Samsung Wave 3 review

With a 5 megapixel, LED flash assisted main camera capable of shooting 720p video at 30fps the Samsung Wave III might not at first glance appear to be extremely well appointed. Such specifications are widespread these days, and you might ask for more than a VGA camera sitting on the front of the chassis too.

But counting the pixels isn't the only way to evaluate a camera, and we found the Wave III's easy to use and versatile. It has plenty of camera extras such as geo tagging, blink detection, and an anti shake system you might find useful too. There's touch focus too – so you can tap an area of the screen and get the camera to focus on precisely that rather than whatever it thinks it should. Used carefully this can lead to some fun effects.

It is easy to get to the settings. You just tap an arrow at the side of the screen and out pops a small control panel which you can tap at. There's even an option to switch from the main to the front camera here.

Outdoors early on a dull morning the colours in this photo are as washed out as they were in real life. The detailing isn't bad, though

Inside in a fairly dull-lit museum this image is not too bad, and you can zoom into the text with enough quality to read it back

Now that's more like it. Indoors in a well lit café these food shots are colourful and bright.

It's not often moggy sits this still for a photo and this and the following close ups were shot using macro mode – we were only a few inches from the feline fizzog at the time.

The sepia filter turns everything an odd shade of brown

Greyscale produces the expected black and white photo

Negative mode makes our feline friend look a little scary

Using macro mode and the ability to tell the camera where to focus we experimented, er, taking pictures of our leg. Well, it makes the point and you could use the feature in more arty ways.