Hands on with Samsung's Omnia II (Phone Arena News)

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Hands on with Samsung's Omnia II

Hands on with Samsung's Omnia II

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Published on: 02 August, 2009 by PhoneArena Team

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Special thanks to Negri Elecgtronics for providing us with this review unit, check them out for the hottest imported handsets!

Samsung took on the WinMo skinning game with the Omnia, and by all accounts it was relatively successful. Their TouchWiz is arguably the best overlay this side of TouchFLO, and with customizable widgets it offers the user more control. TouchWiz 2.0 is now here; we first saw it on the OmniaPRO and it also powers the Samsung Omnia II. Its a fine UI, and we applaud Samsung for going deeper into the OS than HTC has, but it suffers from lag. The 3.7" 480x800 AMOLED screen is downright gorgeous, and if it had 16m colors like the Pre or iPhone it would probably be the best display we've ever seen. Instead we're stuck with a paltry 65k colors. The plastic screen gives it a cheaper feel than the panel deserves. The size is still good given the massive display, and it's thin enough to comfortably slip into your pocket. Other features are as high end as you'd expect: 7.2 HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Opera Mobile, GPS, 5 megapixel camera with DVD quality video recording, DivX and XviD support and 8GB of internal storage with microSDHC expansion. Overall a pretty solid package, but how will it stand up against the other super offerings of today's market? Stay tuned for our full review soon!

Samsung Omnia II Specifications
Samsung Omnia II Review


		Omnia II and iPod Touch	Opera Mobile browser

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panacea224 @ 02 August, 2009 02:46:14 PM

Looking forward to the full review of this beast. If it performs well overall it may be my next phone.

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artz1986 @ 02 August, 2009 02:46:26 PM

It's WM and it lags, that answers your question. I don't think it'll be as good as the TouchPro 2. Design wise, I think they should have gone with a matted back, I can picture the phone getting a bunch of scratches, though it does look better than the iPhone.

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E.N. @ 02 August, 2009 08:00:55 PM

If any Omnia looked better than the iPhone, it would be the first Omnia and not this one. The first Omnia looks tons better than this one here.

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mickuza @ 03 August, 2009 02:17:48 AM

The first Omnia looks a little better than Omnia II.
But the first Omnia has pretty sluggish touch screen. Even the Omnia Lite can perform better.

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kvenderley @ 13 August, 2009 09:50:21 AM

YOU ARE SMOKIN CRACK! the original omnia was good, it look decent, but how can you saythe O2 doesnt look as good as the o1? wow thats the most ridiculous comment ive ever read! if they get the lag out of this phone, it puts the iphone to shame.

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puggunit @ 03 August, 2009 09:32:16 AM

first omnia was pretty bad. I hope this one has a back button. Looks pretty serious though.

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Striker13084 @ 03 August, 2009 02:11:46 PM

if you knew how to use it you would know that there was.

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PapaJay224 @ 04 August, 2009 12:14:53 AM

I had the old omnia and still do actually, great peice of hardware, I re mapped by menu button on the top left to be my Back/Exit?close button, worked great. I just didnt like that they're were 2 contact list 1 generic and 1 made by samsung than they had the WinMo menu and A samsung Touchwiz menu...it just seemed non proprietary and to jumbled up...they should take lessons from iPhone OS or BB OS and see how fluid it all runs.

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coussel @ 03 August, 2009 09:46:55 AM

The Omnia i8910 HD (not called "Omnia" anymore) is a more powerful phone (same OMAP3 guts as iPhone 3gs). The Omnia II just uses an overclocked version of the ARM 11 like the Touch Pro 2.

If you want a WinMo productivity phone, go with the Omnia Pro with a keyboard, if you want a media phone go with the Omnia HD, and if you want a game phone I guess iPhone 3GS is going to be tough to beat. (...Until Flash comes out for phones this winter!)

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