Something for Everyone (1/4)
Samsung Omnia i900 with Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
INTRODUCTION
I think there's an unspoken race among WinMo OEMs to add as many features as possible to new devices. And hey, we're not complaining. The Omnia i900 from Samsung, which unapologetically looks like an iPhone, has a robust list of capabilities. Features like a wide QVGA screen, up to 16GB of onboard storage, an accelerometer for automatic screen rotation, and an optical joystick for easy one-handed operation make us pay a lot of attention to the device. This is the review you want to read to discover all the neat tricks that the Omnia can do. Read on for our comprehensive review of the Omnia i900!
WHAT'S HOT
The Omnia i900 looks great on paper. The 3.2" screen has a unique resolution of WQVGA, or 240x400. That makes for a pixel density of 145PPI, which is a bit low in comparison to other devices. It's running on Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, packing a Marvell CPU at 624MHz with 96MB RAM and 96MB ROM, plus 16GB or 8GB of additional memory that acts as an on-board storage card. For further expansion, the Omnia has a microSD slot. It's a quadband phone with GSM850/900/1800/1900, but only has the UMTS2100 band, meaning that 3G won't work in the US. It has 802.11 b/g WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, an FM tuner, and aGPS. For one-handed usage, there is an optical joystick that controls a mouse cursor on the screen. The camera shoots at 5.0MP and has a flash, and the front camera shoots at VGA resolution. Powering it all is a nice-sized 1440mAh battery.
(all images link to larger versions)
The Omnia i900 has a screen taller than most Windows Mobile phones.
Samsung's widget-based Today screen is interesting, but isn't perfect. We'll cover this in detail later in the review.
WHAT'S IN THE BOX
Here's the unboxing video for the G910.
Here is a shot of the box, which saw some abuse during shipping.
Inside the box we have software, charger and sync cable (using Samsung's proprietary connector), a lanyard hook, an external stylus, earbud headphones, earbud gels, and an audio converter so that you can use your own 3.5 mm headphones.
THE DEVICE
The Omnia has got to be one of the cleanest looking devices on the market. It has just two buttons on the front (call start/end), with an optical joystick in the center of them. The touchscreen is flush.
In hand, the device feels comfortable, high quality (despite it being mostly plastic), and lightweight.
On the bottom we see again the optical joystick (which also has D-Pad functionality), plus a chrome plastic bezel that runs around the perimeter of the device. It's tough to tell from the picture, but the material used on the call start/end keys has a brushed-metal texture.
Closer in on the top we see the speaker grill, which does double duty as the speakerphone. To the right of that is the VGA camera used for video calls.
The stylus is external. The idea is that you tether it to the side of your phone...
...but doing so takes away from the attractiveness of the phone. That said, the stylus is metal, and feels high quality.
Turning over to the back we have a flat piece of plastic that has a brushed metal texture and appearance. Very nice.
Closer in we can see the 5MP camera sensor, plus flash to the right. How's the camera, you ask? We'll cover that later in the review.
If we open up the back, we find the SIM card holder next to the microSD card slot. We don't like hidden microSD slots, but hey, this device already has 16GB of storage space, so we're not complaining too much.
Onto the first side, we see some hardware buttons that are programmable. The first button on the left will launch the menu main with a short press, and with a long press, it will launch the task switcher. Then we have the volume up/down buttons. A long press of the up button will bring up a zooming feature for the phone, and a long press of the down button will turn on the flashlight. Finally, the camera button on the right launches the camera on a long press, and the Photo Slides program on a short press. Once in the Camera application, a half press will focus the camera, and a full press will take the picture.
On the other side we have Samsung's proprietary jack used for audio/syncing/charging, and a lanyard loop on the far right.
On the bottom we the microphone on the bottom right.
And finally on the top, we have the power/standby button. To the left of that is a soft reset hole.
COMPARISONS
Here we have a comparison shot of the BlackJack II, iPhone, Omnia i900, Verizon XV6900, and AT&T Tilt.
In the same order, here is a skewed shot from the bottom. The Omnia is a just .2mm thicker than the first generation iPhone.
And here is a top skewed shot.
The Omnia comes with a ton of interesting software built in. Flip on to the next page to see more.
