help you stay on target. At 0.044 second, the NX20's prefocused shutter lag time was much faster than average.

The Samsung NX20's 15-point, contrast-based autofocus system is reasonably fast, though recent CSCs from Olympus and Panasonic are noticeably faster. The camera has single-point and 35-point closeup modes and Face Detection that will detect a maximum of 10 faces. So while the 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 OIS NX kit lens doesn't offer a fast enough maximum aperture to completely blur out the background, it makes a pretty decent portrait shooter. If portraits are your thing -- and you have some money to spend -- we'd recommend splurging for the Samsung 85mm f/1.4 ED SSA Lens (which retails for US$999) and using that with the NX20. You won't regret it (though your spouse might when the credit card statement arrives).

Shooting options. The NX20, as with other CSCs in Samsung's NX line, has plenty of shooting options from the classic PASM modes with full manual control to numerous automated and pre-set choices. I've liked the in-camera tweaks Samsung has offered in the past but, truth be told, they're not significantly different from what you can find offered in some rival cameras. Also, with more photographers having fun with the filter apps on their smart phones to great effect, the NX20's tricks and treats are a bit quaint.

Along with the standard Scene modes such as Landscape, Portrait, Sports, Fireworks and others, the NX20 has Picture Wizard (photo style) options including Vivid (pumped up colors), Forest (pumped up greens), Retro (70s film look), Classic (B&W) and other looks you can add. A bit ho-hum, but I enjoyed some of them, especially the B&W style and the Forest style while shooting in Central Park.

There are also some pretty good Smart Filter effects including Vignetting, Miniature (for a tilt-shift lens effect), Fish Eye, and vintage film effects. There was also a bizarre one called Negative that is designed to apply a negative film effect, but it just looked surreal.

The Samsung NX20's Panorama mode is very similar to automated panorama modes in other cameras, where you simply hold down the shutter and move the camera across the scene to capture a full, wide-angle landscape or cityscape. Results are similar, too, with the NX20 able to capture an impressive panorama with little effort. On the downside, when you zoom in on sections of the panorama, detail is lacking and the image is not particularly sharp.

Image quality. Samsung developed the NX20's 20.3MP, APS-C CMOS image sensor in-house and we're told it's very similar to the chip in the NX200, but with some slightly different circuitry.

We quite liked the image quality from the NX200, so naturally we were pleased with this camera's JPEGs, and especially its raw images. First off, though, that bump to 20.3 megapixels gives you a lot more resolution to work with compared to the previous flagship NX model, which used a 14.6-megapixel sensor. Our Samsung NX20 photos from Central Park had tons of detail and JPEG quality was very good at low to moderate ISOs. At higher ISOs, there was, of course, some noise but it wasn't a significant increase from the previous model despite the increased resolution.

We messed around with a couple of the canned settings during our shoot, and while the Picture Wizard's Forest style setting pumped up the greens even further -- particularly for the algae-filled Turtle Pond -- it seemed like overkill. The Classic B&W style was nice, especially for our shots of Belvedere Castle and a band shell, but we were less charmed with the others.

Video skills. The Samsung NX20 shot fairly decent 1080p HD video at 30p but with some caveats. For one, there's a long (1-1.3 second) shutter lag, when you start movie recording and a 0.7-1 second delay when you stop recording. This can be annoying, especially if you see something spontaneous you'd like to shoot quickly. Unfortunately, this type of lag is not uncommon with video recording on CSCs these days.

On the plus side, we liked that full PASM exposure control is available when shooting video with the NX20. We also thought the image stabilization in the NX20's kit lens worked quite well while shooting video, with no "jerking" with panning as we've seen with some other cameras.

Rolling shutter artifacts were pretty much non-existent. The only time we saw them was when we panned very quickly. This is a vast improvement over previous CSC models when you would get the wobbly "Jello" effect of rolling shutter even when you panned slightly. Overall, we liked the daytime HD video quality from the NX20; however, things did get noisy and grainy when shooting at night. The only way to get decent results at night is by cranking the ISO to 3,200, which, of course, adds noise. (Again, this is annoying but not surprising for CSCs.)

Samsung NX20 WiFi Mode

by Shawn Barnett and Dan Havlik

While the Samsung NX20 is one of the better APS-C-based CSCs we've tried, where it really separates itself from the pack is in its well-implemented WiFi features. Many companies have tried adding wireless to their digital cameras, but most have failed in the market. Comparatively, wireless connectivity and access to social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in smartphones and tablets has been one of the main reasons those devices are so popular. The Samsung NX20 isn't really a match for a highly-connected device like an iPhone, but it does offer a more advanced WiFi experience for a camera.

The Samsung NX20 puts its WiFi access right on the camera's Mode dial so you don't have to hunt for it in menus to turn it on. Once you turn the dial to WiFi, an interface on the rear display helps you choose among a few options. You can connect via the MobileLink app on an Android device to download photos; remotely control the camera with the Remote Viewfinder app, again from an Android device; upload to Facebook, Picasa, YouTube, and Photobucket via the Social Sharing tool; Email your images to any email address, upload your photos to SkyDrive; invoke Auto Backup to copy your photos to a computer; and finally you can connect to a TV wirelessly to display your photos on the big screen. No, the NX20 doesn't have built-in cellular connectivity as is planned for the Samsung's Galaxy Camera that will run Google's Android operating system, but it makes the most of the WiFi connectivity it does have, and it can certainly work with a cell phone's hot spot if you have sufficient data in your plan.

The Samsung NX20 uses 802.11 b/g/n WiFi Direct so you can connect to a wireless network or have the camera act as an access point itself. Though getting it set up was tougher than we had hoped -- using the virtual keyboard feature on back of the NX20 to load in a user name and password for a network was frustratingly slow -- once we connected, it was easy to share images and videos we had just shot to Facebook, Picasa and YouTube.

The NX20's virtual keyboard is one instance where a touchscreen would have been very helpful. Typing into it is a nightmare, because you have to use the arrow keys or the scroll wheel to move around on the Qwerty keyboard. Qwerty is fine for those of us who know how to type, but problematic for those who don't. If you need to insert a capital letter, you have to scroll to the shift button, then back to the letter you seek. Uploading a photo to Facebook was easy until we got to the part where we needed to add a comment. And the text was limited to about 100 characters, so we didn't get to finish the thought.

Samsung also made it simple to email images directly from the NX20. Backing up my NX20 photos to a computer connected via a WiFi network was relatively painless, too.

You can connect the NX20 wirelessly to a phone or a tablet. We tested it with Android devices because iOS apps were not available at the time (Samsung tells us they're coming). You can also use cell phones and tablets as a live viewfinder to compose and snap photos. This feature needs some work, though. The live view in the Remote Viewfinder app did not fill the whole screen on the tablets, and was squashed vertically. Rotating the tablet or phone doesn't rotate the display, but rotating the camera to vertical does rotate the live image to a larger vertical image.

The Samsung NX20's WiFi capability was far from perfect, but it's quite a bit more capable than most of what's gone before. Anyone who can operate a cell phone app should be up and running quickly. We're glad to see WiFi integrated into more cameras, especially more serious models than we've seen in the past.

Samsung NX20 Image Quality

Below are crops comparing the Samsung NX20, Samsung NX200, Canon T4i, Nikon D3200, Olympus EM5, and Sony NEX-7. Though we normally start with ISO 1,600 here, we thought we'd start with the base ISO to show the best each camera can do.

NOTE: These images are best quality JPEGs straight out of the camera, at default settings including noise reduction. All cameras in this comparison were shot with our very sharp reference lenses.

Samsung NX20 versus Samsung NX200 at ISO 100

Samsung NX20 versus Canon T4i at ISO 100

Samsung NX20 versus Nikon D3200 at ISO 100

Samsung NX20 versus Olympus EM5 at base ISO

Samsung NX20 versus Sony NEX-7 at ISO 100

Most digital SLRs and CSCs will produce an excellent ISO 100 shot, so we like to push them and see what they can do compared to other cameras at ISO 1,600, 3,200, and 6,400. Recent advances in sensor technology have made ISO 1,600 look a lot more like ISO 100, but there are still cameras whose quality starts to fall apart at this setting. We also choose 1,600 because we like to be able to shoot at least at this level when indoors and at night.

Samsung NX20 versus Samsung NX200 at ISO 1,600

Samsung NX20 versus Canon T4i at ISO 1,600

Samsung NX20 versus Nikon D3200 at ISO 1,600

Samsung NX20 versus Olympus EM5 at ISO 1,600

Samsung NX20 versus Sony NEX-7 at ISO 1,600

Today's ISO 3,200 is yesterday's ISO 1,600 (well, almost), so below are the same crops at ISO 3,200.

Samsung NX20 versus Samsung NX200 at ISO 3,200

Samsung NX20 versus Canon T4i at ISO 3,200

Samsung NX20 versus Nikon D3200 at ISO 3,200

Samsung NX20 versus Olympus EM5 at ISO 3,200

Samsung NX20 versus Sony NEX-7 at ISO 3,200

Detail: Samsung NX20 versus Samsung NX200, Canon T4i, Nikon D3200, Olympus EM5, and Sony NEX-7

Samsung NX20 Print Quality

ISO 100 shots have enough detail for printing at 24 x 36 inches, though detail in our red leaf swatch is soft right from the start (we'll stipulate this from here on).

ISO 200 images are quite good at 20 x 30 inches, with good color and detail.

ISO 400 images print well at 20 x 30 too, though there is some faint luminance and chroma noise in the shadows. We still call them good.

ISO 800 shots are usable at 20 x 30, but look better at 16 x 20 inches.

ISO 1,600 prints are pretty good at 13 x 19, but blotchy luminance and chroma noise in the shadows is noticeable even from arm's length.

ISO 3,200 shots look better at 8 x 10, but dark colors continue to be marred by the blotchy noise, lightening darks such that it reduces contrast. This effect is diminished when printed at 5 x 7.

ISO 6,400 shots also look good at 5 x 7.

ISO 12,800 shots make good 4 x 6-inch prints from arm's length, but darks are affected by noise, important to note if you're printing a nighttime image.

Overall, the NX20's printed results are quite good. Image quality drops quickly from 1,600 to 3,200, though, something we've seen in past Samsung CSCs. This is quite a bit better, though, so we're happy to report Samsung has improved its image processing above ISO 1,600.

In the Box

The Samsung NX20 ships with the following items in the box:

• Samsung NX20 body
• Samsung 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 OIS NX lens when bought as a kit
• Body cap
• Eye cup
• Hot Shoe cover
• USB cable (AD39-00190A)
• Rechargeable lithium-ion battery (AD43-00192A)
• Battery cradle (AD44-00157A)
• AC power cable (3903-000618)
• Software CD-ROM (AD46-00411A)
• Strap (AD63-07020A)
• User manual Basic Operation (AD68-07276A)

Recommended Accessories

• Extra battery pack for extended outings
• Large capacity SDHC/SDXC memory card. These days, 8GB is a good tradeoff between cost and capacity, but if you plan to capture HD movie clips, look for larger cards with Class 6 or faster ratings.
• Camera case

Samsung NX20 Conclusion

With other APS-C based Compact System Cameras (CSCs) from a company that also starts with "S" getting most of the press these days, it's sometimes easy to overlook Samsung and its line of NX models. This should start to change. The 20.3MP flagship NX20 is the best CSC that Samsung has made so far, and it comes with an abundance of features and an easy-to-use and well-thought-out interface.

The build and design of the Samsung NX20 resembles a small DSLR, which I liked since it fit comfortably in my hand, was ergonomic to use, and had good placement of buttons and controls without weighing me down. At the same time though, I wondered whether I would've have preferred just to have had a DSLR instead. While the flip-out 3-inch AMOLED vari-angle screen was nice for composing and reviewing shots and the electronic viewfinder for your eye wasn't bad, I still prefer a good optical viewfinder like you'd find on a DSLR for composing pictures. I also thought the NX20 was a step slower to use than even an entry-level DSLR overall, with somewhat sluggish start-up and shot-to-shot speeds.

Also, while the 7.5 frames-per-second burst speed of the Samsung NX20 was nice, the buffer fills up quickly and takes time to clear, especially when shooting raw.

On the plus side, image quality from the NX20's APS-C CMOS sensor was very good and our photos had great color and lots of resolution for making big prints and cropping. I also liked the abundance of preset filters for tweaking your images in-camera. However, truth be told, what you'd find on your smart phone with Instagram and Hipstamatic are more fun.

Our photos from the NX20 and its big sensor had a lot less noise though than anything you'd get from a smart phone and its full 1080p HD video shooting was easy to engage and produced excellent results in good light. And speaking of smart phones, while the built-in WiFi on the NX20 did not provide as seamless a photo sharing experience as, for example, an iPhone, it had one of the best WiFi implementations on any camera we've tried. Once you had the camera connected to a WiFi signal, sharing photos and video via Facebook, Picasa, YouTube or even email was a snap. Overall, while the Samsung NX20 had a few minuses in performance, this forward-thinking camera had enough smarts to earn a Dave's Pick.

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NX20 vs X-A5

Sony A5100

$348.00 (15% less)

24.3 MP (16% more)

Lacks viewfinder

76% smaller

NX20 vs A5100

Sony A6500

$1198.00 (67% more)

24.2 MP (16% more)

Also has viewfinder

Similar size

NX20 vs A6500

Olympus E-M10 II

$349.00 (15% less)

16.1 MP (26% less)

Also has viewfinder

7% larger

NX20 vs E-M10 II

Canon EOS M50

$579.00 (31% more)

24.2 MP (16% more)

Also has viewfinder

28% larger

NX20 vs EOS M50

Olympus E-M5 II

$899.00 (56% more)

16.1 MP (26% less)

Also has viewfinder

8% larger

NX20 vs E-M5 II

Panasonic GX85

$597.99 (33% more)

16 MP (27% less)

Also has viewfinder

14% smaller

NX20 vs GX85

Sony A6400

$798.00 (50% more)

24.2 MP (16% more)

Also has viewfinder

10% larger

NX20 vs A6400

Sony A6100

$673.00 (41% more)

24.2 MP (16% more)

Also has viewfinder

9% larger

NX20 vs A6100

Canon EOS M100

$449.00 (11% more)

24.2 MP (16% more)

Lacks viewfinder

69% smaller

NX20 vs EOS M100

Panasonic GX8

$997.99 (60% more)

20.3 MP

Also has viewfinder

34% larger

NX20 vs GX8

Olympus E-PL8

$599.00 (33% more)

16.1 MP (26% less)

Lacks viewfinder

41% smaller

NX20 vs E-PL8

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