A world of change

LAS VEGAS — Sixty percent of the camcorders that Samsung sells are bought by women. And not because they are painted a patronizing pink, either. According to Samsung VP of digital media, Seung Soo Park, moms buy most of the cameras because they’re not gear-heads and instead want something simple that just works.

Samsung’s latest lineup has been tweaked to fit this demographic. Take the SMX-C24, which is as simple as the Flip camcorders, and easier to use. Open the screen and it switches on — there’s no extra power button. The lens at the front is tilted up, so the body of the camera can be held at a more comfortable downward angle, and the software needed to transfer video to your computer runs direct from the camera itself, so there’s no software to install on a PC.

Better, once you give it your YouTube account login, video uploads are a matter of connecting it to a computer and hitting a button on the camera. Video is shot at 720×480 and stills at 2MP onto 16GB of internal memory, and that’s about it. Simple, and easy to just pick up and start shooting. Exactly what you want if you’re filming kids.

Mr. Park made another interesting comment. The average lifecycle of these mommy-cams is 2-3 years, so Samsung doesn’t design them to last much longer. What’s the point of a heavy-metal chassis if it’ll be tossed in the trash in a couple years? Instead of feeling cheap, though, the SMX-C24 feels solid and absurdly light. So light that I didn’t think it had the battery in it.

Expect these in February, price yet to be announced.