Samsung Announces NFC-Enhanced Galaxy Camera 2 Ahead of CES 2014

Just before the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas begins, Samsung has announced the second generation of its push into the pure photography market with the Samsung Galaxy Camera 2. The next generation smart camera includes some features that the company hopes will boost its device ecosystem.

Samsung made the announcement in a release on Thursday. The Galaxy Camera 2 includes some hardware upgrades and more connectivity than the previous generation, but it still looks like a camera - not a smartphone or camera/phone hybrid - which is Samsung's way of trying to entice photography buffs to ditch traditional camera brands and enter its connected Galaxy of devices.

"Consumers love the Galaxy Camera, and this next-generation version was designed to improve on the successful predecessor, with upgraded and new features that will enhance the photography experience," said Myoung Sup Han, Executive Vice President and Head of the Imaging Business Team at Samsung Electronics. "The result is a more powerful and portable device which continues to embrace the public's passion for the social features of smartphones, yet also provides superior image control and quality. We are dedicated to making it easier for more people to achieve great results and with the Galaxy Camera 2's host of creative features, anyone can capture stand out images." 

Like its predecessor, the Galaxy Camera 2 runs on Android software (updated to Jelly Bean 4.3 to be exact), and has a big 4.8-inch touchscreen that makes up the back of the device. It also features an optical zoom lens with up to 21x magnification, a 16.3-megapixel sensor, ISO up to 3200, 8GB of memory with an included cloud storage option and microSD card support, and WiFi connectivity (it's not clear yet if there will be a 4G option like before). There's a pop-up Xenon flash built in  as well.

The Galaxy Camera 2 now includes an enhanced 2000mAh battery and a 1.6Ghz Quad Core processor with 2GB of RAM, and comes with NFC capability, along with some new software that Samsung hopes will encourage device-to-device image sharing.

Local Sharing

The original Samsung Galaxy Camera came ready for Facebook, Instagram, and other social media networks out of the box as part of Samsung's push for an all-in-one social sharing camera. The second incarnation of the camera includes all of the social media photography junky stuff, but improves on local sharing and storage with "Tag & Go," a feature that allows the device to connect to NFC-enabled smartphones and other devices. Users can automatically pair their devices and transfer images using functions like Photo Beam (direct and immediate) or Mobile Link (more an image-transfer queuing feature).

Also using NFC, photographers can control the camera remotely with other devices using Remote Viewfinder, which may be the camera's killer app for time exposures, selfies, or difficult-to-get shots that could benefit from a full-function remote control.

Samsung is known for its great smartphone photography software, and has included all of those apps, plus some new presets, editing, and other photography-centric bells and whistles in the new camera.

Camera Specs

For photography buffs interested in a non-DSLR digital camera, here are the technical camera specs.