Omnia

[Stupiud]

Samsung Omnia

The Samsung Omnia has finally arrived in the USA in CDMA form as the SCH-i910. For those users looking for a full fledged Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional phone (WM or WinMo), complete with all the amenities one would expect in a world class phone, this may be the phone for you. For all the casual phone users out there, this phone may be a bit overwhelming. Samsung's TouchWiz interface makes a sincere effort in shielding the casual user from the torrent of menu options, but the learning curve is still quite steep and may put off the causal user who has no need for some of the Omnia's advanced features.

I will try to avoid the obvious comparisons with other phones on the market (*cough cough* iPhone *cough cough*) and try to keep this review as objective as possible. That being said, I'm gonna try to model this review after phonescoop (mainly because they didn't do one!).

Body.

The front is constructed of chrome-like plastic, which paired together with the single sheet of pressed and brushed aluminum for the back battery battery cover, gives the Omnia that premium feel we all like. In your hand the phone feels sold and substantial without feeling bulky. Overall construction of the phone is excellent, there is not a single loose seem and it takes quite a bit of flexing the phone before you even get a slight budge.

The top of the phone houses a recessed power button that lights up red/green during charging as well as the IR sensor/transmitter (which is a premium on phones now a day). The power button is appropriately recessed

The right edge of the phone houses a series of 4 buttons including the volume toggle, dedicated camera button and a flex button. It's important to note that the dedicated camera button and the flex button is user settable to trigger other actions. Personally, I use the camera button as a manual orientation switch and turned off the accelerometer (which is a bit buggy, we'll get to that later).

The left edge houses the proprietary charger/headphone jack that is protected by a plastic cover which is surprisingly sturdily attached and doesn't feel like it's gonna be going anywhere soon. Samsung did also thoughtfully supply an adaptor that allows the use of a 2.5mm headphone port if you so chose to use that instead.

Below the screen you will find a dedicated send and end key as well as the click-able optical mouse. All the buttons are flush with the front screen and button presses have a very satisfying tactile feel. All the buttons for the most part are well seated in their spots and virtually wiggle free; accidental button presses are a thing of the past!

Screen

The screen is crisp and bright with sharply rendered icons and text. Response time on the screen is respectable even when watching DivX movies (yes folks, the Omnia supports DivX!). The screen itself it well constructed and has minimal flexing when pressing buttons (all you touch resistive screen veterans know what I am talking about) more on this and TouchWiz later.

In direct sunlight, however, the screen gets a little more washed out then I would have liked; maxing out the brightness improves the situation slightly. The whole experience, while usable, is still less then ideal.

Signal.

The signal meter sometimes seems a bit off to me. Generally my Omnia shows 3-4 (out of 5) bars of EV-DO service, but every so often it’ll drop down to one or two bars in the same spot where it previously showed 3-4 bars. I experienced the same issue with my SCH-U740 Alias which leads me to suspect it may be Samsung thing. A Venus sitting right next to my Omnia registers a full 4 bars most all of the time. I’m currently located in Northern Virginia just south of DC where Verizon has excellent coverage.

Thankfully, in all cases, the phone still performs like a champ and all calls are clear and crisp. Once in while the other party complains that I sound far away, but I think that’s more user error then something with the phone. The speed of the data connection, however, does seem to be dependent on signal strength. More on data usage to come later.

Sound.

The earpiece volume seems to be a bit too soft for me. Even with the sound up to maximum, I still find myself asking people to speak up at times. There is a hack online that does boost up the volume of the earpiece, but that is beyond the scope of this review.

The external speaker is where the Omnia really shines. It’s plenty loud and with the right ring tone, everyone on your office floor will know when your phone goes off. Sound reproduction is more then enough to enjoy a movie or listen to the radio/mp3s (yes the Omnia has a built in FM radio!). The only down side is the external speaker only comes in monaural flavor.

Battery.

Despite what some other reviewers have said, the battery life on Omnia is stellar! Initially, the battery came half charged, but that was more then enough to heavily test out the phone’s features and browse the internet during the 4 hour drive from NJ to VA. With light use (texting, email and using the calendar) I can get about 4-5 days of battery life. Heavy and constant internet browsing using EVDO cuts the battery life to little over 5 hours, I haven’t gotten to testing the battery life with WiFi. With a full charge, I was able to get thru The Dark Knight, but the phone did start to complain with about 20 minuets left in the movie; I was able to finish off the day without the battery completely dying one me.

Touch Screen.

The Omnia utilizes touch resistive screen technology (think old school palm pilot) but thankfully the technology has developed enough that the screen feels solid to the touch and not like you are pressing a screen made of multiple layers of saran wrap. Touch restive screens has the ability to detect input from any anything, including a stylus (included with the phone in the form of a phone ornament), which allows for more precise input.

The ability of touch resistive screens to detect any input, however, does present its own set of problems. For example, if you put the phone into your pocket without sleeping the screen (by short pressing the power button) you’ll soon realize that the screen is being activated by your leg. Touch resistive screens are also vulnerable to damage by sharp and/or aggressive tapping and they do not support multi-touch gestures. The Omnia, does however, support single touch gestures and kentic scrooling

For those traditionalists out there, such as myself, who prefer using the stylus the native WinMo 6.1 Pro interface is plenty functional and powerfully customizable. Ultimately, however, most users will want to forgo the stylus and just want to touch the darn screen (and I wouldn’t blame them; the thing’s gorgeous) and Samsung’s TouchWiz Interface proves to be the thing the finger doctor orders.

TouchWiz comes in two flavors; the more traditional form is the Samsung Today form where all the main functions are presented to you on one screen in the form of icons. It is possible to customize the look and functionality of the Today screen by downloading and/or creating your own themes. I found a must sleeker and more usable theme online called “Samsung Today 2” if you explore online forums and the like, I’m sure everyone will find something that they like. The second, and infinitely more interesting flavor, is Samsung’s Widget form that is featured on most of the Omnia’s promotional materials.

In widget mode, the user is presented with a side bar with different widgets representing different functions that can be drag on the main ‘desktop’. These widgets are free floating and can be positioned and arranged as the user sees fits. Furthermore, depending on the orientation of the phone (landscape vs portrate) there are actually two different ‘desktops’ that can be customized each independent from the other. The array of widgets is predetermined and there does not seem to be a way to add additional features then the ones preloaded.

The optical mouse can be set to function as a traditional 4 way d-pad or as a free floating cursor in either case setting the cursor speed to the fastest setting results in a very efficient and useful way of navigating around the Omnia. I found that the free floating cursor to be useful in pressing the little ‘x’ and ‘ok’ buttons at the top right of the screen when using TouchWiz, while the d-pad was more useful in the traditional WinMo/stylus combo. Depending on the program, the d-pad configuration may also serve as a shortcut to activate various other commands. In either d-pad or mouse mode, the optical sensor is clickable and the does well to enhance the whole experience for both experienced and new users alike.

[Stupiud]

Basics

As a window’s mobile system, the menus, phonebook and messaging system utilizes the standard WM system. There phone supports the ability to connect not only to company enterprise/exchange systems but also has the ability to connect to other email services too (ie gmail). For the more popular email services, setup is automatic, but for those power users, manual setup menu is familiar and easy to use. Other aspects of Windows Mobile 6.1 has been reviewed and commented on extensively. These reviews contain more in depth information about the menu, contact and messaging systems and can be found online. If you have any specific questions, please ask.

The only new addition the Omnia brings to the table is the inclusion of Samsung’s ‘Phonebook’ app. The application complements the familiar ‘contact’ system of WM while adding a few finger friendly touches that makes browsing thru your phone book easier with the addition of kinetic scrolling. The main improvement is that the contact names are larger and easier to press and includes finger friendly submenus to pick specific contact methods individuals in your contacts with multiple numbers/email address associated with them. The phonebook and contacts seems to share the same database within the phone, so although the phonebook does not add any new functionality per say the alternative way of navigating thru the information is much appreciated.

Music

Again for Music playing the Omnia includes the obligatory Windows Media player that comes with WinMo, but also includes Samsung’s own spin on a music player called “Touch Player”. Windows Media Player is sync able with your PC based media player including artist info, ratings, ect. The Touch Player, although not as powerful as the stock Windows Media Player, adds finger friendly usability similar to the phonebook system described previously. In either case, music playback can be done in the background and I am unable to locate anyway to adjust the EQ settings.

The phone does come packed with an adaptor that allows you to use standard 3.5mm headphones which also doubles at the antenna for the FM radio (yes there’s an FM radio). The ability to use Bluetooth stereo headphones is also available, but I have not tested it out. Music from both the headphone jack and the external speaker is very good and sound reproduction is surprisingly accurate even at high volumes, bass is lacking in all cases but that is to be expected.

Camera

5.0 MP. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. Stock photos on default settings (the wide array of settings is staggering), no touchups/photoshops imperfect lighting and all: see attachments.

Amazing right? The camera includes a wide array of advanced features you’d expect on a stand alone camera and best of all, they all work the way they should! Features include auto focus, smile detection, intelligent screen recognition, panorama/mosaic pictures, and a blinding LED flash all on a touch screen phone!

In single shot mode, the auto focus is fast and the camera can take pictures in relatively rapid succession. In those situations where you want quick half second timing between shots, the camera is equipped with a ‘continuous’ mode that takes up to 9 pictures in 5 seconds (yes nine pictures in five seconds). I can gush on this forever; I’ll let the pictures stand alone. Suffice it to say, no more carrying another camera around with me for those ‘just in case’ moments.

Only major tip I can give that may not be immediately apparent is to make sure your phone has closed all other programs else the camera may lag. Otherwise the camera loads quickly and the features are top notch.

Web Browsing

Using VZW’s EV-DO Rev A web browsing is amazingly fast, so fast in fact that I didn’t notice a speed difference when switching between EV-DO and Wi-Fi (yes the Omnia has wifi). The phone comes with Opera and Internet Explorer both pre-installed, with Opera being the default browser. The phone also comes with Flash Lite 2.1 which, unfortunately, only supports content ‘authored for mobile devices. It is possible to load a more robust version of flash on the Omnia, but that is again out of the scope of this review. It seems like IE is a bit faster to load pages, but more complicated pages are often rendered inappropriately. Opera is by far a better browser and is only slower by a hair and the remainder of this portion of the review will apply mainly with Opera.

Opera supports smart zooming with text wrapping. Panning around the screen is also smooth and opera supports kinetic scrolling as well. Although it is possible to do some quick browsing using your finger on pages that were made specifically for mobile devices, heavy browsing on the ‘rest’ of the web is best when using the stylus; turning on the optical mouse helps the situation a great deal. If you run your finger along the right edge of the screen, you can also activate manual zooming to really see some little buttons you just can’t seem to click on.

Once you get use to the subtle nuances of both the Omnia and the Opera browser, the whole experience, while not as seamless as on the iPhone/iPod Touch, becomes intuitive. I do suggest you read the user guide that comes with the phone and is available online to really see how versatile Opera can be.


Final Comments

Although he phone has a bit of a learning curve to it, once you really get the hang of using the phone it really becomes a joy to have and can take the place of multiple devices you may already be carrying.

We did not speak at all about the phone’s aGPS ability, because as of now, VZW has that locked down to their own VZ Navigator services ($2.99/24hr or $9.99/mo). There is speak from VZW Corporate of a firmware update to unlock the aGPS, but until that goes thru GPS dead.

[Stupiud]

One more picture.

[ociopia]

You've really made a wonderful review. Thank you. I'm considering the Omnia. I'm very challenged to find the "right" phone. I want a PDA, I want it capable to do VZ Navigator, and I want to easily be able to enter text and sync with my contacts/calendar on outlook. I have a HTC Diamond (Sprint) and the sound is very tinny, though it is a lovely phone in many ways. I am just not happy with Sprint. I recently switched from Verizon because of cheaper plan but I think I'll return to Verizon and I'm trying to decide on which phone. The Touch Pro is too thick and quite "laggy" and the Storm is very large, though very easy to use.

Your review does not address the qwerty. I have no talent with "touching" the qwerty and would use the stylus. Does it flip/rotate in all programs? Is the attached stylus easy to use - it must "pull out" and part of it stay tethered?

Are the fonts on the phone large? The HTC Touch Flo and Diamond (not laggy) have small fonts (except in VZ Navigator, where they are huge.) One thing I liked about the Storm was you could make the fonts large so I wouldn't have to wear my reading glasses at every moment when using it.

Thanks, Sherry

[Stupiud]

Originally Posted by ociopia

You've really made a wonderful review. Thank you. I'm considering the Omnia. I'm very challenged to find the "right" phone. I want a PDA, I want it capable to do VZ Navigator, and I want to easily be able to enter text and sync with my contacts/calendar on outlook. I have a HTC Diamond (Sprint) and the sound is very tinny, though it is a lovely phone in many ways. I am just not happy with Sprint. I recently switched from Verizon because of cheaper plan but I think I'll return to Verizon and I'm trying to decide on which phone. The Touch Pro is too thick and quite "laggy" and the Storm is very large, though very easy to use.

Your review does not address the qwerty. I have no talent with "touching" the qwerty and would use the stylus. Does it flip/rotate in all programs? Is the attached stylus easy to use - it must "pull out" and part of it stay tethered?

Are the fonts on the phone large? The HTC Touch Flo and Diamond (not laggy) have small fonts (except in VZ Navigator, where they are huge.) One thing I liked about the Storm was you could make the fonts large so I wouldn't have to wear my reading glasses at every moment when using it.

Thanks, Sherry

First and foremost, I'd always suggest going to a VZW retail store to play with the phone for as long as they will let you. Also bear in mind the 30 day 'test trial' vzw allows; which incidentally also includes testing the phone.

now for the keyboard, the phone offers many flavors of qwery and in all cases if you were going to use the stylus the keyboard will be no problem to use. If you were to want to use your finger, the Samsung keyboard is large and relatively easy to use in landscape mode, but in portrat mode i find that sometimes i find i need to use two hands (but mind you, i am 6"1', 250lb so my fingers are a bit thick). Samsung keyboard mode, however, does take up a good portion of your screen, which in some cases doesn't matter, but in others it's not ideal. you always have the ability to swtich to the 'traditional' WinMo keyboard which is much smaller and is designed for sylus tapping. If you are willing to use the stylus, you also have the option of transcriber and/or block text entry both of which is a variation of hand writting recognition and in the case of transcriber, you can write virtually anywhere on the omnia's screen (both handwriting recognition works well 'out of the box' but if you take a few minuets to really fine tune it to your writing style it becomes amazingly accurate).

The sylus itself is very well secured, I do go to it at least a few times a day, because I personally just love the speed of transcriber. The stylus has good weight to it and after 2 months it still seems as new as the day i first got it. Sometimes, my girlfriend has a problem tugging it out, but that's because she feels like she make break it but she's since learned it's ok to be a little aggressive with it.

In most every program the phone can flip between portrait and landscape. I find that sometimes the phone does not respond properly (ie if i am lying in bed and tring to read email/news/ect). I have since turned off the accelerometer and mapped the screen rotation to a button press instead; you can do that as part of the WinMo settings.

Fonts are adjustable via the WinMo settings (kind of like how you can adjust the font size on your computer) and in most cases the phone supports smart zooming on the fly (ie you can zoom in and out on the screen at anytime). In txt intensive 'apps', such as the message center, you can double tap on the screen and it will max out the font size (max out = 1.5' letters ) to be very readable.

The Omnia has a bit of a learning curve with it, but once you learn in the in's and out's of WinMo the system becomes very flexible and customizable. Try it out in the store and ask a KNOWLEDGEABLE sales rep (one who's taken the Omnia training) if you want to really see the omnia at work.

[ociopia]

Very helpful. I'll go and check it out thoroughly. Many thanks, Sherry

[TrustworthyMike]

Can this phone run Adobe Flash Lite 3.1? Will it be able to run the upcoming Flash 10 for mobile?

[Stupiud]

Originally Posted by TrustworthyMike

Can this phone run Adobe Flash Lite 3.1? Will it be able to run the upcoming Flash 10 for mobile?

no flashlite3.1 yet. flashlite2.1 seems to be cooked into the rom and messes with flashlite 3.1; if you install flash 3.1 and run a browser, the phone hangs and/or crashes.

we'll have to see abt the next verson of flash... no definate word if the omnia will be able to get winmo 6.5 or 7...knowing vzw i wouldnt hold my breath.

that being said, omnia will at least play youtube out of the box; the quality is pretty bad tho... there is a third party app that does a good job wih you tube at xda.

[hghlander]

Ok, let me add my two cents worth here. That was a great review. I have an i910 which I activated on the alltel network. I'm loving the phone, though it does have a fairly short battery life if you are a heavy user. I find it has to be recharged daily. A big thank you for the tip about using the optical mouse in mouse mode. I've been using it in d-pad mode and find I am always reaching for the stylus. I'll give floating mouse a try. I have had no problems using the phone on alltel, though I am trying to figure out how to unlock the GPS chip and get rid of all the Verizon apps, etc. All in all, so far it is one of the best phones I have used to date. Not an Iphone, but if you aren't wanting to switch to AT&T, it's definitely a close second.

[Stupiud]

Originally Posted by hghlander

Ok, let me add my two cents worth here. That was a great review. I have an i910 which I activated on the alltel network. I'm loving the phone, though it does have a fairly short battery life if you are a heavy user. I find it has to be recharged daily. A big thank you for the tip about using the optical mouse in mouse mode. I've been using it in d-pad mode and find I am always reaching for the stylus. I'll give floating mouse a try. I have had no problems using the phone on alltel, though I am trying to figure out how to unlock the GPS chip and get rid of all the Verizon apps, etc. All in all, so far it is one of the best phones I have used to date. Not an Iphone, but if you aren't wanting to switch to AT&T, it's definitely a close second.

There is a leaked ROM over New ROM for Omnia i910 - WinMo @ MoDaCo allows open GPS usage.

USE AT YOUR OWN RISK! (but some users have reported that they were able to get vzw to replace their bricked phones.)

I haven't gotten the courage to try it. Word on the street is we are looking at May 11th for the 'official' version from VZW.

There is also a program floating around the net that can be mapped to a hardware button to allows the user to switch between d-pad and optical mouse.. search around.