It sounds like quite a smart idea- stick a smartphone and a decent camera together and you've got the best of both worlds.

But are the sacrifices that have had to be made on both sides of the spectrum small or are they too big to make the Galaxy S4 Zoom good as either a smartphone or a camera?

Build Quality

On the front you've got what looks like a standard S4 Mini. The device carries the now very well known Galaxy build quality we've come to know, however, when looking at the device from the back or the front, it's a completely different story.

Thanks to the protruding camera and grip on the back of the smart device, it isn't exactly the most comfortable thing when using it to talk on or to have in your hand, but the overall design is very similar to the tried and trusted compact camera that a lot of people are happy to hold and take around with them.

Using the device both as a smartphone and a camera is a bit of a no-go really, it's not impossible but it feels unconventional, and although we have the grip to help us hold it, it feels just a little too small to really feel comfortable in the hand without the fear of dropping it right at the front of our thoughts.

Like all Samsung smartphones, the Galaxy S4 Zoom has a microSD card slot and removable battery. The battery is stored at the bottom of the phone near the charger port and can be slotted out with ease. The cameraphone also has a tripod mount and the micro SD card slot can be found next to the battery.

Display

• The display of the S4 Zoom is a 4.3 inch 540x960 super AMOLED display. Despite the low resolution on paper, the screen actually looks surprisingly decent. Under direct sunlight it's quite hard to see, but any other environment and you'll have no problem seeing the screen at a wide viewing angle.

Software

• The Galaxy S4 Zoom is using the same Android 4.2.2 and TouchWiz Nature UX 2.0 found the the Galaxy S4 Mini. This includes all of the Samsung smart features such as group play, S memo, S voice, and other related TouchWiz functionality.

Strangely though, Samsung hasn't added a dedicated landscape mode to the homescreen, meaning you'll struggle to continue using the phone as a camera when navigating menus and will have to turn it up vertically to properly see the screen each time you back out of the camera app.

Hardware

• The Galaxy S4 Zoom is powered by a 1.5GHz dual core Exynos 4212 processor and a Mali 400 GPU as well as 1.5GB RAM. The phone has a fairly small 8GB internal storage, but the addition of the microSD card slot makes up for that problem. It's rare to see any lag or stutter when using the phone, but the hardware certainly is far away from it's flagship, and even under performs the S4 Mini.

Camera

• This is obviously the most important aspect of this review. The S4 Zoom uses a 16 megapixel camera with optical zoom. The optical zoom can be zoomed up to 10x, and thanks to the decent 16 MP, quality is pretty decent no matter what level you're zoomed in on.

Thanks to the large CMOS sensor, pictures will be a lot more lit and will certainly contain quality that is similar to that of more serious camera equipment.

The OS has also added tons of software features making it a very feature-filled camera. All in all, the S4 Zoom certainly is the best smartphone so far when it comes to camera quality.

Call Quality & Battery

Samsung pride themselves in decent call quality and battery life, although the S4 Zoom isn't such a feature figure to prove this though. The call quality is fairly decent, although it's no way near as crisp as the S4, and you'll start to hear a bit of hissing at the upper end of the volume scale.

• Battery life is alright- the S4 Zoom comes with a 2330 mAh battery that seems to last pretty long on average use, but if you're hoping to take a lot of snaps outside, you'll notice the battery drains at a significant speed.

Summary

If you're the person that is out taking snaps whenever they catch that special moment, the Galaxy S4 Zoom may be just for you. The quality is superb for a smartphone, and rivals similar compact cameras. The added smartphone functionality means you can ring, text and browse the internet,

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