Samsung HMXU10 UltraCompact FullHD Camcorder with 10 MP

this one sucks
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
I’d create a video review if it weren’t for the fact that the HMX-U10 seems to skip partial seconds of taping. I also have to see the first video were sound and image are in synch. My daughter will sound out a word a second before here mouth starts moving.

All of this may be due to the memory I’m using although I haven’t seen anything in the documentation that states any incompatiblities. Also I have only tried taping in 1080p. I can’t comment on the lower resolutions but then again I didn’t buy it for the lower resolutions.

Oh as for the one touch upload to Youtube that hasn’t succeeded yet either. Setting up the connection through the software was fairly easy but everytime I upload my move I get an Error Code 1 (very descriptive). and only a partial upload ends up on youtube.

Also a mayor downside to this camera is the view screen. If you deviate maybe 4 degrees from looking straight at the screen you see nothing. Not very convenient when trying to shoot a 2 year old (that is unless I go about life on my knees from now on).

Maybe I was expecting way too much from a 1080p camera for only $[...] (oh yeah did I mention amazon delayed the black model 3 times, so I changed it to a red model. The day it arrive it dropped $[...] in price).

what a disappointment!!! I’ll wait until my new memory gets in but this one is probably going back

The Product is Inexpensive!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Many consumers who commented on this product seems to be frustrated by certain aspects of the camera.

Although they are somewhat valid, I am not sure if they realize how much they have paid for the product.

Currently, this camcorder is selling for about ~$110 and this product does the perfect job for the price. The image is clear and it is very easy to use.

If you want to buy a camcorder with superior sound quality, etc, then you should upgrade to Samsung camcorders that are in the $500 range. If you want to spend less and just want to capture the moments at decent quality, this camcorder is it!

Jumped Before I Looked & Got Burned On the Samsung HMX-U10
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
I just finished boxing up this product back to Amazon and am compelled to write this review to help others make an informed purchase from someone who used the product.

I had been in the market for an ultra compact HD camera for about 3 months after tiring of the mini DVD cam I had for about 10 years. When I read about Samsung’s entry into the market I knew I had to wait, because I love their quality in general. Plus, the promise of a 10mg digital camera with one-touch upload to Youtube and SD card capability made this a no brainer for me.

My primary uses would be 1) capturing family moments with the kids without having to resort to carrying the larger camcorder and a supply of DVDs everywhere we go. And, 2) shooting stationary video for my v-log entries.

When the product arrived, I was really happy. On the positive side, I like how compact it is.

- Ergonomically, it fits really well in my hand and I actually like the controls. While the touch controls are sensitive, I didn’t have any problems easily selecting my options.

- The camera is completely intuitive. I was using it straight out of the box as soon as I inserted the SD card. Switching between video, pictures, and playback is a cinch! Very nice.

- Compact. The camera’s size is unbelievable. It easily fits pretty much anywhere you have a pocket. Fantastic.

- Appearance is spot on too. It’s a nice looking camera.

Now for the overwhelming negatives:

- The image quality is dreadful. Not only is it grainy indoors, but unless you have a lot of light it’s almost unusable. It’s also really choppy, which I don’t like.

- The sound quality doesn’t seem to match up with the video. While the mic picked up the sound, it didn’t match upon playback.

- Picture quality. Don’t be fooled by the 10mg capability. I challenge you to take a quality shot with this camera. Forget about anything indoors and stand as still as you can and it’s still going to be blurry. Unless you plan on carrying a tripod everywhere, forget it.’

I really, REALLY wanted to love this video camera, but I had to send it back. The concept is a good one, but it is nowhere near acceptable in the performance category, which is a shame since these are used to record family memories.

I am really quite angry at Samsung for putting this type of garbage on the market. They are smart people and must know about this product’s shortcomings.

I am an absolute research hound before I buy products, especially technology related ones. But, this time I wanted to be the first one on the block and I got burned. Had I just waited a week or two I would have seen the negative reviews and steered clear. I will give a look at the Flip Mino, but may not even buy an ultra compact at this point, because I can’t see how the video and indoor, low light quality can be that much improved on such a small device.

Buyer beware, there are better options out there.

HORRIBLE!!! Shame on Samsung!!!
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
LEt me start by saying I have owned the following:

Vado HD

Flip Ultra HD

and the Samsung HMX-U10

This camera is going back after two days of testing.

Cons:

Everything

Pros:

7 degree angle

1080HD (Didnt look any better than the Vado)

The controls on this camera are heat sensitive, think original ipod controls. Howver there is about a millimeter of space between the direction and the “ok” button causing you to hit the wrong buttons almost 90% of the time. SO ANNOYING!!!! Not only that when you are shooting video it is VERY easy to accidentally hit one of these buttons.

The camera lens seems to be the LEAST wide angled of the three cameras I have tried. I was about five feet from my daughter and I think I filmed her eyelashes. Like the poster above you really need to be at the height of the object being filmed. Horrible with low light, not even visable. Horrible in bright light, the camera seems to get confused and keep trying to adjust. My daughter looked like the guy from the movie powder in the sunlight.

Intlistudio is worthless

It is disappointing that Samsung had all the research possible with Flip and Vado coming out early. Samsung definately flopped with this camera. Vado is by far the best of the class.

One quick note, the point of these pocket camcorders is eas of use. This camera almost has too many options which bogs down the fun and easy of point and shoot. Maybe this is a personal preference but my wife would not use this camera as much as the Vado because of confusion.

Last, the connections SUCK!!!! I mean how can Samsung not put mini HDMI to HDMI on this??? The Ultra and the Vado do. I mean you have this tiny camera and then you have to plug in COMPONENTS??? 5 wires that need to be plugged in. It would almost be better with Red white yellow. The USB plugin is too close to the flap that covers it. So when you plug it in you feel like you are going to break the flap. Another problem, the rest of this class has the USB attached which is MUCH easier. Why have another wire lying around?

If you are new to the pocket camera world, get the Vado HD (first version) for 110 dollars. Save money, looks great, just came out with a software that works with a mac. Wide angled lens, mini hdmi, buiilt in memory, three button controls, comes with protective sleeve and hdmi wire. The Vado HD is the best, dont get the second version because it is the same camera just in a new flashy color, which doesnt matter because you put a silicon sleeve on it.

Samsung laid an egg on this one, hence the 20 dollar drop in price in just 2 days after the release. Hope this helps

A Poor Product all around
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
Poor video quality

Poor sound qualty

Poor usability

Poor software

Poor battery life

Poor ergonomics

Poor LCD screen

Poor value for the price.

not happy – returned after 8 hours
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
1. the low to medium light performance is ridiculous – I wouldn’t keep it if the camera was [...];

others have said that; my 9 year old miniDV Panasonic camera (which this was supposed to replace)

is much better; indoor performance is just too poor – I used

the lower resolutions – did not make any difference;

2. tactile feedback from the controls is non existent; so you have to constantly look at the screen to

see if the commands were taken; this is a poorly designed user interface;

3. viewing angle for the LCD on the back is also ridiculous – the technology to avoid this is >10 years old

why is this so bad??

something which is my fault and I underestimated the importance of it: the need for some stabilization;

it doesn’t matter that is 1080p if the picture shakes and makes you dizzy;

I gave it one star above horrible because of the memory card feature – I think this is the way to go; it

also includes some adaptor for a tripod which I appreciate.

bad bad bad,20 hours and i sent it back, poor video terrible pictures
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
It was a great price from amazon, $114 and worth $20

The old flip we have is better, the video is real bad. grannie the pictures are blurry and look like 1 meg from 10 years ago.

do not buy. its terrible

Samsung made a great little camera
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I have read a lot of negative reviews about this camera and I can honestly say, “I don’t get it”. some people said there were lipsync issues, lousy video and bad still shots. I have put this little HD camcorder through it’s paces and have had no issues at all. Is it the best camera out there? No, but it is far from terrible as some have said.

Easy to operate with some decent features and great quality. Now if you are expecting to get 500 dollars worth of camera for the 149.00 price point, then you will probably be disappointed. This baby takes better video than some full size vhs camcorders I had back in the day and I had to carry those on my shoulder. I’m sure the tech on the mini camcorders will get even better as time goes by but these minis are still pretty new.

I can definitely recommend this camera.

Sorry, but no go…
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
I was hoping the other reviewers were missing something, but they were not. When they said the video quality was very poor, they were not joking. Pictures were not too bad, but the video and audio are way out of sync if you go anywhere above 720/30, and way too grainy.

Back to the store…

Initial impressions are good, product performance is lacking
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
I was able to play with this camera for about 30 minutes before coming to work (where I am writing this review), so these are very preliminary thoughts.

The form factor of the camera is great, it fits well in my big hands and my girlfriend’s smaller hands. The camera turns on very quickly, and seems to charge rapidly as well. Using the camera while it is plugged in (not a likely scenario, but you never know) is awkward because the charger port is covered by a cheaply attached piece of plastic. Again, probably not a big deal, but it is the same attachment for the cover on the USB connector port, so if you are going to be docking this with your computer often it could be an issue.

I plugged in the 8GB micro SDHC card from my phone (via an SD adaptor)while the camera was on and it recognized it instantly, and I had approximately 90 minutes of 1080p video or 3000+ still pictures.

Initial still photo quality was less than stellar, pictures were washed out and about cell phone camera quality. I changed the camera to the indoor lighting setting and noticed a marked improvement, although on the LCD they weren’t what I expected for a 10MP camera.

Initial video quality was excellent when played back on the camera. Sound capture seemed to be excellent indoors, with no distortion during playback on the camera.

I will update this after a few hours of playing with the camera, and I will upload a video example.

UPDATE: Using this camera in a TGI Fridays restaurant with typical dim lighting was horrible. I can understand that, so I tried using it at home with all the lights on in the living room. Everything was washed out and grainy at every setting except the lowest video setting, which is certainly not why I bought a HD video camera. This one is being returned.

Not as good as the Flip
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
I bought this and took it back the same day. Its indoor video quality is horrible unless you have a LOT of light. The still pics, although its 10mp, it doesn’t matter because if you more, or the target moves at all, your picture is junk. I bought an 8GB SD card (class 2), which apparently isn’t good enough because I got an error when trying to record at a high quality. So you have to buy a higher class SD card (which I didn’t even know existed), otherwise, your video will skip along.

I took it back for the Flip and was extremely happy with the Flip. Sorry Samsung, this is dissappointing.

Menus are not as intuitive as I would have hoped.
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
The picture quality seems as good as I would have expected. There are a lot of menu options and navigating them is not as intuitive as it could be. Getting to the right menu is still a bit of a mystery to me. There seems to be at least two different menu trees and I don’t always get to the tree with the stuff I want to do. Hooking up to a television is requires making several choices on different menus and the documentation options are not as easy to determine as I would like. I think overall the device is very powerful you probably get as many possibilities as you would on many regular camcorders (except for zooming). I had hoped the simplicity part would have been greater.

I had hoped that the device would be simple enough that you could give it to a teacher or one of the students in the class and they could shoot and download or display the info without any outside instruction. I don’t think they will be able to. I don’t want to imply that it is so difficult that the average person couldn’t figure out how to operate it. It is just that there is a learning curve.

I realy wanted to like it, but No!
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
I would have submitted a video review but all I have is this crappy little samsung.

Still pictures are very bad, video is the same. The controls are smooth, impossible to distinguish by feel. I want my money back and an apology from samsung.

Wasn’t what I expected!!!!!!
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
I’m a gadget guy. I use to buy all the new stuff and try it. My really hope was the HMX U10. I was telling friends not to buy other cameras, because in a few days would come the new camera from Samsung. Well, first I read all the reviews from other users and got impressed, but keep waiting for mine to come. When I received, I went to the stadium to Watch Miami Heat x Chicago Bulls. Well, one of my worst experiences with a camera. The image is really bad, in places with too many light and movement, things became like ghosts. Still images are really bad. I tried to took some of the players and from me, and all (took like 20) were terrible. Not necessary to say that in the next day I went to UPS and sent it back to AMazon. Really don’t believe that this is a FULL HD camera and 10 mp still images. I want to be pretty clear, I’m not talking about usability (pretty the same of others), I’m talking that the quality of image is really bad.

What a disappointment
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
This camera stinks. I bought it without reading reviews first. I like the brand Samsung, and I liked the comfort angle. At home, I realized how sensitive the menu touch controls are on the back. Absolutely horrible. It’s a smooth surface and you have no way to differentiate the buttons except by looking carefully to see what you’re pressing. I was constantly hitting OK in the center by accident as I was trying to press the arrows on sides or top/bottom. It’s way too touch sensitive and I could never hit the arrows I wanted on the first try.

At least the record/stop button is normal.

I used it just once to see how the image would come out. I was indoors, and the screen was so dark, I could barely see if I was filming what I wanted to capture.

I’ll do my research like I usually do before I buy its replacement.

No Go
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
Received as a gift about a week ago. The battery was already half charged so I played with it during Thanksgiving dinner. Of course, this was 7pm at night and every light in the house was on including overhead. The picture was awful! I could barely see faces as though there weren’t even lights on. It is also very shakey. I attempted to take photos and they came out brighter than the video but blurred like my focal point tried to dash away. I took 20 photos of the same thing over and over trying to get a single in focus and it would not work. I can’t say anything about video quality as I only played back what I recorded on the camcorder, not a TV or HD tv. I’d rather use the video capabilities my digital camera offers.

Ending result: SAVE YOUR MONEY.

appleman
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
Waited for it to come out. Purchase it.

It turns out that it will not work with Apple Computers.

Called Samsung, the inexperienced woman at Samsung told me to Try on Windows System.

Right! I need to change system for a stupid $200 Samsung camcorder.

Samsung wake up.

Decent Little Camera
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I bought this camera before Christmas and purchased it because of the good price and when I got home, I was disappointed with the reviews on Amazon but decided to give it a try. Seriously, it’s a great little camera for the price. Except for a few glitches, the camera has been fantastic.

I am a professional dog trainer and compete in dog agility trials. Video taping runs and practice sessions are very important to see what is going on. I stopped bringing my large mini DV camera. I wanted something small that would fit in my training bag and not add bulk.

1) The video quality is very good. I got home realizing I do not have USB2 for transferring and taping anything in HD took too long for my older computer to load to You Tube. I solved that by recording in SD. The quality is better than my mini DV cam.

2) Uploading to the computer or internet is simple. My videos in HD are out of sync but again that’s my computer. If I upload them to You Tube, they sync problem goes away.

3) The editing software is horrible. Once our new computer arrives, I will find a better editing software.

4) The zoom is shaky and not fluid. Not really a big deal for my purposes.

5) The buttons that operate the camera are extremely touch sensitive and not. If I try to select a video to the right, I find it going left instead. It’s an annoyance and could be better designed but again, not that big of a deal.

This camera is inexpensive and I don’t expect it to have broadcast quality video. Seriously, it’s exactly as advertised. It’s a great little camera for the money.

i like it…
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
UPDATE as of 12/18/09: I still don’t really have a big problem with this camcorder however the software that came with it has a major problem. i was trying to edit videos, spent about 30~40 minutes and the software froze on me and lost all the work i’ve done. i thought may be there’s a problem with my computer so i worked at it again for about 30~40 minutes and the program froze again and lost everything again. very unhappy!!! Anyone else experience the same problem with the software?

I spent about a month researching for the right handheld camcorder for me. it came down to the new flip mino and this samsung. i just couldn’t justify spending extra 50~60 bucks for flip mino over this samsung. fortunately i got this for $[...] and i noticed it went back up to $[...]. i was pretty nervous about the samsung because of all the bad reviews, especially on QVC website. but then again, it looked like people who bought on QVC sounded like they thought they were buying a digital camera and surprised at the fact that the picture quality wasn’t as good. i think they probably would have written the same negative review if they bought the flip mino. (where’s the flash? where’s the camera function? no zoom? no macro?)

i read whole bunch of reviews about how hard it is to figure out how to use this thing… are you kidding me? i got this one yesterday, charged overnight and started using even without looking at any manual. really?!?!? is it that hard to browse through the menu and select the options and setting you like? is it that hard to press that little button with the red dot and the video camera icon? heck, they even made it so simple that once you connect the devise to your computer for the first time, it automatically downloads the software for you.

honestly, i just started using this today so my review might be premature but so far i have no problem with it and i’m glad i’ve decided to buy this one. my honest rating would probably 3 and half to 4 stars but decided to give 5 stars just to offset the 1 star reviews.