Samsung Galaxy K Zoom officially revealed: 10x optical zoom in a 4.8in smartphone

Samsung has officially announced the Galaxy K Zoom, the company’s second attempt at a camera-focused smartphone, at an event in Shanghai. The Galaxy K Zoom pairs a 4.8in handset with a 20.7-megapixel, 1/2.3in CMOS camera sensor and 10x optical zoom, in a more compact body than the Galaxy S4 Zoom.

Taking design inspiration from the recently-launched Galaxy S5, the Galaxy K Zoom will be launching in a similar selection of colours, White, Black and Blue, and has the same dimpled rubber-effect rear cover to increase grip. The chunky hand grip seen in the Galaxy S4 Zoom is gone, and the optical zoom lens now sits slightly more flush to the body, so the handset looks more like a regular smartphone than a clumsy hybrid.

The 10x zoom lens uses optical image stabilisation (OIS) for steady shooting, has a focal equivalent of 24-240mm and an f/3.1-6.3 aperture, easily putting it on par with most high-end compact cameras. It has an ISO range of 100-3200, includes over 20 shooting modes and can shoot in burst at 3FPS, but doesn’t appear to support RAW shooting like Nokia’s Lumia 1020. An Xenon flash is included for low-light shooting, and it can also shoot Full HD video at 60fps.

Naturally the Galaxy K Zoom has smartphone credentials too, although anyone hoping for something on par with the Galaxy S5 may be left disappointed. A 4.8in AMOLED display at the front has a 1,280×720 resolution rather than 1080p, and processing power comes from a Samsung-manufactured Exynos chip rather than a Qualcomm Snapdragon. It’s a Hexa-core chip, however, with four cores running at 1.3GHz and two cores running at 1.7GHz for performance and battery efficiency. It is paired with 2GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage and a microSD card slot for up to 64GB of guaranteed external storage – it may work with newer 128GB cards too, but Samsung isn’t saying for sure.

Connectivity is fairly standard for a modern smartphone, with 2.4GHz and 5GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, GPS and full LTE 4G support. The Galaxy K Zoom will run Android 4.4 KitKat, with Samsung’s own Touchwiz software tweaks.

Samsung has yet to announce an official UK release date or price, but expects to reveal more information in the coming weeks.