Samsung SGH-i900 Omnia

Author's product rating:   

Look & Feel	Good
Durability & Robustness	Strong
Battery standby time	Good
Value for money	Good
Range of features	Large selection

Advantages:	Powerful and speedy, Lots of memory, Good battery life, Good Connectivity
Disadvantages:	No voice dialling, A bit fiddly, Stylus on a string

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

INTRO

I got a bit fed up with my Samsung SGH-i600 as I found it a bit on the slow side and the lack of a touch screen limited what I can do on the Windows Mobile operating system. I selected the the Samsung SGH-i900 (aka: OMNIA) to be worthy of becoming the replacement. It's supposed to be an "iPhone killer" and similarly, has a full touch screen interface.

I bought my Omnia on eBay for £366 to avoid increasing my contract cost with Orange. I threatened to leave orange so they gave me a £15 deal with 750 minutes talk time and unlimited texts but normally, if you were to get the Omnia with Orange, you would need to be on a £45 a month, 18 month contract and even pay £50 a month for the phone itself.

The Omnia can come with 8GB or 16GB of internal storage. My one is the 16GB version, which can retail for anything between £350-£499. There's a version with a white back but the back cover is replaceable anyway.

USING THE OMNIA

The phone is very responsive but not quite as fast as the Sony Ericsson X1 (Xperia). Navigating around it takes a bit of getting used to, especially scrolling down lists using the touch screen as it's easy to miss the item you want. Scrolling across and down different menus or lists seems to require a different amount of pressure, whereas the iPhone's touch navigation seems easier to get used to as well as being very zippy.

The Omnia features 'Widgets', which is similar to the Gadgets that you find in Windows Vista where you can have a number of handy tools down the side, such as a funky clock, notes, calendar, etc. Widgets is on the left and they can be dragged out from the bar on the left when required. The list of Widgets can be dragged up and down and it 'bounces' once you hit the end of the list, much like most areas of the iPhone.

When you rotate the phone, the screen rotates so you can view the screen in landscape. It rotates whilst doing a funky animation, which is customisable, but most seem to take 1-2 seconds to complete the transition, which I find a bit slow (but it's on purpose). Would prefer an instant one as an option but maybe there's a tweak I can find. This is the same technology as in the iPhone but I'm not able to tell how well it compares with the iPhone because the Omnia doesn't come with the games that can easily be found for the iPhone that use this technology. For the iPhone, there's a driving game, as well as a game that involves moving a marble around a maze, both by tilting the phone left, right, up and down, which I've had a go on. They demonstrate how sensitive the gyro sensor is. All the Omnia has is a 'game' where you shake the phone to roll some dice pre-installed. It does require a bit more Google'ing to locate games for the Omnia, as opposed to the iPhone where you can press a button to go straight to the iPhone Apps Store.

The speed of the phone is generally very good and it even plays video quite smoothly. I did put some video files in the phone and the sound and picture quality was excellent. Opening pictures, even ones over 1MB isn't painfully slow like it was on the i600 and running loads of programs in the background isn't too much of a problem for it either.

Whilst the phone is in portrait view and texting, I find that I often hit the wrong buttons on the Samsung QWERTY keyboard, as each letter is taller than they are wide. However, rotating to landscape view widens the keys so helps, but it's still not perfect. The space button, annoyingly moves to the right hand side whilst in landscape, which takes getting used to. Also, after rotating the screen, the keyboard is closed so you need to re-open it, which seems a bit annoying when in the middle of writing a message. The other pre-installed keyboard is pathetically small and only practical if using the stylus so it's worth finding new keyboards, although I would have preferred them to have made a better one as standard (The one on the iPhone is excellent). It also has a mouse pointer that you can control with the mini touch pad, which doubles as a button, which can reduce the need for the stylus. There is the option of using the phone pad instead (with several letters per button like on normal mobiles), which is pretty easy to use.

The transcriber (character recognition) works great with the stylus but can misrecognise words sometimes. Once used to it, corrections are easily made. The stylus is an extending one and attaches to the Omnia using a piece of string, which is a bit weird. I'm a bit paranoid that having the stylus this way risks scratching the Omnia whilst it's in my pocket so this may not be the best way of storing the stylus. I have a screen protector though, which should hopefully prevent it scratching a screen.

My Omnia has a 5 megapixel camera and despite the high pixel count, I find the quality to be pretty average, even on the maximum quality setting. The picture quality is very much acceptable and a lot better than those on cheaper phones but not as sharp as I'd like. It does have neat functions like anti-shake, different lighting modes and even a flash, which can work as a torch, which is great, as it is pretty bright. Finding the function though is pretty tricky and required some Google'ing, so this phone isn't for those who want something easy to use.

Despite the capabilities of the Omnia, it is still a mobile phone and the main function that it should be good at is for making and receiving calls (even if some of you might say texting is more important!). It doesn't fail there as the number pad is easy to use and sound quality is excellent when making calls normally, via a Bluetooth headset and even on the speaker phone. Volume can be easily adjusted using the buttons on the side of the phone but speaker I find the speakers to still be a bit on the quiet side when listening to music even when on maximum. However, I found instructions on to Internet to adjust the volume using a code. Music quality is pretty good even if it is a bit tinny.

My main complaint with making calls is that it doesn't have voice dialling, as it makes it difficult for me to make calls whilst driving. Even my previous phone the Samsung i600 had the function. I don't understand why the feature was omitted when they made the Omnia, a much higher end phone. Voice dialling software can be purchased but I hear that it would only work on the handset itself and at present, impossible to get it functional through a Bluetooth headset.

Another annoying thing is that when I answer a call by pressing the button on the handset itself, the call is transferred to my headset, if it's on and connected to the phone. This is particularly annoying when I'm at home and less likely to be wearing the headset. I usually pick up the call on the handset and then find that I can't hear the caller, and same when making calls. To answer the call, I would frantically try to locate the headset, or unlock the keypad, open the menu and then turn off the headset option on the phone, which is inconvenient. On my Sony Ericsson W810i, the call isn't transferred to the headset if I pick up calls using the handset, which is much smarter. Pressing the button on the headset answers the call.

Internet access is generally pretty quick even if some sites don't really work too well but I also use the phone as a modem to access the Internet on my laptop where there's no wireless hotspot. Aside all that, it has Word and Excel pre-installed as well as loads of other tools like calculator, currency converter, radio (only with the orginal headphone adapter), etc and even Google maps and GPS built in. Being a Windows Mobile phone, you can install loads more programs and games so it's not lacking in functions.

PROBLEMS

I did have a problem with the Omnia turning itself off randomly. I would have it in my pocket or pop it on the table and later realise that the thing isn't even switched on! Took me two weeks to figure out what the problem was. It turned out it was a bad battery connection. I folded a small sheet of paper and put it inside to make the battery fit more snugly. This did help but I eventually just bought a different battery and the problem has gone away. This is not a common problem but I have searched around and a few others have had this same issue.

When I first got my Omnia, I had a big problem with the battery life. Although it is quoted to have a battery life of around three days in the specifications, mine was only lasting me around a day (well, more like half a day), and that was after charging it over night, every night. I updated the firmware (the phone's software) to newer version (like if you were upgrading Windows XP to Windows Vista), which sorted the problem. The battery now lasts me up to around three days with moderate use, so no problems there but for the less tech savvy, it might be a big problem to have to do anything like this. This is unlikely to be an issue if you get the phone from a mobile operator though. This aside, after my firmware update, I've not experienced any major problems.

SUMMARY

PROS

- Fast
- Lots of memory and upgradeable (16GB + MicroSD upgradeable)
- Windows Mobile 6.1
- Good battery life
- Lots of functions
- Good connectivity (Bluetooth / WiFi / HSDPA)
- Built-in GPS / Google Maps

CONS

- No voice dial
- Headset picks up even when you answer calls on the phone
- Average camera
- Keyboard can take a bit of getting used to
- Stylus is attached to phone externally via string
- Requires a lot of getting used to and tweaking for it to be used comfortably

VERDICT

I think the Omnia is an excellent phone but it's definitely not for everyone as it can be a bit fiddly to use (iPhone seems much easier). As well as being a phone, it's a great in terms of multimedia capabilities as well as Internet access so I can recommend it to those after a high end and feature packed phone, so long as they're not afraid to do a bit of tweaking.

Thanks for reading.