At last behold it is within my grasp!!! Muahahaha

Since even only a few requested I do a review, I believe in the minority vote a lot of times too so therefore I am attempting to write a review that will suite my readers. There are ample techie reviews out there but I want to help you guys see why phone choices are important and how a phone can compliment the user in a very unique way.

Warning! This review is awfully detailed and has a long explanatory of everything. Please proceed if you can read without falling asleep

When I got this phone, in the box we are given a charger, screen protector, the handset, headphones, sync cable, stylus, manual, cd for sync program, and warranty card. The headphones have rubber inserts in which they also provided replacements should it get dirty.

First Impressions

When I first picked up the handset, I was very happy to feel how solid it was. No shaking or moving parts and felt really sturdy. The weight though would be rather heavy compared to a standard phone. But I like it as I’m a guy and when it is too light it just doesn’t feel quite right. Also feeling it in my pocket helps me remember it is there and I like it that way so I won’t lose it. It does not feel heavy though in the pocket, just right (but you may not have children as Warwick says). I think it will not fit into ladies pockets that easily though but you all like to put it in the bag anyway. Oh and its lighter than the I-phone so if you can tolerate the I-phone because it’s beautiful and nice. Then this is easy since is lighter and beautiful also.

The looks are astonishing to me as I am a minimalist in most areas and like designs to be simple but elegant. The whole phone is astonishing in its design and it doesn’t leave fingerprints on as badly as I thought it would.

The Omnia sitting pretty…

It is sad that the phone does not have a hotswappable memory card slot (swappable port that is easy to access outside the phone) and you’ll have to take the phone apart before you can change the card. That being said so I changed the card after installing some stuff then took out the battery then I panicked! In some past windows mobile devices, you lose all your data if you do that! I took hours to set it up to the way I liked and ah!!!! I don’t want to do it again. But I didn’t lose my data hahaha, it works fine just like my Dopod. Although I would still not recommend that you take out the battery for a long period of time. I think 1-2minutes will be safe if you don’t want to lose anything. If in any case you lose all the data, you will be back to factory settings which means that it will be exactly as you got it out of the box.

Specifications

Now I would like to introduce the specs of this phone (specifications). I will give some tips on how to read specifications as the first step. Which is important to know and which isn’t.

Bands and Size

I think you don’t need to read the Bands and so on unless you are a frequent flyer to other countries. The phones you buy from Malaysia or Singapore can be used definitely. Size and dimensions are for those who are really particular about size. I think the more important part is weight as you buy your phones, remember their weights, you will find a range of weight that you prefer to hold in your hand and use to carry around. Generally phones today are made lighter and lighter and I don’t particularly like it that way. This weight is just nice for me.

The Omnia in the middle compared to the Iphone and HTC Diamond (I don’t have all 3 so have to borrow pictures haha)

Screen

Now you got to know what kind of screen the phone has. This is important. TFT screens are generally for touch screens and now you must take not about the screen colors. There are 3….65k, 256k and 16M (million). The higher the better and nicer to look at but still 65k is not bad and is the best a Windows Mobile Based PDA phone can handle at the moment or the phone gets laggy most of the time. As you see in these specs, the screen may support more colors but effectively the phone only projects 65k. So no matter what you do. You will only get 65k of colors. The more colors, the more processing power is needed and therefore it is generally slower and sucks more energy. Technology advancements are revolutionizing this though. This goes the same for LCD monitors for computers.

Now resolution of the screen again is important. On advertisements you always see them showing you the screen is 2.8 inches or 3 inches. But the bigger doesn’t really mean its better. For example the HTC Diamond has a 2.8 inch screen but has 480 X 640 resolution. The Samsung Omnia on the other hand has a 3.2 inch screen but a 240 X 400 resolution. That means there are more pixels on the HTC Diamond than The Samsung Omnia therefore making the HTC having much clearer and sharper images. The down side is that it takes much more processing and memory power therefore they have a 64 MB video card on the HTC to make it smooth. More processing power and more parts means more energy means less battery life. The main issue is that you would try to look for the better screen if you want to see movies and have better picture views. I must say I did both on the Omnia and it still look good to me. I can notice the difference but its barely noticeable to the common user.

The Omnia is Samsung’s attempt to fight with Apple’s I-phone therefore it has modified the user interface (UI) of this machine to handle most of its operations just on touch. Now the problem is that to be honest, it doesn’t impress me. In fact I think it is far from being close to what the I-Phone functions in terms of touch has been. They were so confident that they could get you to use their touch screen alone that the stylus given is an external pen like thing that has to be hung or brought along with you. I was disappointed that they not intergrate the stylus into the PDA itself but after some major tweaks. I got it to work nicely without the use of a stylus. I’m loving it now.

The original home screen After My Tweaking with SPB Pocket Plus

Menu Screen before Menu Screen after SPB Mobile Shell

Some other Screen Shots

I must commend that their text entry keyboard on the screen that is wonderful therefore making it possible to enter data without the use of a stylus.

Also noteworthy is their accelerometer that actually makes the screen change from portrait to landscape just by the turn of the PDA. Very nice! I found that this function is practically useless for those who like to lie on the bed to do work like me because the screen turns when I lie on my back. To get it back into the position I want lying down is rather tough.

What I like about the screen most that no other brands have done is the touch feel on the screen. Each time you touch the screen it vibrates with your touch. It makes the typing and touching feeling so realistic and nice. That is why I was so determined to make the PDA just function with touch. You can even adjust the intensity of the vibrations and off it if it is not your taste. I just like the feel of the touch. This is by far such a cool feature.

Shows you how I type a sms

Sometimes even like that

Memory

This is an important factor now in today’s usage. In getting a normal phone you will be looking at the storage space. That would mean the bigger the better. The Omnia comes with a whopping 16 GB!!! That is more than what I have on my EEEPC in total. Wonderful If you want to store loads of music and videos. I mean it even lets you expand with a memory card to a maximum of 8GB. You can hardly even find a memory card that size at the moment. That is 24GB of storage space. Its like heaven. This permits me to use it even as a HD to bring about to transfer files. Coolness!!

Besides that though one must look at the amount of RAM given because a pocket pc runs on RAM just like in a real full fledged computer. In this case, they gave 128MB which is good but not the most that is given out there in the market. It also provides 256MB in ROM that helps in having some programs that don’t run on storage card. Overall after tweaking everything and adding most of the best programs out there, I still have lots of space. Lack of RAM will make the PDA slow and unresponsive but in this case it didn’t seem laggy but nice. I think it also has to do with the fast 624MHZ processor that comes with it.

I had many problems with pocket PCs hanging and being totally unstable because of the lack of RAM and processor power but I must commend that the Omnia is both fast and responsive. I do not believe that it is the fastest out there but it sure is fast and benchmark tests have proved it to be a very good performer.

Data

Now this is a part in which most people don’t have much knowledge about and actually use. The geeky ones like me who want internet on the go tend to buy a phone based a lot on this section. As you see this phone supports data transfer of GPRS Class 12 which is equivalent to Dial-up modem speed. This is second generation(2G) mobile data speed. Then there is EDGE Class 12 which is 2.5G which is slightly below broadbands lowest speeds found today. The there is WCDMA/UMTS which is the 3G or third generation mobile phones that alow video conferencing and internet broadband speeds. But there are a 3.5G data transfer speeds now. Which is also known as HSPDA that can potentially go up to speeds of 14Mbps that is 7-14 times the speed of what common streamyx users have in the home. This phone however has speed of up to 7.2Mbps which is the fastest speeds that exist in the mainstream now. Even Malaysia cannot support such speeds and only Singapore has such speeds.

So I tried surfing the net just on my PDA and I must say it is a pleasure. The speed is amazing. The problem is that with all current PDA phones even the I-phone, surfing on the PDA is still not able to give users the same experience as in a real computer. It has though made improvements that are quite pleasant and I could see my blog on it quite well.

The Omnia also offers users the option of using WIFI and Bluetooth alternatively for networking and data transfer. What it lacked was an infared port which is quite obsolete nowadays just that I was kind of hoping to use my PDA phone as a remote control for the air-con like my Dopod. Oh well. That is something I can live without perhaps. Haha. I had no problems connecting with my V6 and my Dell through Bluetooth to sync and WIFI works like a charm too.

OS

I am not going in to the OS (Operating System) because there is too much to write about, but I will just say briefly that Windows Mobile is currently the PDA OS that has the most third party softwares. That means it has the most softwares written for it by other companies other than Microsoft. I would like to recommend certain MUST get softwares that are essential into making the Windows Mobile experience wonderful.

SPB Mobile Shell – Enhancing software for visual and extra plugins

SPB Pocket Plus - Helps improve the basic functions to a more usable level

Opera Browser – A better browser than the Internet Explorer in the PDA

Bejewelled 2 – An addictive game that entertains you when you are bored

SPB Finance – To manage all your accounts and money

E Wallet – To Remember all your Passwords and Important Information

E – Sword – The best free bible software with commentaries and bible dictionaries

Lexigoo – Dictionary and Thesaurus

Phone Tuner – A Chromatic Tuner I use to tune my guitar

There are loads of programs out there that can do so much more. Together with the Omnia is very good programs already like Microsoft Office Mobile, A video editor, unit converter, and so much more. These are those that really help me day to day.

I must remind you that this is a whole entirely different interface than just a normal phone therefore will take a huge amount of time to adjust to.

Imaging

I’m trying to improve my photography skills which is not really good at the moment

Now lets go on to an important feature in todays mobile phones. The camera! Problem is that I think most people fall into the gimmick of buying a camera based on the advertised megapixels. Let me tell you that more megapixels does not ensure the quality of your pictures. So unless the phone is tested and pictures are taken from it to be viewed and checked for quality, do not ever simply assume that your pictures will come out nice just because it has high megapixels. The more pixels you have the bigger the picture can be printed out therefore takes more memory as well.

This is by far one of the best PDA phone cameras around. The pictures are clear though grainy if really zoomed in as this is a problem with mobile phone cameras. But the quality of the picture is on par with the top picture phones out there like the Sony K850i, LG KU990 and the N95. What it lacks though is a real flash and that could be rather disappointing but the LED flash does help in taking pictures from short distances. Until now mobile phones are far away from being able to compete with the quality or real digital cameras but then this phone proves that they are getting closer to that. I took some pictures with the camera, you judge for yourself. Click on it for full size view.

This is a picture of my new office desk that I got a few days ago! Planning to decorate it. Any suggestions?

My artistic view of my lovely keyboard

There are even many real camera functions such as the latest smile detection photos that detects your smile and automatically takes the picture for you. It is not much of a use for me as I don’t smile much hahaha. But those who want to take pictures with friends and self portraits but do not have a photographer could use this function to have loads of fun.

I must say the camera on this phone supercedes my mental expectations. I hope to be taking more photos soon for blogging with this phone.

GPS

Now it’s time to talk about a feature I really wanted in my phone. GPS (Global Positioning Satellite). This was extremely difficult to use on this phone because somehow I needed an intermediate software to function the GPS. Mapking, Garmin MXT, and AGIS software’s just couldn’t detect the GPS until I used GPS Gate to detect the port. Then I could run all three softwares at one time. As soon as I set everything the GPS worked like a charm. It took a long time to get a lock on my position though. So I decided to use the A-GPS to help. Now for everyone to know, there is a huge difference between GPS and A-GPS. The 3G I-phone uses A-GPS which uses triangulation with the mobile phone towers to fix your position. This is extremely costly as you have to use you data/internet to constantly download your position. An authentic GPS receiver won’t cost you anything to get your position except the software and maps are costly for both haha.

As you can see in the specs, Omnia has both therefore because it was taking so long for it to fix my position, I downloaded my position one time with the A-GPS then used my GPS to continue streaming data. It worked like a charm. Within 3 seconds it locked my position and everything was perfect!

Sound quality

The ringtones are loud and therefore good for a person like me who has trouble hearing. Music sounds wonderful too on this unit. One thing I cannot rectify though is when I receive a call, for 2 secs the ringtone will be soft. Then after that it is ok…..still puzzled. But that doesn’t affect anything much.

Battery

Battery life is the foundation of getting a phone. You do not want to get one that needs you to charge it everyday. Here always look at talk time not standby time. Talk time is the most essential. Measure that with your daily usage then you will generally see how often you have to charge. This phone’s battery lasted me 2 days before I need to charge and that is good. In fact other reviews mention the Diamond only perform to half the battery life. So if you don’t mind charging everyday, any phone will do. This phone sometimes last me 3 days depending on how busy I am.

Overall Conclusion

I am deeply satisfied with this phone and all its functions. I will not be able to get this with the I-phone I dreamed about. So this is better that I dreamt. The phone has not hanged at all although I constantly abuse it with too much work. That is very delightful as Pocket PCs always hang somehow. This one doesn’t which must be because Samsung did a great job in ensuring the phones compatibility with Windows Mobile. Would I recommend this phone to everyone? No, if you’re looking for just a phone I think it is not worth getting this because a full fledge phone would probably suite you more with all the hardware buttons. This requires you to entirely depend on software which is difficult for many.

If you are looking for a Windows Mobile device for work and organizing and fun, this is definitely the best out there. The HTC Diamond is the only competition the Omnia has and I think this one beats the HTC because the HTC camera is crappy. HTC has a nicer screen but seriously this is not bad. The touch screen to me is more important than the nice beautiful flashy 3D interface the Diamond has but again its up to a users priority.

This phone I must say is perfect for me and I hope by writing this review, you will get to know more about me. How I think, and choose and make decisions and you can probably see my priorities too. I hope this post will also help you look into technical stuff with more understanding and knowledge as you choose the right phone for yourself. I always believe in spending wisely and therefore choosing a phone to help enhanced your day to day is essential in modern living. If you just need to call and sms, please spend less money. Don’t buy phones that are above RM300. It is not necessary. Remember, needs first then only want but in this case I gratified both hahahaha.

Have fun with your choices!

UPDATE!:

There is a firmware update for the Omnia here. Using it sucessfully and it solves the GPS problem we previously had. It also makes the phone battery last much much longer somehow in my case. But the vibration for the screen is no longer present and only available on the phonepad screen.

I have not noticed any significant speed changes as some have mentioned. There are added widgets and functionality has improved slightly. Overall I thought the improvements were insignificant for my case. I should have used my previous setup as it was more stable. I have also encoutered certain programs that don’t anymore. Just two programs. I have no idea why they don’t work now yet.

Please know that this ROM update will wipe out your data on the main memory alone so please backup. This is also only available for Singapore at the moment. I would advice from using it in other countries.

Tags: geek, phone, review