“Can a great thing really come from such a small package?”

I asked this to myself as I held the all-new Samsung Miniket in my hand which was so tiny it fit perfectly right under my palm. The uninitiated may ask “Miniket what?” Well, it’s supposed to be Samsung’s much-heralded latest gadget, a diminutive powerhouse which boasts of a digital camera with 10x optical zoom, a digital camcorder, an MP3 player, a voice recorder, PC camera and data storage… all rolled into one! The fact that it can do so much in such a small package makes it a-m-a-z-i-n-g. If you ask me, the only thing missing from it was the phone. But hey, nobody’s perfect so I’ll probably have to forgive Samsung for this shortcoming.

In the looks department,the  Miniket wins hands down as the technological equivalent of  my Orlando Bloom. It was so cute and handsome I wanted to take it with me everywhere I go. Thankfully, the package came with  a very handy necklace strap so I could literally hold my little lover on a leash, easily accessible for when we are ready to play.

The light-as-a-feather 147-gram Miniket is designed to be ergonomically sleek. To use the cameras, you have to flip open the color LCD screen as you would a clamshell phone, then tilt and swivel any way you like. The 2” LCD viewfinder with 211K colors is spacious and bright enough for peeking at your subjects. Whether you are indoor or outdoors, you can adjust the degree of brightness by fiddling with the “system settings” in the mode selector/option.

I proved to be too lazy  to read the accompanying 128-paged manual and so I had no choice but to explore the neat function buttons found on the right side of the device. Situated here are the zoom in-zoom out settings, the main menu and the mode selector (video, digicam, mp3 etc.) I didn’t find the buttons user-friendly at first but a little tinkering and I was off getting a rush of adrenaline from taking great photos and videos from my ultra-petite gadget.

The Miniket uses the diskless (look ma! No DVs) format. Its 800k pixel CCD can record MPEG4 movie at  720x480 pixels which is the same resolution as DVDs, at approximately 30 frames per second (fps). The 1GB built-in flash memory effectively translates to as much as 130 minutes of video recording and hundreds of 2 megapixel pictures. Extending the videos wouldn’t be a problem with the Memory Stick PRO expansion slot found on the lower right-hand corner of the device. One also has several options playing back the videos from your TV or Windows Media Player 6.4 and up, even edit the video files by installing the Samsung ImageMixer software enclosed in the kit. The presence of  an Eletronic Image Stabilizer setting in the cam means that you can shoot videos while strolling or being seated in a moving car.

I didn’t have a problem with the easy focus and click mechanism of the digicam either. At  800x600 pixels, others may find it wanting but it was just right enough for me. With the PictBridge function, one can print the files stored in the cam directly to a PictBridge printer using a USB cable.

Everything would have been all right except that the USB cable enclosed in my Miniket kit turned out to be “defective.” I realized something was wrong when I tried connecting it to the port of five different computers as well as  my  laptop and all could not recognize the presence of a removable drive. Why oh why? This disappointing feeling I likened to having a wonderful date with Orlando and then…he never calls. Having a non-working cable meant I could not copy my digicam pictures to the computer and would not be able to download MP3 files either, among other things. With my busy schedule, I did not have time to check if Samsung Philippines has a fast and speedy customer support service. A quick look at their website though showed a “help links” section. I figured that if their fast service  worked when my Samsung airconditioner broke down, I would cross my fingers that it would work on the “all new Miniket-but-with-defective-USB-cable” too.

There was another feature of the Miniket I tried and that was the Voice Recorder. This turned out to be “mediocre.” My voice was hardly audible even if I had to switch the volume to FULL. So much of pretending to be an Oprah Winfrey-wannabe dictating errands to her secretary.

My love affair with the Miniket turned out to be short….and bittersweet. This six-in-one device is the companion to have if you’re looking for the picture-perfect gadget to display to your friends. On the other hand, having it can be quite anachronistic since almost all mobile phones these days are multi-function too. With video/voice recorders, MP3s, FM radio etc. all built in, I dare say the only thing lacking from the gadgets is a microwave oven.

Retailing at $1000 (approximately P55,000) , the Miniket is obviously aimed at a high-end market. This is for the high-flying executive who would like to have an additional “pet gadget” to add to his smart phone and satellite laptop.