Samsung TL500 (EX1)

The Samsung TL500 (EX1 in Europe) is a premium compact camera with a fast f/1.8-2.4 wide angle 3x (24-72mm equiv.) image stabilized zoom lens. It comes with an 1/1.7"" 10MP CCD sensor and a 3.0"" multi-angle AMOLED display. The camera also offers full manual control, RAW capture, VGA video recording in H.264 format and a new faster DRIMeIII processor. Its biggest limitation is that the lens range is a touch short for some subjects (particularly head-and-shoulders portraits).

The Samsung TL500 is a very good camera - it takes good images, has a great lens, flexible feature set and, unlike most mirrorless cameras, it maintains its go-anywhere, shoot anytime capability when slipped into a jacket or coat pocket. The TL500's few quirks are not significant enough that we'd consider it less desirable than more polished competitors (the Panasonic LX5 and Olympus XZ-1 being the most obvious), but its advantages are similarly marginal.