With the increase in the impetus on the
mobile and user friendly interfaces today, everything seems to be moving from
the complex to the friendly. And Nikon has taken it one step forward with their
latest release, the Coolpix S800c, an Android based compact camera. With
Nikon’s expertise in the imaging technology and endless possibilities with
Android’s app market, photography enthusiasts around the world have been asking
for something exactly like this for a long time now.
The camera operates on Android 2.3
Gingerbread, and the photographs shot with the camera’s 16 megapixel BSI CMOS
sensor can be instantly uploaded to Flickr, Twitter, Instagaram or pretty much
any social network available in the Google Play store. Apart from that, cloud
storage services, on-camera photo editing and Internet
browsing are some of the endless things one can also use the camera for. The
interface of the 3.5-inch OLED multi touch display is very similar to that of a
modern day smartphone, and though multi touch has been there in the imaging
industry for quite some time now, the Android-powered operating system makes it
something very different from anything we might have seen before. The camera is
expected to smoothly toggle between the camera and Android modes at the touch
of a button, providing the user with full control on the interface.
The camera will be priced at $350 in the
US market, but the price for the Indian market hasn’t been declared yet. The
battery might prove to be a problem, as there are two (camera and Android)
rather than one mode to run on the same battery, and Android devices are known
to have faced battery issues in the past. The Android system is also 2.3; all
the apps currently available on the latest 4.1 system will not be available for
this device. But this is definitely a start, as it will surely result in other
brands dedicating research to better products in the time to come, and the
consumers are sure to win.