Performance

A significant improvement is the electronic viewfinder. Crisper and sharper than before with its improved 1.44 million-dot resolution, the eye sensor is very quick at switching between the EVF feed and screen when pulling the camera away from your eye but is slightly less responsive when you’re lifting the camera back up and it’s something we’d like to see become more instantaneous.

The NX20’s contrast-detect AF system performs reasonably well, locking onto subjects without any major concerns in bright lighting conditions. The bright green AF-assist lamp is useful for illuminating close subjects in extremely dark conditions, though we did find ourselves half depressing the shutter twice before hearing the reassuring AF beep in some darker situations. Our main gripe with AF operation is the inability to position the AF point to the far corners of the frame – something that we know can be done and is a feat that Panasonic first accomplished on the GX1.

So what about the NX20’s trump card – its Wi-fI connectivity? Sharing images to social sharing sites such as Facebook, Picasa, YouTube and Photobucket couldn’t be easier. Simply turn the NX20’s mode dial to Wi-Fi and you’ll first be asked to join a local network. Using the jog dial isn’t the fastest way of entering Wi-Fi details, but it’s fairly quick to get used to. Logging into Facebook requires you to enter your ID and password and after that you’re given the choice of the JPEG files you want to upload. Up to 20 files can be selected providing the total size does not exceed 10MB and the longest video you can upload is 30 seconds at QVGA resolution.

Upload speeds will vary dependent on your Internet connection but during our tests we uploaded single images to Facebook in less than 2 seconds.

To send files to a smart phone you’ll require Samsung’s Mobile Link application. This is supported by Galaxy series smart phones with Android 2.2 OS or higher however it should be noted RAW files cannot be transmitted. With the NX20’s mode dial set to Wi-Fi and provided the Mobile Link application is turned you’re given the option to select multiple files you wish to send from the camera to the smart phone.

Alternatively there’s also the option of using your smart phone as a remote shutter release for the NX20. To use this facility you will need to first install the remote viewfinder application from Samsung Apps or the Android market.