I bought a new digital camera yesterday. My previous one–a Samsung NV10–got its zoom lens crunched in November in what I’m referring to as the NaNoWriMo Bathroom Incident (don’t ask). It had already been having problems, so I’d been thinking about a replacement, but now I actually needed to get one.

One thing that impressed me as I was shopping is that elements of smartphone design are starting to filter back to digital cameras. For example, Nikon’s new Coolpix S70 has an OLED touch panel over its entire back, with an icon-and-gestures interface for nearly all its functions–obviously taking a cue from the iPhone. And it and many other current models had accelerometers, so they could rearrange menus and such based on how the camera was oriented.

I was sorely tempted by the Nikon, especially since its zoom lens is entirely self-contained–and therefore far less vulnerable to abuse than my old Samsung. But that lens was in the upper left corner, where it was far too easy to cover with a finger. And the interface was wonky in some other ways too. I think this makes sense as a direction for the future, but it’s not quite there yet.

In the end, I decided to leave the flash for my next smartphone and get another workhorse–a Canon PowerShot SD960 IS. Small, light and simple, with incremental advancement of features over the previous unit–but probably with more reliability. We’ll see how it goes.

And now, because you just had to have it, a cute-dog picture.

So, anyone got any use for a broken Samsung camera?