Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ50 with WiFi

I recently bought the Panasonic with WiFi. These are my first impressions. The Panasonic Lumix TZ50 is a 9.1 megapixel camera with great optics for its size (8mm wide-angle Leica DC lens, with 10x optical zoom). The camera is actually quite big for not being reflex type, but there is no such thing as good quality pictures in flat, small cameras – it’s a trade off. The camera also takes video in HD quality which is rare. But what really makes me love this camera is its WiFi integration. The best I’ve found so far. Other cameras with similar functionality see WiFi as something akin to Bluetooth, but the Panasonic is different. The TZ50 works with any open or encrypted WiFi network and can also connect to the T-Mobile HotSpot Service which is available in more then 8,800 public locations around the US. Once connected to the Internet, this camera can upload your pictures to your Picasa Web Albums account (here is mine), so you can share them with your friends and family or the general public while you’re still travelling and not days later when you come back home. This is a whole different experience to photosharing, something more similar to a photo diary or to Twitxr. You can also register an email address and get a link to your photo album just after it’s uploaded, so you can simply forward the URL to your friends using a smartphone. One drawback though is it doesn’t work with Flickr.