Gauging Samsung's TL320 OLED Display Point-and-Shoot

See what I did there? Cause Samsung's TL320 HD video capable camera has an ooooOLED screen and cool retro analog gauges? So, just how great are they in person?

What I really wanted to do was play back 720p video on the TL320's screen to better divine the OLED difference, but it's pretty early in the dev cycle (it's not coming out till way later in the year) and was so buggy all it would playback is blue static, which wasn't very helpful at all. Looking at stills on the screen side by side with an LCD display on a different Samsung camera, the OLED screen was a little brighter and sharper, but it didn't make my eyes pop out get goo all over the display in the ensuing explosion or anything.

I wish the dials were a little bigger—or there were MORE of them 'cause there's totally room—but they're still super neat. When you turn the camera on, they reset by spinning wildly, like a Ghostbusters' EKG PKE meter if Satan was in the room. In a world where vaguely similar specs on almost every point-and-shoot makes eyes glaze over, it's little touches like this that grab attention and make your camera better than your friend's. Besides, I think every gadget should have retro gauges.

The interface on it is simple to navigate as well, which is good since cameras really need better UIs to accommodate the dizzying list of features they're being bloated with every year—it's sort of like a vertical version of Sony's XMB cross media bar. As you you move up and down to highlight items, the settings it adjusts pops up to the right of the main list, and then you press right to move over to the settings. It's probably my favorite Samsung point-and-shoot so far based on look and feel, though we'll have to wait a bit to see what kind of pictures it delivers for a final verdict.

PMA is an annual show where we get to see tomorrow's digital cameras—the ones that'll be populating pockets and purses for the rest of the year. We'll be here for the next couple of days.

Send an email to matt buchanan, the author of this post, at matt@gizmodo.com.