Samsung Omnia SGH-i900 review

Perhaps the best thing about there being a bunch of new touchscreen smartphones on the market at the same time is that while they’re all competing fiercely for market share, they’re also pushing each other to be better and to offer more to the consumer. Such is the case with the Samsung Omnia SGH-i900. It’s packed with a feature list that equals and, in some areas, surpasses the marks set by the top smartphones.

Among the most welcome concepts driving the design of the Samsung Omnia is the availability of user determined options. We’ll point out some of the best as we introduce this excellent device.

Standout features

• TouchWiz user interface
• 5.0-megapixel camera
• Expansive memory capacity
• EV-DO Rev A compatibility
• Samsung TouchWiz user interface

Features

The Omnia is based on the Window’s Mobile 6.1 Professional which can be a mixed blessing. On the positive side, WinMo 6.1 includes MS Office Mobile Suite affording the most extensive document handling package available on a smartphone. It also supports real-time push email and automatic synchronization with MS Outlook applications using MS Exchange. On the other hand, WinMo is notoriously the antithesis of intuitive. It’s awkward and just plain clumsy compared to the operating systems offered on the iPhone and BlackBerry smartphones. That’s where the TouchWiz user interface comes in.

TouchWiz provides a number of icons, known as widgets, which allow you to customize your screen with the applications that matter most to you. Simply drag and drop them to the main screen so that they’re easily available when needed. Widget options include browser, contacts, calendar, games, and multimedia. There are sixteen total widgets available, a pretty generous number; still, you’re limited to those that are preinstalled. There’s no function for adding widgets to TouchWiz. In the event that you find that all of those options are a little too disorganized, you can even switch back to the more familiar Windows Today display putting you right back at home in the WinMo comfort zone.

As a Windows Mobile phone there’s no surprise that the default web browser is the mobile version of Internet Explorer. In one of the device’s many options, however, it comes with the Opera Mini browser preinstalled. Many find that Opera Mini renders pages faster than other browsers and occasionally will access pages when other browsers fail.

In addition to the MS exchange email noted above, the Omnia also provides for easy set up of POP3 and IMAP personal email. It supports text (SMS) and multimedia (MMS) messaging as well as popular instant messaging applications.

The dominant physical feature of the Omnia is its 3.2-inch, 240x400 resolution touchscreen. Its display is bright and clear but comes up a bit short when compared to the very best available. Lacking a physical keyboard, the screen is the only means for typing and so poses the familiar limitations associated with touchscreens. To help, the screen provides the vibrations of haptic feedback. The intensity and patterns of the vibrations are user adjustable. There is the option of a full QWERTY virtual keyboard when in the landscape mode. Owing to the integrated accelerometer, rotating the device automatically switches the display to portrait mode. In that orientation, other input options such as Transciber for voice-to-text input and Block Recognizer, a Graffiti-like input method that allows for writing on the screen with a stylus, become available. Graffiti was a common method for writing with the Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) of the not too distant past, but has become rare with the advent of smartphones. Though Block Recognizer takes a bit of practice, once mastered, it can be a very attractive option.

The Samsung Omnia comes equipped with a feature rich 5.0-megapixel camera that is likely the best among smartphones. Digital zoom and flash are included. It also includes auto focus and an excellent anti-shake feature that helps make image quality sharp, especially when zooming in. There’s even a feature called SmileShot which can detect when a subject is smiling and automatically snap the shot. The camera boasts a wide selection of picture options including six size settings and three settings for quality. The array of shooting modes rivals some stand alone cameras with ISO settings, white balance adjustments, and a plethora of special effects options. The quality of still photos is notably better than those attainable by competing devices. The phone has built-in GPS so geotagging of photos is available.

Video recording is similarly superior to that of other phones. While not having the huge number of options that are available for still pictures, there are still three size and three quality options.

As you would expect from a Windows Mobile phone, the Omnia comes equipped with the mobile edition of Windows Media Player 10. Samsung adds a user interface called Touch Player which, just as TouchWiz makes WinMo more user friendly, makes the Windows Media Player more intuitive. The media player supports all popular audio and video file formats and supports podcasts and streaming audio and video. The device even includes an FM radio which can be used only with the included, proprietary headset. The phone doesn’t have a standard 3.5mm jack but does come packaged with an adapter. Fortunately, it provides support for Bluetooth stereo for wireless headphones and other hands-free uses.

The Omnia sets a new standard for memory to accommodate all of these multimedia capabilities. It has 128MB of flash memory to run everything but then adds 8GB of onboard memory. Memory can be expanded even further with up to a 16GB MicroSD/SDHC card.

The Samsung Omnia takes advantage of Verizon Wireless’ EV-DO Rev A network making for faster downloading and uploading of data than is available on most competing devices. Wi-Fi is also available giving another high speed connection option and the ability for simultaneous voice and data transfer.

The Samsung Omnia has an estimated talk time of up to 346 minutes and rated standby time of up to 464 hours.

There’s no new ground broken in the aesthetics of the Samsung Omnia. Like other touchscreen phones, it is dominated by the relatively large screen and little else. Still, for all its multitude of features, it remains a compact package that fits nicely in the hand and is comfortable to use.

Summary

The Samsung Omnia is a welcome addition to the burgeoning category of high end smartphones. It has an extensive combination of features that may well be the most impressive currently available. The device performs very well but falls a bit short of the very best smartphones in the execution of the functions. While excellent, it still doesn’t meet the multimedia prowess of the Apple iPhone 3G or the multi-tasking mastery shown by the top BlackBerry smartphones.