Samsung UK has announced the Samsung i5. The smallest digital camera Samsung has ever made, comes in silver, black, red and blue shades.

The new i5 features a 5 megapixel CCD, internal zoom technology delivering 3x optical zoom and a spacious 2.5" high resolution LCD with 230k pixels. All of this for a retail price of under 250 pound.

According to Samsung UK, this announcement marks the start of a series of camera announcements.

The i5 achieves clearer image quality by integrating the 3x optical zoom capability and the exclusive SHD lens technology. With a 5 mega-pixel CCD that utilizes primary colour filtering technology, it provides high sensitivity and colour reproduction.

Key features:

Safety Flash - The function disables flash lighting in an indoor setting where there is insufficient light, so preventing the incidence of red eye. Unique Samsung algorithms are then used to interpret colour and sharpness data to produce a single image file.

A separate SF (Safety Flash) button makes it easy for the user to access the feature.

MPEG-4 - high-compression video format - record high quality movies of up to 30 frames per second at VGA resolution and play it on a TV without any loss of quality. When used with a 256MB memory, the i5 can record up to 2 hours 10 minutes of movie with sound, and can be used like a camcorder due to its 3x optical zoom capability.

Flexible charging system - makes charging and data transfer easy. The i5 comes with a cradle to enable even faster and simpler charging and image transfer.

The M button - the user can select between Automatic, Manual and Scene Modes more quickly and easily.

Auto Macro - automatically adjusts the shooting distance and focus from between 5cm to infinity:) Furthermore, the super macro function enables subjects to be photographed as close as 1cm.

Movie stabilizer function - maintains steady recording through automatic detection and correction of lateral and vertical camera movement. Also provides a continuous video recording function that allows the user to pause and resume video recording at any time.

Built-in movie editing function - allows movie clips to be edited within the camera.

Four different special effects Colour, Photo Frame, Highlight and Composite. The Colour effect includes red, blue and green. Highlight function enables the user to emphasize a subject by putting its surroundings into soft focus. Photo Frame lets the user choose from various frames and add them to a picture, which can then be uploaded to a website, or personal blog. With Composite, the user can divide the shooting scene into 2-4 segments and save them into a single file.

Various scene modes - enables the best picture to be taken in a variety of settings: Night Scene, Portrait, Children, Landscape, Text Recognition, Sunset, Dawn, Backlight, Fireworks, Beach and Snow.

The built-in album editing feature can also be used to manage pictures, as well as making the organisation of pictures easier and quicker. PictBridge also allows the user to print 5 mega-pixel photos directly from the camera on a compatible printer, without the need for a PC. In addition, it supports USB 2.0.