Software Review
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.
The touch screen is finger friendly, the icons are big allowing finger prodding with surprising accuracy. The phone comes with three home screens to choose from, The top two screen captures show the most functional screen complete with what Samsung call the Samsung Widgets. These are pre-chosen widgets that can only be used on this screen, they can be dragged off the vertical tool bar onto the main screen for easy access. It is a very nice addition but would have been great if you could just drag shortcuts to any application you wanted onto the home screen just like the full blown Windows OS.
The second home screen is a basic screen but very functional with access to settings, phonebook,call logs, messages and email. The third home screen seems quite cluttered to me but has a lot of shortcuts available.
GPS Review
GPS comes as standard with an assisted option which downloads data from the network to get a faster satellite fix, this can be enabled and disabled from the settings to avoid data costs but on an unlimited plan it can save a lot of time.
Google maps comes pre-installed also and worked well with the GPS and triangulation with cell towers to get a fix. No other GPS software comes with the phone but it should work fine with TomTom and others although it would be wise to check because of the non standard screen resolution
OMNIA 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.
Camera Review
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 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.
Conclusion
The Samsung i900 is a fantastic feature phone, it has a lovely design and feels great in the hand. It has a quality build and a nice screen although the resolution of 400 x 240 is a bit strange.The camera is fantastic and connectivity options are all covered with super fast data at all levels. It is very responsive and can be used exclusively with touch or with a stylus or with both so the options are all there. If you like the iPhone but do not like the straight jacketed approach of Apple then this phone could be the one your looking for, plenty of storage for media and expandable too, shame about the lack of a haptic keyboard although this should be corrected with a Rom upgrade but there is no guarantee that this will happen.
Site References
- http://www.ciao.com/Motorola_RAZR2_V9x__Review_10108048
- http://www.mobileburn.com/review.jsp?Page=3&Id=3283
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