Samsung HMX-S16

LAS VEGAS--Moving slightly upscale from its mainstream HD consumer camcorders, Samsung introduces a new flash-based S series characterized by larger 1/2.3-inch, 10-megapixel backside-illuminated sensors, and two of the new models incorporate Wi-Fi/DLNA connectivity for wirelessly uploading video and streaming directly to your TV, a potentially useful feature.

The S series is comprised of three models at as-yet unspecified prices. The lowest-end HMX-S10 has no built-in memory and lacks the wireless support; the HMX-S15 includes 32GB and the HMX-S16 has 64GB. (Samsung makes a big deal of saying it uses SSD, but flash by any other name will still record as sweet. In other words, it's meaningless to everyone but Samsung, which makes SSD.)

All have relatively large 3.5-inch touch-screen LCDs, 15x zoom optically stabilized lenses and record H.264-compressed MPEG-4 files: they do 1080p as well as 60fps 720p. Samsung has also decided to brand its image-processing engine for these models--"Victoria"--but it's not clear how it's different than in its other products. Plus it adds the same interesting time-lapse mode that debuts in its other models.

They're scheduled to ship this spring.