Samsung OMNIA Review

Introduction:

Translated from Latin, the name of Samsung’s new model means “everything” and its main purpose is to fully satisfy the needs of the modern cell phone user. This is a phone with a unique combination of characteristics such as 5-megapixel camera, large touch display and GPS, taking advantage of the Windows Mobile 6.1 platform. In addition, this is the first device with a built-in support of not only DivX, but XviD video. The logical question „Can it cook?” comes to mind…

The package includes:

Design:

Nowadays, the design is everything. Even a very good product would quickly be forgotten if it doesn’t come in a shiny package. Luckily, OMNIA is well prepared in this aspect. It is one of the most attractive Windows Mobile devices.



You can compare Samsung OMNIA to many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

The display is 3.2 inch one, which makes it comparable to the famous iPhone. Unfortunately, resolution wise, it is behind the leaders. We think that WVGA would suit it much better, compared to the 240х400 it has now. Nevertheless, the screen offers good image quality, but we have a few remarks regarding the colors, which have a light yellow hue. It is almost impossible to use it in direct sunlight, which is a big drawback. We have nothing to say about the sensitivity, even though Apple’s baby is still far ahead. Every touch is accompanied by a gentle vibration, no matter if you have activated any function and often, that could mislead you if you have tapped the wrong place. In addition, you have an extremely fashionable stylus at your disposal, which could be easily replaced by any object.

The only objects on the front are two large and relatively easy to press hardware buttons (Send/End keys) and an “optical” mouse, like in Samsung i780. When the virtual cursor is not active, it the mouse has the role of a D-pad and you have to run your finger in the direction desired. Overall, this alternative input method is good, but you'll never feel a need to use it while operating the phone.

The rest of the hardware buttons are on the right side. All of them have a decent size and are easily felt once pressed, which makes them user-friendly. On top of that, they have multiple functions. When held, the button for entering the main menu activates the Task switcher. By using the key for turning the volume up, you can switch on the zoom, no matter which menu you are in. Pressing the camera “trigger” one time leads to the gallery. Even though it is not revolutionary, we have to congratulate Samsung for the realization of the idea. Multifunctionality is the way!


The opposite side houses the strap “hook” for accessories (in our case stylus, but if you are a fan of Snoop Dogg – big purple dice) and the charger connector. To our regret, the last one is not a standard miniUSB, which is more popular since it is used in various electronic devices and could, for example, save you the purchase of a separate cable for the phone and for the camera. On top, we have the small and hard to press power button, accompanied by the one for hardware restart, which is accessible only with a stylus.

On the back, we find the 5-megapixel camera with flash. To get to the microSD slot, you’ll have to remove the battery lid. In contrast to the one we saw in the prototype, which looked like rubber-coated, now, it resembles polished metal. It looks good, but we think that a metal surface would suit the device better.

Despite OMNIA’s beautiful appearance, we don’t think that’s its most attractive asset. For an all-in-one device, the user-friendly interface and the rich multimedia functionality are of more importance.

Interface:

All-in-one, but user friendly. That’s the main idea of the personalized Windows Mobile interface, which Samsung OMNIA runs on. Although called TouchWiz by the manufacturer, the only similarity it has with the one seen in F480, are the widgets.


The overall impression the interface creates is for incompleteness. Some elements like the homescreen, the main menu and the contacts for example, have been modified in such a way that they resemble the non-smart phones and their purpose is to facilitate operating entirely with fingers. However, the original Windows Mobile applications with small and inconvenient icons, forcing you to use a stylus, are actually always apparent. They are closed from the top right corner, and the personalized ones from the bottom left, which is very annoying as well. We appreciate the attempt made by the manufacturer to modify the phone, thus allowing a wider consumer audience to use it, but it’s not working. All most frequently used functions had to be redesigned and not only a few, just to say they’ve done it. The final touches of such details are what make the difference between a good and an exceptional device.

We were impressed by the fact that scrolling is done as in F480 and most other phones with sensitive displays, and not like the previous Samsung models. In order to scroll you have to run your finger on the screen in the direction opposite to the one you want to move to.

We shouldn’t forget the presence of the accelerometer, which main function is to rotate the picture, depending on the phone’s positioning (however, you cannot turn it upside-down). The transition is not annoying when working with the OMNIA, and we will discuss the interesting application of that extra later on. Unfortunately, there are no preloaded programs, which to let you fully take advantage of that function like in the game Teeter, seen in HTC Touch Diamond.

There are two possible variants of the Homescreen. The first option represents it divided in three tabs with the main one housing the clock, call log shortcut, messages and e-mails. The other two are intended for speed dialing and frequently used settings (like activating the motion sensor, the mouse cursor, Bluetooth and WiFi). This way of organizing reminds us of the convenient and orderly HTC Home plug-in, we know from HTC Touch. Regrettably, the options offered in OMNIA’s tabs are much less and you cannot take advantage of the full functionality the device offers, just by relying on them. If you want to have more applications on the screen, it is mandatory that you use the stylus to scroll among them since the arrows become miniature. In landscape mode, the majority of the icons remain hidden, which is annoying.



The other option is “our favorite” Widget screen, we are familiar with from F480. Thanks to it, you have access to a few different types of clocks, calendar, music player, radio, profiles, game shortcuts and notes. The last ones appear to be an innovation, but unfortunately, have a limited functionality since their contents is not visible. All these elements can be moved around, according to your needs. On top of that, due to the accelerometer, you actually have two such displays, depending on the screen orientation. This allows you to have plenty of applications and get fast access to them, bypassing the limited screen size.


For desert, we have left the variant, which we think is the most convenient. It visualizes 12 large icons, similar to the ones you will see in the main menu. The top and bottom rows cannot be customized and give you access to the call log, messages, e-mails, the dialing pad, calendar and the main menu. If you press and hold an icon, you’ll be able to modify them. This will allow you to place six applications of your choice, and they will be fully accessible in landscape view.

As a whole, the widgets offer a little bit more options, compared to the ones in F480. Once you click on a clock for example, you can modify the hour and the date. However, the lack of variety in the applications present and the inability to add additional ones of your choice, still transform this plug-in in the next colorful marketing trick, to attract attention. The good customization options make the home screen with the big icons our preferred one. Overall, TouchFLO 3D’s homescreen remains the best for Windows Mobile at the moment, and TouchWiz makes a pleasant, but not very successful attempt to shorten the distance between them.

The main menu is a big innovation. It has large icons, which are extremely convenient for work with fingers and it looks like the menu of a regular phone, structured in a grid. This feature gives you access to all functions and makes the standard Windows Menu pointless.

It gives you access to a shortcut submenu where you can choose 11 from all applications available and put them in order, by drag & dropping them. The submenu combining all those programs in an alphabetized list is also very nice. It will save you wandering around, but you’ll have to do some heavy scrolling.

Phonebook:

The idea of the phonebook is similar to the one seen in iPhone; it gives you fast access to a specific letter by selecting it from the field on the right-hand side. It’s nice that the names are written out with a very large font. Once you chose a given contact, the next personalized screen appears, from which, thanks to the enlarged icons, you will be able to easily dial the mobile, home, or the office number of the person and to send a message. The Caller ID, which unfortunately, is very small here and on incoming call, is also visible.


Aside from it, you can setup a ringtone, multiple numbers, addresses, emails and notes. Naturally, the search is done by both parts of the name, but there are no number matches.

In order to take advantage of this function, you need to enter in the dial pad. When inputting numbers there, the search is done in both, the phonebook and the call log, by name and number.

Organizer:

From OMNIA’s personalized menu, you can set countless alarms, which to repeat daily and others, to remind you every week/month/year (marked as memorial days). Here, you will also find a World Clock with a very pleasant design, which will let you select your city and resembles Google Maps. The timer is the last application included in this menu.


The Calendar is absolutely standard for a Windows Mobile device and here, you can enter your appointments. You can use options like: reminder (PRIOR NOTICE 1/5/10/15/30/45 minutes, 1/2/3/4/5/6 hour/day/week), recurrence (Once, Every (same-day-of-the-week), Day (same-date) of every month, Every (same date-and-month) for every year, sensitivity (normal, personal, private, confidential). You can also add attendees (required or optional) from your contacts where e-mail addresses have been added and where meeting requests will be sent.


Examining the calendar can be done by day/week/month/year/agenda and you can choose starting day for the week and the week duration (5-6-7-day week). The appointments for the day are clearly shown in their time limits, so you can see your free time at a glance.

You have Tasks menu, where you can add to-do items. For a given Task you can set subject, priority (normal, low, and high), start/due date, reminder (to be notified if it’s due), category (business, holiday, personal, seasonal) and write a note. The Task can have recurrence (Once, Every (same-day-of-the-week), Day (same-date) of every month, every (same date-date-and-month) for every year and sensitivity (normal, personal, private, confidential). Examining the tasks in a list, you can easily see which of them are finished and which are not. The tasks options can be: sort by (status, priority, subject, start date, due date) or filter (all, recent, no categories, active, completed).


The calculator has been redesigned but doesn’t offer better functionality than the standard for Windows Mobile. You also have a unit converter (called Smart Converter), which is very easy to work with.

‘Notes’ are simple notes in which you can input text by the keyboard or by hand as an image. They can be synchronized with outlook.

Search is an application searching in all files in the phone. You can specify certain types of files (calendar/contacts/excel/messaging/notes/etc), but the best option is All Data, which will rummage everything in your phone.

File Explorer is the mobile alternative of Explorer in Windows environment with computers. We use it to view the phone memory, including the system folders of the device, which feels like working on a PC.

The phone is offered in two variants – with 8 or 16 GB built-in memory. If that’s not enough, you can expand it up to 32GB via a microSD HC card. In other words, you can own a mobile device with the “modest” 48 GB of memory.

Messages:

A versatile device such as OMNIA cannot have limited messaging options. The main feature here is the convenient modes of text input, which are as follows:

• Block Recognizer
• Keyboard
• Letter Recognizer
• Transcriber
• Samsung Keyboard
• Samsung Keypad
• Samsung Phonepad

We think that the Samsung’s Keypad is the best option for a landscape-oriented display. It is a SureType-like keyboard, which combined with the T9 predictive text support, will let you enter text really fast. If you are using the horizontal view, the full QWERTY is a better solution. The only problem comes from the “space”, which is located on the side and not in the middle, therefore requires some time to get used to.

Just a few steps away are the options to add your e-mail account (POP3 or IMAP) and to use it on your mobile phone. Very nice extra is that the phone can try to get the email settings automatically from the internet, and so we configured our Gmail Account by entering only the username and password. Windows Mobile 6 already supports HTML formatted e-mails. The client is very similar to the Outlook on a computer, you can filter your inbox to see just some results, reply to message or forward it to other person.

The support for attachments allows you to download or send one, in addition to the text body. The phone can be set to synchronize with your company Exchange Server.

Connectivity:

Samsung OMNIA is a quad-band GSM, which makes it a World phone, but regrettably, because of the single band UMTS, it is not suitable for high-speed Internet in the U.S. It supports GPRS, EDGE and HSDPA speeds with the last one getting up to 7.2Mbit/s, when used in Europe.

The phone packs a Wi-Fi b/g radio to allow for data transmission when off the cellular network. For data transfer on short distances, the phone supports Bluetooth 2.0.

The browser is almost identical to the one we saw in HTC Touch Diamond. It is a customized version of the yet-to-be-released Opera Mobile 9.5, and unlike Opera Mobile 8.x it is powered by Opera Mini’s Presto engine. Browsing is, in short, fantastic. Complex HTML pages are rendered flawlessly, panning and zooming is fluid and simple, full-screen mode is automatic and it supports tabbed browsing. Pages are loaded as an overview and the user can easily drag the page to pan around. On top of that, while you are reading through the page, a small map appears which makes navigation easier. HTC Touch for example, doesn’t offer such extras. Another unique feature is the option to zoom out by running a finger on the right side of the display. A double tap zooms in on the selected area and another double tap zooms back out. When zoomed in the browser renders text to fit the view, eliminating the need to constantly drag back and forth to read a paragraph. Rotate the device in either direction and the page moves to landscape view nearly instantaneously.


When not in full-screen mode there is a menu bar at the bottom with Back, Favorites, Tabs, Home and Menu. At the top of the page is the address bar and stop button, as well as a close tab button.In contrast to HTC Touch Diamond, the accelerometer positions the picture very well even after fast movement. The bad news is that you are not able to view any Flash objects such as videos. iPhone’s Safari at least recognizes YouTube videos and they can be played in a separate player.

Pocket Internet Explorer is of course available as well, but we fail to see why it would ever be used.

The phone syncs with a PC via ActiveSync (Windows XP) or Mobile Device Center (Vista.) Users can choose to sync any number of items, such as contacts, calendar, tasks, favorites, notes, media and more. We tested it with ActiveSync and had no issues syncing with our existing Outlook database. Officially there is no Mac support, but programs such as Missing Sync can remedy this. The phone also gives you a Mass Storage mode option when you connect, enabling use of the device as a USB drive

Camera:

Samsung OMNIA is one of the first Windows Mobile devices sporting a 5-megapixel camera (G-Smart MS820 was announced earlier this year). It is equipped with autofocus, flash and many options borrowed from the high-class cameraphones. The picture and video quality are comparable just with them. In contrast to the rest of the phones running on that OS, OMNIA far ahead.

The first thing that impressed us was its operating speed. The interface starts somewhat sluggish (about 3 seconds), but focusing and saving is very quick (2 seconds each). It is optimized for working entirely with fingers and has large icons with clearly marked functions. All main options (flash, resolution, focus, exposure, shooting mode and scenes) are visible on the screen. Thanks to them, after just couple of taps you can choose an option without having to go through complicated menus, to scroll or confirm. There also are shortcuts to the gallery and the camcorder.

The rest of the settings are separated in two tabs with a few pages each. The first one lets you change the quality (compression), the white balance, to add effects, to change the ISO sensitivity (up to 800), contrast, sharpness, color saturation and focusing mode (center, in a point or matrix). On top of that, if you activate the GPS you will be able to tag the picture with information about the place where it was taken. This would give you the unique ability to send a tagged picture to your buddy saying for example “Look at the honeys in South Beach” without giving him the chance to accuse you in masterful use of Photoshop. However, we prefer using Adobe’s software instead of the Wide Dynamic Ranger option, with which is equipped the camera, because it simply enlightens the darker areas. By using some of the options mentioned above (like the Color swap for example), you can achieve very artistic results.


The second tab gives you access to more general options as for example, where to save the images, how long do you want the camera to be active for, should there be guiding lines, etc.

However, the variety of functions is not the most important for a camera. The overall quality of the pictures taken with OMNIA is over the average. The outdoor photographs have well saturated and beautiful, but unreal colors. The fine detail level is slightly behind the top 5-megapixel phones we’ve used. Indoors, the results are worse, especially if there isn’t a good light source. The images have a lot of noise and low detail level. If you intend to snap pictures in the dark, bear in mind that the flash is very bright and it has to be used from a good distance in order not to blind somebody. In macro mode, the camera performs better, as long as you are not extremely close to the object being photographed. Here, the flash brightness is automatically reduced so it can be used.



When recording a video, you can use the majority of the effects and settings accessible in the picture mode. The max resolution is 640х480 with 15 fps, and the format used is MPEG4, which promises better results than the outdated 3gp. Unfortunately, the videos are choppy when watching (even on a PC) and recording, which is very annoying. This makes the camera unsuitable for recording dynamic videos, which is rather disappointing. The sound, even though accompanied with a slight noise, is relatively good.

Samsung OMNIA sample video at 640x480 pixels resolution.
* Note that due to codecs support, you may not be able to play the file.

Anyways, OMNIA definitely raises the bar for the cameras in the Windows Mobile devices. It performs at the level of the best cameraphones, including Nokia N82 and N95 8GB .

Multimedia:

This is the key moment in presenting the versatile device. Especially for picture viewing, we have a separate application called Photo Slides. It lets you create albums with images from which, you can later make slideshows. Here, navigating is not done by dragging but by using the arrows. This is not inconvenient, but is another slightly confusing moment in the phone – one moment you are scrolling and you are looking for arrows in the next.


When starting the media album, you will once more meet the finger-unfriendly Windows Mobile navigation. Once you open the pictures, you can jump to the previous/next one or zoom in/out by using your fingers. You can choose if you want to either see all documents in a specific folder or only one type (pictures, videos, music, documents).

If you open a song or a video, they will automatically start the Touch Player, and not the standard Windows Media. Samsung’s modification is very easy to use with fingers. You can sort the files by album, artist and genre. Unfortunately, there is no equalizer.

OMNIA will let you listen to quality music. The speaker is not loud enough, but the sound is clear with a slight metallic noise. Once you put the earphones on however, the situation improves greatly. Loud, clear and basically close to the best we’ve heard from a phone. The ear plugs, which have a somewhat extravagant design, will not be comfortable for everyone, but are worth it, because of the great sound quality. But if you really care about the sound, there is a 3.5 mm adapter, so you can use the headphones of your choice. This is one of the rare cases of a Windows Mobile phone, which manages to visualize album art stored in the ID3 tag without any problems. You can also view the albums by these pictures, but that’s not as convenient and flashy as seen in iPhone’s cover flow.



The FM radio, offers two groups where you can store up to 6 frequencies in each. As a whole the interface is quite simple, and the only more interesting function is the ability to record what you are listening to. However, it is made completely useless by the awful sound quality.

The user can play videos via the Touch Player as well. The promised DivX/XviD support is present along with the MPEG4 h.264 one, and can visualize videos with resolution smaller than 720x480. Basically, unless you want to see DVD resolution files, you won’t have to convert them in order to play them on your phone. A 700MB movie is transferred for 5 minutes and a half, which is a very good result.

The main problem, which stops us from announcing OMNIA for the best MMP on the market, is called Windows Mobile. The OS doesn’t allow visualization of more than 65k colors and that’s why sometimes the transition will not be smooth.


Overall, this element is at iPhone’s level. With the Samsung, you can simply upload videos from your PC and view them with a satisfactory quality, meanwhile although you have to convert the files to a supported format for Apple’s child, the beautiful 16 million color picture justifies the time lost.

Software:

OMNIA’s processor is the fastest possible on the market and thanks to that it opens menus smoothly even with a multiple applications running.

The task switcher, which appears when the main menu button is held, is very convenient and lets you stop a given active application or all of them. Besides, if the TouchPlayer is playing, you’ll be able to control it from here.

Since OMNIA is a Windows Mobile device, you can install any additional applications you might need.

The phone comes with Office Mobile (allows editing of Word and Excel files(including Office 2007) and PowerPoint viewing) and a PDF reader. All of them visualize documents correctly and open them rather quick. Unfortunately, browsing a PDF file is done only with the help of the small, inconvenient arrows and not with fingers. We are slightly disappointed, because we thought that with TouchWiz most of the things would be controlled by touch. At least the zoom stays at the same level once you move on to the next page.

Google Maps

The Video Editor at your disposal, can only open QVGA or smaller resolution videos, made with the phone. It’s absurd that you can record videos with a higher resolution, but you cannot edit them. Still, this function offers some interesting options like putting together a picture and video story. You can add subtitles to those and apply various effects.

GPS:

OMNIA is also equipped with a GPS, which of course, is not only used for image tagging. The preloaded Google Maps will help you navigate from A to B. The localizing after a cold start took us about 2 minutes, and the hot one was much quicker at less than 10 seconds.

To our regret, the use of Google Maps requires a constant internet connection. If you travel outside of the coverage area, there is no navigation either. Therefore, if you need reliable navigation, get one of the paid programs like iGO and Tom Tom Navigator.

Performance:

Samsung OMNIA is one of the best performing Windows Mobile devices, not only as functionality, but because of its quickness and reliability.

Even though the phone’s results at SPB Benchmark are behind HTC Touch Diamond’s, using it daily will not be annoying, because of the light lag. OMNIA runs smooth with multiple running applications, which is a result of the good optimization.

The call sound quality is terrible, not. It’s actually one of the best on the market. The sound you and the collocutor will hear is somewhat annoyingly sharp, but the voices are real and at a pleasant volume level. The loudspeaker can be used,and you’ll only have to get used to the sharp voices you hear.

According to the official data, OMNIA’s battery should last over 5 hours of talking or 500 in standby mode, which is a good result for such a phone.

Conclusion:

Samsung has done a wonderful job in creating an all-in-one device. OMNIA truly performed very well in every aspect and offers a wonderful combination of a 5-megapixel camera, media player, internet browser and GPS navigation. All that in an attractive package with quality sound during a talk, including the extensive organizing options characteristic for a smartphone.

The only more serious drawback is the interface, which should have been much easier to use for the mass consumer, and not only personalized Windows Mobile.

Nevertheless, the phone is one of the most interesting high-tech products on the market and is definitely worth the money.