Samsung WB650 Review
Image Quality
All of the sample images in this Review were taken using the 12 megapixel Superfine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 5.5Mb.
The Samsung WB650 produced images of above average quality during the review period. Noise is the main problem, being obvious at the relatively slow speed of ISO 200 and then becoming progressively worse at the faster settings of 400 and 800. ISO 1600 and 3200 are only to be used as a last resort.
Chromatic aberrations were very well controlled, with some limited purple fringing effects appearing only in high contrast situations. The 12.2 megapixel images were a little soft straight out of the camera at the default sharpen setting and require some further sharpening in an application like Adobe Photoshop, or you can change the in-camera sharpening level.
Macro performance is good, allowing you to focus as close as 3cms away from the subject. Commendably barrel distortion is well controlled even at the 24mm wide-angle focal length. The built-in flash worked fairly well indoors, with no red-eye and adequate overall exposure.
Anti-shake works very well when hand-holding the WB650 in low-light conditions or when using the telephoto end of the zoom range. The maximum shutter speed of 16 seconds allows the camera to capture enough light for most after-dark situations.
Noise
There are 7 ISO settings available on the Samsung WB650. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting:
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ISO 80 (100% Crop) |
ISO 100 (100% Crop) |
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ISO 200 (100% Crop) |
ISO 400 (100% Crop) |
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ISO 800 (100% Crop) |
ISO 1600 (100% Crop) |
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ISO 3200 (100% Crop) |
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Sharpening
Here are two 100% crops which have been Saved as Web - Quality 50 in Photoshop. The right-hand image has had some sharpening applied in Photoshop. The out-of-the camera images are a little soft at the default sharpening setting. You can change the in-camera sharpening level if you don't like the default look.
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Original (100% Crop) |
Sharpened (100% Crop) |
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Focal Range
The Samsung WB650's 15x zoom lens provides a focal length of 24-360mm in 35mm terms, as demonstrated below.
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24mm |
360mm |
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File Quality
The Samsung WB650 has 3 different image quality settings available, with Superfine being the highest quality option. Here are some 100% crops which show the quality of the various options, with the file size shown in brackets.
| 12M Superfine (4.79Mb) (100% Crop) | 12M Fine (2.57Mb) (100% Crop) |
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| 12M Normal (1.77Mb) (100% Crop) | |
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Chromatic Aberrations
The Samsung WB650 handled chromatic aberrations very well during the review, with limited purple fringing mainly present around the edges of objects in high-contrast situations, as shown in the examples below.
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Example 1 (100% Crop) |
Example 2 (100% Crop) |
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Macro
The Samsung WB650 offers a Macro setting that allows you to focus on a subject that is 3cms away from the camera when the lens is set to wide-angle. The first image shows how close you can get to the subject (in this case a compact flash card). The second image is a 100% crop.
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Macro Shot |
100% Crop |
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Flash
The flash settings on the Samsung WB650 are Auto, Auto & Red-eye reduction, Fill-in flash, Slow sync, Flash off, and Red eye fix. These shots of a white coloured wall were taken at a distance of 1.5m.
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Flash Off - Wide Angle (24mm) |
Flash On - Wide Angle (24mm) |
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Flash Off - Telephoto (360mm) |
Flash On - Telephoto (360mm) |
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And here are a couple of portrait shots. As you can see, neither the Auto setting or the Red Eye Fix option caused any amount of red-eye.
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Flash On |
Flash On (100% Crop) |
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Red Eye Fix |
Red Eye Fix (100% Crop) |
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Night
The Samsung WB650's maximum shutter speed is 16 seconds in the Manual mode, which is great news if you're seriously interested in night photography. The shot below was taken using a shutter speed of 6 seconds at ISO 80.
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Night Shot |
Night Shot (100% Crop) |
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Anti Shake
The Samsung WB650 has an anti-shake mechanism, which allows you to take sharp photos at slower shutter speeds than other digital cameras. To test this, I took 2 handheld shots of the same subject with the same settings. The first shot was taken with anti shake turned off, the second with it turned on. Here are some 100% crops of the images to show the results. As you can see, with anti shake turned on, the images are much sharper than with anti shake turned off. This feature really does seem to make a difference and could mean capturing a successful, sharp shot or missing the opportunity altogether.
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Shutter Speed / Focal Length |
Anti Shake Off (100% Crop) |
Anti Shake On (100% Crop) |
| 1/15 sec / 24mm | |
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| 1/8 sec / 360mm | |
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Sample Images
This is a selection of sample images from the Samsung WB650 camera, which were all taken using the 12 megapixel Superfine JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.
Sample Movie & Video
This is a sample movie at the highest quality setting of 1280 x 720 pixels at 30 frames per second. Please note that this 11 second movie is 13Mb in size.
As of February 2025, we are no longer providing full size sample images or videos for download.
Please contact us if you have any feedback on our new policy.
Product Images
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Front of the Camera |
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Front of the Camera / Turned On |
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Isometric View |
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Isometric View |
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Rear of the Camera |
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Rear of the Camera / Image Displayed |
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Rear of the Camera / Turned On |
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Rear of the Camera / Main Menu |
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Rear of the Camera / Function Menu |
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Top of the Camera |
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| Bottom of the Camera |
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| Side of the Camera |
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| Side of the Camera |
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| Front of the Camera |
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| Front of the Camera |
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| Memory Card Slot |
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| Battery Compartment |
Conclusion
The Samsung WB650 adds two significant features to its little brother, the WB600, namely a much better AMOLED screen and genuinely useful geo-tagging features, without increasing the price by too much. Identical in all other respects, it still suffers from a rather bulky design and unwanted noise at relatively slow ISO speeds, but otherwise the WB650 is a great travel-zoom camera.
The built-in GPS adds a whole new dimension to your photos, making it easy to display them on a website like Google Earth or even on the camera itself, once you've completed the rather laborious process of downloading the maps from Samsung's website and copying them into the correct folder structure on a memory card. Although leaving the GPS turned on all the time compromises the battery life somewhat, it's still a great feature that you won't want to turn off. The AMOLED screen is also worth the slight price premium over the WB600, with a much higher resolution and better visibility in bright sunlight and at extreme angles.
The 15x lens raises the bar above its main rival, the Panasonic TZ series, but does so at the expense of making the camera thicker and heavier. You can just about fit the WB650 into a trouser pocket, but it's something of a tight squeeze. The 24-360mm optically-stabilized lens is undoubtedly very versatile though, so the WB650 makes sense if you really need the extra reach. The Aperture and Shutter priority sensibly bridge the gap between the multitude of hand-holding technologies and and the fully manual option.
As you'd expect, picture quality is identical to the WB600. With ideal shooting conditions the WB650 impresses with its vivid, colour-rich imagery, with the caveat that this can veer towards looking slightly unrealistic on occasion. In low-light things aren't quite so rosy, with noise appearing at ISO 200 and becoming progressively worse as you move up the range, making this a camera best suited to sunny days.
Finally, as with most Samsung cameras, the WB650 has price on it's side, officially costing £100 / $50 less than its main rival, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ10. While the image quality isn't quite as good in terms of noise, the longer zoom, AMOLED screen, and more sophisticated A/S/M modes make the WB650 a very capable and crucially cheaper alternative to its Japanese competitor. Highly recommended.
| Ratings (out of 5) | |
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| Design | 4 |
| Features | 5 |
| Ease-of-use | 4 |
| Image quality | 4 |
| Value for money | 4.5 |
Review Roundup
Reviews of the Samsung WB650 from around the web.
trustedreviews.com »
Samsung's previous entry into this field was the WB550 (£170), launched late last year, which while a very competent camera looked a bit pale compared to the advanced features of arch-rival Panasonic's market-leading flagship. Not to be outdone Samsung has launched a new model in the WB series, the WB650, which which matches or exceeds the TZ10 in all areas of its specification.
Read the full review »
Specifications
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Information displayed is accurate at time of launch |
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Usage note |
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| Image sensor | Type | 1/2.3" (1.10cm) CCD | ||
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| Effective Pixel | Approx. 12 Mega-pixel | |||
| Total Pixel | Approx. 14.2 Mega-pixel | |||
| Lens | Focal Length | Schneider Lens f = 3.9 ~ 58.5mm (35mm film equivalent : 24 ~ 360 mm) | ||
| F No. | F3.2 (W) ~ F5.8 (T) (TBD) | |||
| Digital Zoom | Still Image mode : 1.0x ~ 5.0xPlay mode : 1.0x ~ 12.5x (depends on image size) | |||
| Focusing | Type | TTL auto focus (Multi AF, Centre AF, Selection AF, Face Detection AF, Face Recognition AF, Object Tracking AF) Focus Area, Manual Focus | ||
| Range | Normal : 80cm ∼ ∞ (W), 200cm ~ ∞(T) Macro : 3cm ~ 80cm (W) / 100cm ~ 200cm (T) AutoMacro : 3cm ∼ ∞ (W), 100cm ~ ∞ (T) | |||
| Exposure | Compensation | ±2EV (1/3EV steps) | ||
| Control | Program AE, Shutter AE, Aperture Priority AE or Manual ExposureAE Lock (TBD) | |||
| ISO Equivalent | Auto, 80, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200 | |||
| Metering | Multi, Spot, Centre Weighted, Face Detection AE | |||
| Flash | Modes | Auto, Auto & Red-eye reduction, Fill-in flash, Slow sync, Flash off, Red eye fix | ||
| Recharging Time | Approx. under 4sec. | |||
| Range | Wide : 0.3m ~ 5.0m, Tele : 0.5m ~ 3.0m (ISO AUTO) (TBD) | |||
| Storage | Media | Internal Memory : TBD External Memory (Optional) : SD (up to 2GB guaranteed) SDHC (up to 8GB guaranteed) (1) | ||
| File format | Still Image : JPEG (DCF), EXIF 2.21, DPOF 1.1, PictBridge 1.0 Movie Clip : MP4 (H.264 (MPEG4.AVC)) Audio : WAV | |||
| Image Size | 12M : 4000 x 3000 pixels, 8M : 3264 x 2448 pixels, 5M : 2560 x 1920 pixels, 3M : 2048 x 1536 pixels 1M : 1024 x 768 pixels, 9MW : 3840 x 2160 pixels, 2MW :1920 x 1080 pixels, 10MP : 3984 x 2656 pixels | |||
| Interface | Audio | Microphone : StereoInternal Speaker : Mono | ||
| Digital output connector | HDMI Type D built-in (Cable sold separately) | |||
| Video Out | AV : NTSC, PAL (user selectable) HDMI 1.4 : NTSC, PAL (user selectable) (2) | |||
| DC power input | TTA 20Pin | |||
| Physical Specification | Dimensions (WxHxD) | 106.6 x 60.5 x 28mm | ||
| Weight | 214.6g (without battery and card) | |||
| Operating Temperature | 0 ~ 40°C | |||
| Operationg Humidity | 5 ~ 85% | |||
| Display | Type | AMOLED | ||
| Feature | 3.0" Visual VGA Screen Panel AMOLED | |||
| Movie Clip | Recording | With Audio or without Audio (Max Recording time : 20min) 15x Optical Zoom enable (3) | ||
| Effect | *Photo Style Selector : Normal, Soft, Vivid, Forest, Retro, Cool, Calm, Classic, Negative, Custom, Defog, Skecth*Lens Effect : Miniature, Vignetting, Fish-eye I, Fish-eye II | |||
| Edit | Pause during recording, Still Image Capture, Time Trimming | |||
| Multimedia functions | Additional functions | Map viewer with GPS | ||
| Still Image | Shooting | Smart Auto, Auto , Program, A/S/M, Dual IS, Scene, Movie, Map View (TBD) (4) | ||
| Effect | Photo Style Selector : Normal, Soft, Vivid, Forest, Retro, Cool, Calm, Classic, Negative, Custom, Defog, Sketch Lens Effect : Miniature, Vignetting, Fish eye Image Adjust : Sharpness (Soft+, Soft, Normal, Vivid, Vivid+), Contrast (High+, High, Normal, Low, Low+), Saturation (++, +, Normal, -) | |||
| Edit | Image Edit : Resize, Rotate, TrimmingPhoto Style Selector : Normal, Soft, Vivid, Forest, Retro, Cool, Calm, Classic, Negative, CustomSpecial Effect : Colour Filter, Add Noise, Shaded, Elegant, High LightImage Adjust : Face Retouch, Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Red Eye Fix, ACBFun : Big Head, Mosaic, Snow, Highlight | |||
| Special Feature | • 14.x Mega-pixel • 15x Schneider Lens • 3.0" Visual VGA Screen AMOLED • Dual Image Stabilisation : Optical IS + Digital IS | |||
| System Requirement in general | For Windows | PC with processor better than PentiumIII 500MHz (PentiumIII 800MHz recommended) Windows 2000 / XP / Vista 250MB of available hard-disk space (Over 1GB recommend) Minimum 256MB RAM (Over 512MB recommended) USB portCD-ROM drive1024 x 768 pixels, 16-bit colour display compatible monitor (24-bit colour display recommended) Microsoft DirectX 9.0 or later | ||
| For Macintosh | Power Mac G3 or laterMac OS 10.3 or higher Minimum 256MB RAM110MB of available hard-disk space USB portCD-ROM drive | |||
| System Requirement for 720P H.264 Movie | For Windows | Intel Pentium 4, 3.2GHz or higher / AMD Athlin 64FX, 2.6GHz or higher Windows XP service pack2 / VistaMinimum 512MB RAM (1GB and above recommended) 64MB or greater video card (nVIDIA Geforce 7600GT or higher / ATI X1600 series or higher recommended) | ||
| For Macintosh | 64MB or greater video card | |||
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