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The Name Says It All - Samsung “OMNIA” i900
By d@c0y
Pinoy’s fell in love with “txt”ing. It’s dirt cheap, fast, and gets your message across in the simplest and sometimes creative way. We are not the the TXT capital of the world for nothing. And second to that fondness would be the hardware with which we compose, receive, and send our thoughts. Most of us change phones as soon as a new model has been released, some keep 2 or 3 handsets, and some wait just for the right moment to let go of the tried and tested… to be bold and try out something fresh and new.
My Motorola E680 Linux Phone has served me well for almost 3 years now. I’ve grown to be adept at typing out SMS without the need for the stylus. It has been my MP3 player, my call recorder, my alarm clock, my portable movie player, and of course my call & SMS tool for so long that I never did find anything worthy to replace it. Until the new smartphones started to roll out this year.
Out of the WM6.1 phones released this year, i picked the Samsung SGH-i900 Omnia. And my first post on this site is my first week with this cool new toy. I had my sister buy me the Omnia in Singapore. I got it for S$775 or roughly PhP25,xxx. The Omnia comes in 8GB and 16GB flavors and in two colors - black and white. I have the black 8GB model.
I would not bore you with technical detailsand would try to deliver this mini-review from a user’s point of view. For those interested here’s the spec link at GSMarena:
http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i900_omnia-2422.php
As soon as I got it, I had a friend upgrade it to the latest official ROM release(HJ1) and had him pimp it with software to maximize the Omnia’s highly touted potential.
First up, speed. The Omnia is one zippy device, it responds well to the touch. Menus pop up and display quite fast and application startup is a breeze. I can attribute this to the Marvel PXA312 624Mhz processor - that is Intel technology my friends and we all know where Intel ranks in terms of CPU power.
The next question most Pinoy mobile phone owners ask when buying a handset: how does it fare in txting? The Omnia is a touchscreen device, and this design does not have a pullout keyboard or a keypad you can mash your txtspeak fingers with. So this is more of a personal preference, but i can be confident to say that you can text with the Omnia even without a stylus (the package came with a tethered stylus if you don’t mind to hang it on the phone). The screens below can best explain what i mean:
So you see, I know you can find a touch keyboard configuration that you can be comfortable with. When you tap on a key, the phone gives a gentle vibration feedback to let you know you’ve “clicked” on something. The messages stored in the Omnia is threaded. It resembles a chat interface, where you see your replies and the other person’s messages. Some Omniacs (Omnia owners) tweak their device to disable this but I find it nice. It makes deleting a whole conversation easy with just two finger taps.
Aesthetics are simple and clean. At first I thought it’ll be bulky but when I saw and held the actual handset it was almost the same as my E680 but thinner and a millimeter or two wider.
Connectivity-wise, the Omnia has a bevy of them. Bluetooth, WiFi, HSDPA(3.5G), GPRS, and a built-in GPS. You can use third party applications for navigation. I had Garmin Mobile XT together with a Philippine map installed and I must say I was amazed how incredibly accurate it was. It updates fast too, so for Manila drivers this could be really handy. I don’t own a car, I ride a MT bike but I still find it nice to have a way to get my location and where I need to go.
Being a Windows Mobile phone - themes, skins, applications, games, utilities, and tweaks can be found everywhere. Out of the box, it has Pocket Office, Opera mobile, an RSS reader, a PDF viewer, and DivX/Xvid player. You can even make your phone feel like an HTC Diamond or an Iphone 3G through custom shells.
You will be able to connect to it via Activesync or in USB mode and just drag and drop your files. It is worth noting the fact that on the phone you can cut, copy, and paste text and files. The phone supports microSD cards, so I can extend my 8GB to 16GB if I should need it.
Oh and I forgot to mention it has 5 megapixel camera with flash. Very handy when you find yourself in the middle of a good photo op and forgot to bring your compact P&S digicam with you. The camera has autofocus, sceen modes, and image stabilization.
So with all this power, how long does it last? While tinkering with it - doing about 1 hour of MP3 playing, 15 minutes of watching YouTube videos, 30 minutes of playing Spores: Origins, 1 hour surfing NBA.com for news and scores, checking out GPS for 30 minutes, plus regular txting and the occasional phone call - I’ve gotten 2 days out of the Omnia’s 1440mAH batt before it gave me the low battery warning. The battery meter displays 20% though, so i know i still have juice left for SMS and short calls. A guy at TipidCP.com reports getting up to 4 days from the battery with using just the phone aspects of the device. Earlier ROM versions drain the battery fast though, so it’s best to upgrade to the latest official ROM at Samsung Mobiles website.
Okay that was my first 7 days with the device so far and I think I haven’t covered everything yet. I think you could say I am mighty impressed with Samsung’s flagship Windows Mobile device. This wouldn’t be a fair mini-review if I don’t include the quirks that I don’t like about the device:
- on a bright sunny day, it’ll be hard to see the Omnia’s screen < you need to go in the shade or cover it with your hand
- proprietary connector for data and earphones (you can use 3.5mm plugs though) < couldn’t the phone manufacturers agree on set of standards?
- the speaker could have been better. it sounds metallic. out of the box, the sound coming out of the speaker and headset jacks are soft - luckily there is a hidden software that could fix this for you.
- to take out your SIM and microSD, you need to take out the battery - so for those with a SIM for every “special someone” get a dual-SIM phone instead
- underneath the skin that Samsung (and others) put over the WinMo OS you can still see the boring interface of WinMo
That’s all that I’ve experience so far. I might update this post if I find out anything special that may give it that extra edge in your decision making session. So would I recommend it to you? It can do what the Sony Ericsson Xperia, HTC Diamond, and Iphone 3G can do for much less. So if these phones appeal to your taste, give the Samsung Omnia another look and save PhP10,xxx of your hard-earned cash.
Topics: Technology |
November 17th, 2008 at 1:00 am
This is a very helpful review, a well detail one.. bibili pa naman ako ng cellphone this Christmas and definitely this will be one of my selection
November 17th, 2008 at 2:04 am
mahal naman PhP 10XXX, mag china made na lang ako, may tv pa, dami sa Quiapo nun mura pa
November 17th, 2008 at 2:56 am
Mga prens, miron ako nabiling PDA d2 sa Japan and tindi ng features mga P8,000 lng in pesos Windows mobile 6 and OS,Wifi mero syang TV, radio,MP3,MP4 8MP camera,video recorder completo at hanep wala ako reklamo kasi 6 months knang ginagamit and still works well mganda yung screen nya malaki kaso may kabigatan ng kunti kasi medyo malaki tlga pero sulit.
If you more concern with your budget eto and dapat consider nyo.
Phone model : Do Co Mo N900is
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulsynnott/2610496464/sizes/o/
November 17th, 2008 at 7:44 am
thanks guys! does the DoCoMo N900is work on Pinas’ GSM/3G network?
the P10k savings i mentioned applies if your eyeing the HTC Diamond, Apple Iphone 3G, or SE Xperia…because the 3 devices i mentioned all fall near the P40k range. so for lesser cash, the Omnia can be a good buy instead of the 3. plus it has an excellent 5MP camera…
November 17th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
nokia 3100 lang oks na ako.. wala pang sent items para dimahuli ni esmi