Samsung Omnia II i920 review

Introduction:

When we reviewed the GSM Samsung Omnia II I8000 this summer, we were impressed by its features and have been eager to see if its CDMA cousin would be equally equipped. Now the time has come as the Samsung Omnia II i920 for Verizon Wireless has been released. Though a bit later than many had hoped, but it makes up for the delay as it comes with Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional already installed, making it the 2nd Verizon smartphone to offer it after the HTC Imagio. We are glad to see that the Omnia II for Verizon retains the impressive AMOLED display, TouchWiz 2.0 interface and 5MP camera that we saw on the GSM Omnia II, but with other smartphone rivals on the loose, such as the Motorola DROID and HTC Imagio, does the Omnia II have what it takes to get people excited, or has the smartphone ship already sailed, leaving it alone on the dock?
The retail package includes the Omnia II i920 smartphone with stylus, 1500mAh battery, detachable wall charger/microUSB cable, mic adapter with built-in FM antenna, software CDs and user manual.

Design:





You can compare the Samsung Omnia II i920 with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

It will come as no surprise that the overall design of the Samsung Omnia II i920 is based on the Omnia II I8000 and Jet S8000, though there are some differences, as the front Main Menu key is no longer cube shaped and the dark-maroon colored back cover has a geometric pattern that almost looks 3D. The device is relatively large and is almost as thick as the Motorola DROID, though it lacks the physical keyboard, but comes in at about 1oz less since it is constructed out of plastic instead of metal. The Omnia II fits well in the hand and is comfortable to hold, thanks to the round corners, but it is slippery as it lacks any soft-touch coating. Overall, the device is quite attractive and professional looking as it stands out from other all-black smartphones.



Just like its GSM counterpart, the Omnia II for Verizon comes with a large 3.7-inch AMOLED display capable of 480x800 WVGA resolution, but now supports up to 16 million colors. What does this mean? Images and text look amazing on it, though the TFT display on the Motorola DROID isn’t terrible looking, as it is also WVGA and supports 16M colors. It’s just that with AMOLED, images have more “pop” as they have better contrast and colors are truer-to-life; making us whish that it was used on more phones. Unfortunately, the Omnia II still uses resistive-based touchscreen technology, which means that you’ll have to press a bit harder on the screen to get a response than you would with a capacitive screen, such as on the Motorola DROID and HTC DROID ERIS, though it doesn’t require as much pressure as the original Omnia i910, but a stylus is still included. Above the display is the earpiece, light sensor (to automatically adjust the display’s brightness), and proximity sensor (to turn the display off when it’s next to your face), and below it are the send, end, and main menu keys. Along the left side is the volume rocker, ok/back button, and 3.5mm headset jack; while on the right side is the camera button, lock button, and microUSB port, and the  5MP autofocus camera with LED flash and stereo speakers are on the back. You have to remove the battery cover to access the microSDHC memory card slot, which supports cards up to 16GB.

User Interface:

The original Omnia i910 that we reviewed last year came with a new Samsung user interface called TouchWiz, but at the time it was lacking in features and didn’t compare to the more robust TouchFLO 3D interface used by HTC. Now, the Omnia II comes with TouchWiz 2.0, which greatly improves the smartphone experience. In fact, you wouldn’t even know you were using a Windows Mobile device from looking at the home screen if it weren’t for the small “Start” logo on the top left. Speaking of home screens, there are three of them on the Omnia II, where you can selected a different wallpaper for each and place links and widgets from the hidden dock on the left side. The only downside here is that moving between the three home screens is painfully slow, sometimes taking several seconds when they are filled with different widgets. Both the Motorola DROID and HTC DROID ERIS are faster when moving between their multiple home screens, as well as the HTC Imagio and Touch Pro2 using TouchFLO 3D.



Samsung has also completely redesigned the Main Menu, making it easier to use and more customizable. By default there are 5 menu screens, but you can have up to 10. Each one allows you to place 12 icons on a 3x4 grid, for a maximum total of 120 icons. You can easily remove icons by pressing the minus sign (-) or drag them from one menu screen to another by holding them down and moving to the left or right. Along the bottom are three non-changeable icons for settings, task switcher, and edit. When going into the Task Switcher you will see that it is a visually redesigned task manager, allowing you to view, change between, and end running tasks and programs. Its nice graphical layout works rather well as it shows a small thumbnail for each open program. Tapping on the thumbnail will maximize it, allowing for easy multitasking, or you can press the End icon to quickly close programs that are no longer needed.




The Settings menu has also been reworked completely. Categories are arranged in list view with text instead of the traditional icon grid layout, which makes fingering through them much easier. Toggling between options is done by touching an onscreen button or drop-down list, a welcome difference from the toggle switches used by TouchFLO 3D. It is abundantly clear that Samsung put a lot of time into taking any traces of Windows Mobile out of the new Omnia II.



Despite the beefed up processing power, at 800MHz the spinning Windows Mobile ‘beach ball’ still pops up at times when opening programs. The widgets are a great idea, and some of them (like AccuWeather and Google) are very helpful, but they are slow to load when changing between the three home screens. Furthermore, we often found ourselves pressing options two and three times to activate them and not being able to drag widgets around unless they were pressed just right. This problem was only in the home screens (here we really missed HTC’s TouchFLO 3D), though when using the rest of the menus and programs it was very responsive and accurate.

PIM Functionality:

As with everything else, Samsung has put their personal touch on the PIM applications. The calendar is large and finger friendly, with tabs along the top for month, week, day and agenda. Smart Memo is a better version of Notes, where the user can draw with their finger or type with the on-screen keyboard, and insert voice recordings, images and sounds. Samsung has a thing or two to improve here though. The contacts list is easy to navigate, again completely skinned by Samsung, with tabs for the phonebook, category, speed dial, and favorites. Unfortunately, it will not sync and import people from your Facebook page or from Google Talk. The Tasks application sadly hasn’t changed. In fact, the standard WinMo apps for Contacts, Notes, Calendar, Task Manager and a few others are available under the Edit option in the Start Menu. Why anyone would want to use them, we don’t know, since the Samsung versions are superior in every way.




Messaging:

Since the device doesn’t come with a physical keyboard, you are left at the mercy of using the touchscreen, but there’s a surprise here, as the Omnia II is the first phone to feature the new Swype entry method. It can work in both portrait and landscape mode, and all you have to do is press-and-hold the screen and move your finger across the letters to spell a word. You also don’t have to press the space-bar, but can continue spelling the next word since the space is automatically inserted between them. If it isn’t sure of a word, it will show a box with ones to choose from, but this only happens if it doesn’t recognize a word, or the path that your finger moved in could be more than one. It did take a few minutes to get accustomed to using it, but after a while we enjoyed it and became quite fast using it, more so than using a phone’s traditional physical QWERTY keyboard, such as the HTC Touch Pro2 or Motorola DROID. Other input options on the Omnia II are the block recognizer, standard keyboard, letter recognizer, Samsung keyboard, and transcriber. The only other one, besides Swype, we could see ourselves using is the standard Samsung keyboard, as it is comfortable to use, has large buttons, and xt9 for word prediction, but we believe that using the Swype keyboard is the best method out of the bunch and is the fastest way to enter text on the Omnia II.


All the standard messaging formats are available, including Email (POP/IMAP/Exchange), SMS and MMS. Samsung has again skinned these, but the functionality remains the same. Windows Mobile is a very robust messaging platform, but lacks a built-in IM program. Because of this, Verizon still has to place their own Mobile IM app onto the phone to allow messaging through AIM, WL Messenger, and Yahoo!.



Connectivity:

The Samsung Omnia II i920 is a dual-band device that operates on Verizon’s CDMA 800/1900MHz network within the US. Data can use Verizon’s EVDO Rev A. network, as well as local Wi-Fi 802.11b/g networks. Bluetooth 2.0+EDR is also supported.

Samsung has chosen to stick with Opera Mobile for all of your web needs, though Internet Explorer is also included. We’ve of course seen Opera employed on many WinMo devices such as the HTC Touch Pro2 and Imagio. The build used here has limited support for Flash, which works with a few sites, such as adobe.com and for embedded YouTube videos. Unfortunately, Opera is really slow to maneuver pages on the Omnia II, which we did not experience on the HTC Imagio, as it feels like you are moving through mud just to pan around, often times with the “gray checkerboard” showing. This is one area of disappointment, since the Omnia II is a smartphone and most users will be browsing the web on it. We also tried Internet Explorer, and it was able to pan around pages and scroll faster than Opera, but could only be used with the phone in portrait mode and lacked some functionality.  It is clear that the WebKit browser found on the Motorola DROID and HTC DROID ERIS is superior, as pages not only load faster, but are quick to pan around and scroll through.

Camera:

The camera on the Samsung Omnia II i920 sports the same 5MP resolution as the original Omnia i910, but only has a single LED flash, instead of the dual LED flash used by the GSM model. Video recording has been improved, as it now records at DVD resolution (720x480) at 18fps, but can go as high as 120fps at QVGA resolution for slow motion recording.

There is some delay in the camera, as it takes about 3 sec to start up, 4 sec to focus, and 3 sec to snap a picture and save it (with the 2 sec review mode turned off). These times are acceptable, but not really great, though still faster at saving images than the Motorola DROID.

We could easily tell that images taken by the Omnia II i920 outside on a sunny day were more in-focus than its GSM counterpart, but both suffer from poor color accuracy as well as being highly overexposed in bright areas, thus losing detail. This is a shame as the original Omnia i910 had these same issues. Indoor images fared worse, as they were blurry and had a lot of grain in lower-light conditions. The LED flash, however, does a good job and has a range of about 12 feet. Overall, the camera hasn’t changed since the first Omnia and produces bearable results. With that in mind, the Motorola DROID produces better images outside, as colors are more accurate and there is finer detail without being overexposed.




For videos, the Omnia II i920 is rated at 720x480 resolution, but was capable of only 18fps, while the GSM version could record at 30fps. We’re not sure why there is a difference here, but when playing back a video recorded with the Omnia II i920 on a PC, or on the phone itself, the image is jerky and incredibly choppy, as well as there being some quite noticeable block-pixelation. So, if you’ve been thinking of shooting your own music video with this phone – forget it. On the other hand, the Motorola DROID records at the same resolution, but at 25fps, which makes for smoother playback, and with a data rate of 3Mb/sec, compared to the 1.2Mb/sec data rate of the Omnia II. The audio track captured with the Omnia II is good enough for most talking.

Samsung Omnia II i920 sample video at 720x480 pixels resolution.

There are plenty of options to play with. In camera mode the user can select 5, 3, 2 or 0.3 megapixel resolutions, set the ISO from 50-800 or let the device do it for you, adjust the contrast, saturation and sharpness, select light metering, choose automatic white balance or from four presets, and enable Anti-Shake, and WDR, but unfortunately geotagging is not included. There are 14 different scene modes to produce more realistic images, such as Portrait, Landscape, Sunset, Dusk & Dawn, Night Shot, etc. Additional features we’ve seen from Samsung before, like Smile Detection, are also available. The easy-to-use panoramic mode has gotten even easier, now taking 8 shots and with the camera virtually doing all the work for you. All you have to do is snap the first shot and then slowly pan to the right or left while the camera lines it up and snaps the rest and stitches them together. Results were good, but the resolution gets significantly lowered to 2752x400.



Multimedia:

Samsung’s Touch Player handles music and video playback. No surprises here, but it’s very well laid out and has large icons for easy finger use. The layout is pretty straight forward, you can view all tracks or by album and artist, and can create your own playlists. Sound quality was good through the stereo speakers, but not as loud as we had hoped. Samsung’s DNSe technology has over a dozen settings for more realistic sound reproduction. We like that the Omnia II has an onboard 3.5mm headset jack, but it only comes with the antenna adapter for use with the FM Radio, not the earbuds themself, which we find simply unacceptable. So we used a pair of our own earbuds, and music sounded better through them than with the phone’s stereo speakers. We also paired our Motorola HT820 stereo Bluetooth headset to the Omnia II without problem and got up to 35 feet of music enjoyment without any static.



The Touch Player is much more polished this time around, with better controls and a more professional look. One cool hidden feature is that when listening to music, if the device is locked you can swipe down from the top to reveal music controls.

Video playback was brilliant. It supports MP4 with H.263 and H.264 encoding, WMV, DivX, and XviD and was able to handle every file type and frame rate we threw at it. We managed to play videos of up to WVGA resolution without a hitch. The quality of video was amazing; everything looked fantastic on the AMOLED screen.



There is an FM radio tuner that uses the adapter as an antenna. It works well, as it can auto scan and save stations as presets, as well as record audio. Quality is average, about what we experienced with the LG Chocolate Touch, but still not as good as a real FM radio in a boom-box or car when trying to pick up weaker stations. The on-board video editor left a bit more to be desired; as it was a bit awkward to use, and does not support videos taken at the phone’s highest recording resolution (720x480). In theory you can stitch videos together, add text and/or audio to them or auto clip them based on certain parameters, but we were not impressed as you have to use lower resolution video files for it to work.

The same 3D cube interface we first saw on the Samsung Jet S8000 is included on the Omnia II i920. It is a watered-down multimedia interface, and we’re really not sure what Samsung is trying to do here. Functionality is OK, but it’s a very primitive app that still needs a lot of work. There is also no need to even use it, as you can access the same programs using the Start Menu.

Verizon’s own VCast Video Player is also included, as it will stream pre-recorded video clips to the phone. This has been around for years, so we’re not that impressed with it, especially since you can tell how poor the video quality is when viewing it on a high-quality display. The HTC Imagio comes with Mobile TV, which uses the FLOTV network to stream live TV channels. We wouldn’t mind seeing that on the Omnia II, since it has an AMOLED display, but streaming video is still limited to QVGA resolution and won’t look as good as ripping your own movies to the SD card for playback.

Software:

The Samsung Omnia II i920 is the second smartphone for Verizon, after the Imagio, to come with Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional installed, so no upgrading is necessary. It runs on an ARM1176 S3C6410 processor at 800MHz  and comes with 512MB ROM and 256MB of RAM, but there is also a separate 8GB of onboard storage that can be used, as well as being able to install a memory card. One would think this should be plenty muscle to power the device, but as noted earlier we saw too many colorful Windows “beach balls” for our liking and there was noticeable lag at times. Under the Power Settings you can change it from Auto to High CPU Performance, which we did right away, but it made little difference, however changing it to Low will slow things down to a crawl and is not recommended.

Besides all the Samsung software found on the Omnia II, there are a few other helpful programs. Connected Home allows the user to access music libraries from remote computers. The Streaming Player is similar to HTC’s Streaming Media player, neither of which is all that practical for playing internet videos, and a RSS reader for keeping up with the latest current events. There is a communities option that lets you save your Facebook, Flickr, Friendster, MySpace, Photobucket, and YouTube accounts so you can upload photos/videos or go to the website (where you’ll have to login again), but that’s the extent of it. None of these will link your friends to your main Contacts list.



Instead of coming with Google Maps or NAVFone Plus software, the Omnia II i920 has VZ Navigator already installed for GPS guided directions, which of course costs extra per month if you choose to activate it. It allows you to plan your trip and even will re-route you if there are traffic congestions while on the road. Other features include the ability to find local movie theaters and show times, restaurants, gas stations, ATMs, hotels, hospitals, travel (airports, bus, car rental), parking lot/garage, and Verizon stores. It is an excellent program, but is losing ground since the (free) Google Maps with Navigation comes included on the Motorola DROID and soon on the HTC DROID ERIS.



Being that it is a Windows Mobile device, it comes with Office Mobile, allowing for viewing and editing of Word and Excel files (including Office 2007), One Note, PowerPoint viewing, and Adobe Reader LE. All of them visualize documents correctly and open them rather quick. Unfortunately, navigating though a PDF file is done only with the help of small arrows at the bottom of the screen, instead of using your finger to swipe from page to page. Fortunately, the zoom stays at the same level once you move on to the next page.



The Omnia II is also one of the few Verizon smartphones to come with the Microsoft Bing application. It allows you to search a wide variety of categories, has GPS maps with satellite view (you can zoom in to street level), driving directions (but no turn-by-turn navigation), local traffic and gas prices, movies, and weather. There is a lot of good information here, so it will get plenty of use.



There is a very interesting Smart Reader application which will not only scan business cards, but also documents and will even translate words captured with the camera.

You can also download applications through the Microsoft Marketplace for Mobile, though there currently aren’t a lot of choices and prices are high on most programs. One of our favorites is the free Facebook app, which works rather well, as it will show updates, feeds, pictures, your wall, and list of friends.

Performance:

Call quality was good, as voices sounded clear and lacked any background noise in the earpiece speaker, but tones were somewhat shallow and didn’t sound as full as on the HTC Imagio or Motorola DROID. Signal reception also wasn’t on par with the DROID, as the Omnia II only had 1-2 bars showing in high coverage areas, while the DROID would have 3-4 bars. One feature that the Omnia II does exceptionally well in is with the speakerphone, as it is loud and clear, even when the volume it turned up to the highest setting. Thank you Samsung for having stereo speakers, as most other phones do not.

The included 1500mAh battery is rated to provide up to 6 hours of talk time or 15 days of standby time on a full charge. We were able to achieve up to 5.5 hours of continuous talk time on a full charge, which is puzzling as the Omnia i910 got 7 hours of talk time in our testing last year. Still, 5.5 hours of talk time isn’t bad, but when using the Omnia II with mixed usage (talk, email, web, and apps); expect to charge the device every night.

Conclusion:

So does the Samsung Omnia II i920 deliver? Yes and no. In one aspect, the device is a major upgrade from the original Omnia i910, as it comes with a large AMOLED display, Windows Mobile 6.5 Pro, TouchWiz 2.0, and faster processor. But at the same time other smartphones have been released, such as the HTC Imagio, DROID ERIS, and Motorola DROID, all of which have significantly changed the landscape. Because of this, we feel the Omnia II is  a few months late on the scene and doesn’t impress the power-user as much as it would have earlier this  summer. This doesn’t take away from the features the device offers, which are many, but the Imagio provides a faster Windows Mobile experience with less lag, while the Android devices are generating a larger following each day. With all of this in mind, we believe the Samsung Omnia II i920 is for the die-hard Windows Mobile user or for the consumer that either needs or is required to have a WinMo device because of their job and to run specific applications on. At this point, the average smartphone user has a selection of better and easier devices to choose from, which isn’t the Samsung Omnia II i920.

Samsung Omnia II i920 Video Review: