Samsung i900 Omnia
The basics
Using Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, the Omnia measures 112x56x12.5mm. It has a 3.2-inch TFT touchscreen, embedded GPS, Push email, support for Bluetooth 2.0 and Wi-Fi, and has an memory expandable up to 16GB via microSDHC card. There's also a five-megapixel camera with auto focus, MP3 player and FM radio.
The good
Sure, the iPhone is good at consuming media and browsing the web, but what if you actually need to get stuff done? The Omnia has a large 3.2-inch touchscreen, friendly ‘widget’ icons and easy messaging but scratch the cartoony surface and you’ll find pure Microsoft steel beneath. That means you can edit Office documents and synch up with your Exchange server – as well as shoot decent video clips, bouncy great 5MP snaps and (of course) send MMS messages. Big love goes out to face detection (with smile shot), a fun auto-panorama feature and dynamic range boosting – basically the cream of today’s digital photo tweaks.
The bad
Do we really need to tell you that the Omnia doesn’t look or handle like an Apple? The case is plastic, as is the resistive touchscreen – where haptic buzzing is no substitute for the iPhone’s gliding multi-touch. You’ll need the stylus when hacking into the depths of Windows Mobile menus, too, so why is there nowhere to store one on-board?
The bottom line
Windows is nothing to be ashamed of when it comes wrapped in Samsung’s top-notch Omnia. High-speed browsing, business smarts and super snapping might not quite make an iPhone killer, but Samsung has certainly inflicted a nasty flesh wound.
User comments (3)
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jjtech30 August 2009
ive had the omnia from week one in uk, it thrashes the iphone hands down. brill 5mega camera, i have copilot 7, the best sat nav for mobile. by using the secret menu ive upped sound level, ive also unlocked it. great gps. not dependant on itunes and i have 8gb internal plus a 8gb card it takes upto a 32gb micro sd giving 40gb ..blimey compared to the iphones fixed 8gb. sound quality is brill can not even bluetooth from a iphone. go for the omnia
Report as inappropriatePlymouthbiker19 September 2009
Love this phone. Used it for nearly a year now. At first I hated the complexity of the phone. It was difficult to navigate and complicated. But for the first windows mobile phone I've ever had, I'm not surprised. After a couple of weeks I'm now a pro at it's use. I would say get yourself some add-ons. I've pimped mine out with a bigger battery, and the user interface has been changed to SPB mobile shell 3. That along with tools like eyephoto, youtube play, ringtone editor, skyfire internet browser, TCPMP media player make the phone very powerful. The Camera is good although not as sharp as the sony ericssons i've had in the past. Music playing is good, internet is excellent on this phone using the opera web browser. There are loads of applications you can get for free on the net for this phone. You can watch streaming tv and get bbc iplayer streaming on this machine. 8GB on board memory although the actual phone memory could be bigger. You can also add a SD card too so the memory capacity is huge. Lots of people think this is a iPhone. But it's so much better. The only thing i feel the iPhone has against this is it's user interface. Apart from that the Omnia blasts it out of the water and simply makes the iPhone look like a fisher price toy. As long as you can get by the user interface you'll be ok. And even if you can't you can still change it or customize it. The only other issue is that it uses the earphone speaker to play sound. There has been a couple occasions where trying to answer a call, i've nearly ended up deaf, by blasting my ear with a ring tone. ouch! Excellent phone though. I'll be getting the Omnia 2 when it comes out!
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