Samsung Galaxy K Zoom on sale in the UK tomorrow, May 31

Samsung’s latest smartphone/compact camera hybrid handset, the Galaxy K Zoom, will finally arrive in the UK tomorrow.

Announced in April, the successor to the Galaxy S4 Zoom is much thinner, more compact and, importantly, much more like a smartphone than a compact camera. The 10x optical zoom lens assembly no longer juts out of the chassis, so the handset should slip in and out of a pocket much easier than before.

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The 20.7-megapixel, 1/2.3in CMOS sensor has an ISO range of 100-3200, can shoot in burst mode at up to 3fps and is paired with a Xenon flash for low-light photography. The zoom lens has a focal equivalent of 24-240mm and an f/3.1-6.3 aperture, and with optical image stabilisation (OIS) for steady shooting it should easily give most compact cameras a run for their money. It can also shoot Full HD video clips at 60fps.

Despite taking several design cues from Samsung’s latest flagship handset, the K Zoom isn’t simply a variant of the Galaxy S5 with a better camera. It has a smaller 4.8in, 720p AMOLED display, rather than the 5.1, 1080p panel used in the S5, and is powered by a Samsung Exynos hexa-core processor rather than a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip.

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Anyone looking to pick up a Galaxy K Zoom will be able to get one from an official Samsung Experience Store or Carphone Warehouse on the high street, or from the usual online retailers, both on-contract or SIM-free starting from £400. We’re hoping to give the phone a full review in the near future, so stay tuned if you’re considering buying one over our current cameraphone favourites including the Nokia Lumia 1020.