Samsung OMNIA HD i8910 Review

Camera:

The eye of the monster or its 8-megapixel camera features less pleasing interface that looks pretty much like the one found on Samsung Pixon. Elements are in monotonous, grim colors and out of character with the otherwise motley looking interface. On the other hand it´s really easy to use and that´s more important. There is a number of preloaded photo presets for taking pictures of people, faraway or moving objects and variety of shootings modes - night, sunrise, fireworks, candle light etc. The prototype allowed us to set the ISO up to 3200, but the guys at Samsung must have later decided that such a high setting didn´t make sense, so its maximum value has now been reduced to 1600. The average time to take a snapshot is good alongside of the other 8-megapixel cell phones we have tested this far (take a look at our article here). Starting up takes about 2.5 seconds, focusing objects about the same time and saving pictures another 5 seconds.

Outdoor pictures look great. Their quality is similar to what the Samsung INNOV8 offers with proper exposure, white balance, realistic colors and almost no noise at all and not last, clearly discernible details. We were a bit surprised by the built-in flash in artificial lighting conditions. It managed to provide enough illumination so as to keep as many details as possible. Still, there was noise, but at an acceptable level.



Let´s keep the most important thing in mind, namely HD video capture. Camera, light, action! Do we have the previously promised 24 frames per second? Yes, we do. What about colors? Pretty good, although brightness is a bit excessive. Quality of details? On par, especially for cell phone camera. Camera delivers stellar performance as you can see for yourself by clicking the link below.

Samsung OMNIA HD i8910 sample video at 1280x720 pixel resolution..
*Note that due to codecs support, you may not be able to play the file.
** Keep in mind that the video file is about 22MB.

You can take a look at all captured videos and snapshots in the Gallery. Moreover, uploading content from there on popular Internet services is but a few screen taps away. You´ve got support for Facebook, Picasa, Flickr, Photobucket, Friendster and MySpace. Starting any of these requires that you enter username and password the first time, but then you are good to go and start sharing.



Aside from the Gallery itself, you also have MediaBrowser that looks very much like the Samsung Pixon´s Photo Browser and shows you all available pictures, snapshots and video files. We really dig that you can use the accelerometer to switch between files without touching the screen at all. Airs and graces are fine art as they say.




Multimedia:

You don´t think we are about to get down to video playback right away, do you? It´s the icing on the cake and is best served last. Let´s talk about the music player. Starting it you find yourself in its main menu that offers a number of filtering options. A nice looking interface that features large buttons pops us whenever you start a song. You can almost immediately notice the 5.1 channel sound option that is only available if you have your headset plugged in. Several equalizer presets and a few sound effects are also available. Now, that was the boring part about the music player. Turning the phone aside gets you to a wonderland. Not literally, of course, but you are taken to an interface that looks a whole lot different. It shows you all covers and art of any album you have and you can navigate through the content by sliding your finger sideways, just like Cover Flow on the iPhone. Once you´ve selected an album, you remain in the same interface and a song list appears on the right to your album cover image. We do like the function and are glad Samsung have decided to lend some color to the music player.






In addition, you have RDS FM radio that sports a simple interface in pleasing colors, all in character with Samsung. What we like most here is you can actually record radio broadcasts while listening. If the radio is playing something you like, why not just record it and have it at hand later?


The sound coming out of the stereo speakers is loud, even if less than what Nokia 5800 offers. The audio quality, however, is great. Our phone didn´t come with a headset, but we are as far from being disturbed as it gets simply because you can always use the 3.5 mm. jack. We plugged in a pair of decent quality headphones and evidenced grand sound quality and medium loudness. We have seen phones with louder sound, say the Sony Ericsson W980 and (again) the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.

Now, we´ve just made it to the most thrilling part. We suspect most of you left out the previous pages, but we can live with that. Both Samsung Pixon and Samsung INNOV8 are great performers when it comes to watching videos since either features DivX and Xvid support. The Samsung OMNIA i8910 is head and shoulders above them though, since it´s capable of playing content in HD resolution (720p). Watching videos on its 3.7-inch display is breathtaking experience that we can hardly put into words. Colors are vivid and saturated, while artifacts are almost nonexistent. Stuttering, sluggishness or skipping frames? You have to be joking, right? None! Simply perfect. Cheers!



Truth be told, there is no point in converting videos at greater resolutions than the one the screen features (640x360) if you are intent on seeing movies on your phone. HD files come in handy if you connect the phone to a HD TV set through Wi-Fi DLNA module.

Well, there is more. Aside from the standard Symbian OS RealPlayer, you can also watch videos with a preinstalled piece of software going by the name VideoPlayer that also supports subtitles. It scans the memory of the phone on first run; all video files found are then displayed on a vertical scroll list. When you starting a video, a pleasing, simplified interface shows up and we do like it better to RealPlayer.