Samsung Pixon 12 review

Do more megapixels make for a better mobile?

The Samsung Pixon 12
The Samsung Pixon 12

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

It's not hard to see what Samsung is trying to do with the Pixon 12 M8910, a mobile that's more camera than phone. However, it's important that when doing something like this it shouldn't be more about the camera than anything else - it should be about the phone as well, with a camera a decent effort on the back of it.

It's for this reason we've got high hopes for Sony Ericsson's Satio, with its 12MP snapper and the Walkman innards to boot - Samsung better hope that stays off the shelves for a while longer.

We liked

The OLED screen is gorgeous, and the build quality of the phone is of a decent standard too. The camera is obviously a very good performer, and the addition of an extra video light is a nice touch as well.

We disliked

The price is where the Samsung Pixon 12 M8910 really lets itself down, as post £500 is just too much. The responsiveness of the touchscreen still isn't there, and the video is only so-so, despite so many features running to improve it. The lack of a 3.5mm headphone jack is also criminal - surely it wouldn't have been that hard to add?

Verdict

A nice enough effort from Samsung, but it's not going to break any sales records, despite being a world's first. We're all for innovation, but the world's first 12MP cameraphone seems to have forgotten about the phone aspect of the alliance in some respects. A decent alternative to a point-and-shoot compact camera, but not worth the money to ditch a separate device altogether.

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.