Economic Research: Nikon Coolpix

Friday, 28 December 2012

Nikon Coolpix

It was only a matter of time before a major camera manufacturer started using Android as the operating system for a camera. Nikon made the jump first with the Coolpix S800c. There was the Polaroid SC1630 announced at CES this year, but that wasn't much of camera and it doesn't appear to be available for sale. The S800c, on the other hand, has a 1/2.3-inch 16-megapixel backside-illuminated CMOS sensor, a Nikon Expeed C2 processing engine, and a 10x f3.2-5.8 25-250mm lens with optical image stabilization -- all the stuff you'd find in Nikon's Coolpix S6300. So, yes, this is a real point-and-shoot camera running on Android. Android does bring some fun stuff to the table, of course, with a whole world of apps at your fingertips. Although the camera doesn't have a headphone jack, it does have Bluetooth, so you can connect wireless headphones or speakers and use the camera to play games, listen to music, and watch movies. It is Wi-Fi only (there's no mobile broadband access), so while you can share directly from the camera to any of your favorite sites, you'll need to have wireless access to do so. If you're on the go, though, Nikon does have mobile apps for Android and iOS, which allow you to send to a smartphone or tablet that you could then use to upload.