Samsung announces Galaxy NX, first Android-powered interchangeable lens camera with 20.3MP APS-C sensor

Samsung just unveiled the first interchangeable lens camera that is powered by Android, the Samsung Galaxy NX. The device is a more advanced version of the Galaxy Camera with a much larger sensor and you get a choice of NX mount lenses.

The Galaxy NX uses an APS-C sensor with an effective resolution of 20.3MP. Besides high resolution stills, the camera can also record 1080p video at 25fps. The camera features DRIMe IV Image Signal Processer and can do burst shots at 8.6fps with a maximum shutter speed of up to 1/6000 sec.

The big sensor isn’t the only advantage – with the Galaxy NX you can use any NX mount lens, pancake lenses, fish eye lenses, long primes and zoom lenses, even a 45mm 2D/3D lens. Some lenses feature Optical Image Stabilization too.

The camera packs a powerful xenon popup flash and you get an electronic viewfinder with SVGA resolution (800 x 600) if you are into that sort of thing.

The Samsung Galaxy NX also packs a 4.8″ HD TFT LCD display on the back, which is a lot better than what cameras usually get (yes, even expensive DSLRs). It gets much better functionality too, thanks to Android 4.2.2 with TouchWiz 5, which is becoming standard issue for recent Galaxy devices.

The Samsung Galaxy NX is powered by a 1.6GHz quad-core processor with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of built-in storage. The storage can be expanded with a microSD card (up to 64GB). Connectivity is worthy of a smartphone too with LTE (market dependent), HSPA+ (42Mbps download), Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS plus GLONASS for accurate geo-tagging.

The TouchWiz software means users get the same creative camera modes that we saw on the Galaxy S4 Zoom – more than 30 Smart modes including Animated photo (creates a GIF), Multi Exposure and Sound & shot.

The Galaxy NX will come bundled with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for advanced image processing, but the camera also comes with True 3D Creator for making 3D images and movies.

The camera measures 136.5 x 101.2 x 25.7mm and weighs 495g with the battery. Speaking of which, it’s a 4,360mAh battery, which is close to four times the capacity of the Samsung NX2000 battery, but it’s needed for the bigger screen and powerful chipset.

There’s no info on the price and availability of the Samsung Galaxy NX just yet.