The Samsung Omnia is Samsung’s attempt in creating an all-in-one phone. They call it the Omnia because they were so confident that it could do everything, but the fact is it can’t. It is a bit like your dad, he tries to do everything but he sucks at most of them. Some would say that this phone is a mixed bag, but is it a mixed bag as per the classic term of good and bad, or is it one of these mixed bags where: your mum cleans up the cat litter and puts it into a bin bag, then your sister comes along and throws away her used tampons into that same bag. And then later, your brother comes home all piss ass drunk and pukes chunks into that same bin bag. Now, what I have described is a realistic situation, and at the end of the day it is a nasty ass bag of crap, so is this phone the equivalent of that? Let’s find out.
The first thing you’ll notice is that this phone uses Windows Mobile 6.1 as per many other smart phones out there that offer portable management of your life where you can check emails etc while you are out. Now here is the first problem as well, it runs on Windows. Anyone who has ever used Windows, be it the desktopoperating system or a phone mobile edition, will know that Windows sucks balls and crashes like a 3 wheeled car manned by a 1 eyed bloke who is drunk as hell. I have used this phone and it has crashed on me several times simply because I wanted to watch a movie when all of a sudden, somebody is trying to ring me. This is version 6.1 so Microsoft have had over 6 versions to get it right, therefore there is no excuse, no f**king excuse. Why use Windows Mobile 6.1 you ask? I have to say that Windows does provide many potential uses for the phone, since Windows Mobile already has many multimedia functions ready laid out and functioning on the PDA platform, so it was a quick way of getting the Omnia, with its all-in-one marketing ploy, up and running and for sell to Joe Public. So basically, Samsung played dirty here rather than take the time to research into a better user experience with other possible operating systems. The fact that Samsung announced that they were to use the Symbian OS for the Omnia HD due to Windows Mobile 6.5 not being available is bullshit, because they knew they f**ked up.
If you have used the Samsung Tocco before, you will see that the main screen is very familiar to you since it has the same widget section on the left hand side with the ability
to drag them onto the desktop. But then you go to the main menu screen, and you will see that they use the same Fisher Price icons here as they do with the Tocco. I hate those icons; they are atrociously bad and makes the iPhone interface look bad ass. You can of course skip the main menu and use the Start bar since it uses Windows Mobiles 6.1 after all, and that does make it a little better, but that’s like saying you would rather wade through p**s rather than wade s**t.
Texting and emailing with this phone just annoys the hell of out you. The keyboard is a tight ass virtual mini button tuna canned pile of crap that you really must use the stylus to type with. If you don’t have your stylus, you’ll need to switch the keyboard to the phone keypad mode otherwise typing is as fun as pulling your fingernails out. While we are on the stylus, why couldn’t Samsung have designed it to be stowed away in the phone itself? The stylus itself is pretty decent, but it is external of the phone and has to be tethered to the phone via the phone charm method. I hate phone charms since they dangle around, get in the way and can be embarrassing when someone thinks you like phone charms like a little school girl. This is the effect when we have the stylus tethered on. Please Samsung, this is the same reason why men wear boxers/underpants just in case we’re caught with our trousers down to keep it inside and out of the way when we walk, because if it were too dangled free it would cause embarrassment and get in the way.
Setting a ringtone for this phone is easy enough, just go to the mp3 you want to set as the ringtone, press on it until the menu appears and then select ‘Set as Ringtone’. Easy. But when you want to set a text or email message tone is it like vomiting on a pile of s**t. Here is what you have to do in order to set the tones for text messaging as an example:
- Plug your phone into your PC and let it sync - Make sure your PC can see all files, even system files - Go to the root of the phone and find the Windows folder - Copy the tones for the email/text message into the Windows folder - Disconnect phone and go to Settings on the phone - Press on Sounds & Notifications and press on Notifications in the bottom tab - Select the event you wish to assign the tone to such as Messaging: New text message - Press on the dropdown below it to select your tone and press ok in the top right
All that simply to set a tone for a text message. And this is if you know how toview all files (even system files) on your PC, know how to get to the root of your phone to access the Windows folder, and know to name the tone short since when you select the tone in your phone you can only see the first 5 letters of the file name. That, is some f**k.
Speaking of text messaging, the email and text messaging inbox is tiny. The text is so small you’ll have trouble reading any of them if you don’t have 20/20 vision. In order to increase the size you need to go to Settings / System / Screen / Text Size and then drag the slider to increase the text size you see. This is a load of crap because it effects everything on the phone, so if you only want the text larger in the text/email inbox but normal everywhere else, you’re f**ked.
We all know about iPhone’s accelerometer where it can detect whether or not you are holding the phone in landscape or portrait orientation. Well, the Omnia has one too but it seems like an afterthought because it really doesn’t function to well. You can select different animations for the rotation which is like being able to select which tool you’ll want the torturer to use on you next, and it just rotates on its own sometimes with the slightest movement that can really annoy the heck out of you if you’re trying to use it while holding it up. I was so annoyed with this, I switched it off completely. This is a gimmick that should have been thought through properly before being implemented into this phone.
The screen is 400 x 240 which is too small in my opinion for a phone that can ‘do it all’. The screen is colourful and vibrant, but it just struggles to display high definition images properly as the phone tries to squeeze it into view and as a result it looks all pixellated like a bad DOS drawing. It doesn’t even attempt to anti-alias the image at all, especially if you set it as wallpaper. But the worse thing of all is web browsing on this device. It comes with Opera and Internet Explorer so choose your poison before you surf, but either way you go it will result in you constantly scrolling around a website to see the whole thing properly. You can zoom out to try and fit the website in, but if you do that you cannot read the text at all. What a paradox. Modern PDAs with their 640 x 480 screens struggle as well, and even the Netbooks with their 800 x 400 screens don’t fair much better, so how is 400 x 240 going to cut it? It won’t. That’s ass.
The battery life is a s**tty ass load of dog mess because it is quoted to have a standby time of 500 hours with normal usage. That is a s**t faced lie because I used this phone normally with some video watching now and again, the occasional photo and web surfing and it needed to be recharged in only 2 days of usage. That really annoyed me because I was expecting at least 4 days of battery life under normal use. The USB cable, and this is an important point, does not charge the phone at all. If you plug this into your PC, it will drain the battery from your phone, not charge it up, therefore only use it for data transfer and not to charge the phone. Leave charging to the mains charger.
One of the worst things I have encountered with this phone is access to the memory slot. It is inside the phone and covered over by the battery, so to get the memory in or out of the phone you’ll need to turn off the phone, take out the battery, slide in your microSD card, put the battery back in, put the back cover back on, and then turn it on. That is a lot of effort simply to put or remove a memory card. On the Tocco, if I want to change the memory card because I have pictures or movies I want to watch on that card instead, I simply lift up a latch and replace the memory card. For the Omnia, you need to go through all that to swap the memory cards. That’s bullshit. With the built-in 8GB or 16GB memory for storage you would think it is enough and I should have stored the stuff on there instead of having a memory card with my other movies etc. But that isn’t the point. What I am trying to say is that sometimes you want to have the convenience of storing it on card for ease of access and portability of your data. Separate cards are a good way to storing data and swapping between them, I don’t want to have to transfer it to my phone’s internal memory everytime. There isn’t enough internal memory for everything, and that’s just a big waste of time and battery life.
The transfer rate with the USB data cable is amazingly bad. You can transfer data with a memory card reader through USB much faster than if it was through your phone. A microSD USB adaptor can transfer a 600MB video file in 30 seconds, but if it is transferred to the microSD card through the phone connected to the PC via USB, it is 3-4 minutes. What the heck is that about? Did Samsung skimp on the memory controller for the phone so that transfer speeds suck ass? I don’t know, it just blows my mind how incredulously bad it is at data transfer.
The ear speaker really annoys the crap out of me because the quality of it is balls. In speakerphone mode is crackles and pops, and in normal mode the person on the other end is accompanied with an orchestra of static noise. I have to focus my ears to hear the person properly on the other end of the phone. It is as bad if not worse than the Tocco in this respect. Don’t think it is the network either, because I used it with a T-Mobile sim, an Orange sim and an O2 sim. It is the same problem for all of them.
Something that really brought my p**s to a boil was the use of a proprietary port for the handsfree kit/headphones. As a phone marketed to do everything, would it not make sense to have a 3.5mm headphone jack in the phone for you to plug your headphones into? Other phones also have handsfree kits that plug into a 3.5mm audio jack *cough* Samsung i8510 Innov8 *cough* so they have no excuse here. I have a pair of awesome Shure earphones, and I cannot use it with this phone to listen to my music or watch my movies because I need to buy an adaptor. That’s crappy. I did buy an adaptor actually, and the wire became exposed after 2 days of use and the audio was in mono, as in it played only the left side of a stereo channel. I thought it was a faulty adaptor, but I bought 2 and they were both the same. That made me angry. Incredible Hulk angry.
Finally, one thing I have to recommend you not do is buy this for a friend who is a technological retard. They could be super smart with a PhD in astro-physical science, but if they know nothing about how to use PCs properly or have not used a Windows Mobile product ever in their lives, they will constantly pester you about how to use this phone. Until the ends of time, you will keep receiving questions about how to make a simple phone call, how to send a message, how to set the time or how to put stuff on the phone’s memory. It just boggles the mind how Samsung have made this so unfriendly for end-users I sometimes have to laugh at their executive decisions. If Samsung can program the classic Samsung front screen and menu system as per the Tocco, why could they not program Windows Mobile to completely run in the background and have a thick veneer of a Samsung Shell overlaying it all? Even if it meant the Fisher Price icons were used more, if they could make it easier to use, why not put it there? I bought this phone for a female friend and she drove me half insane with her questions. You have been warned Samsung.
Alright, to bring some sort of balance to the very negative review of this phone, I will attempt to bring to light some positive features that I found to be quite alright. Since this is based off of PDA technology, anyone with experience with Windows based portable devices (like me) would find it quick to pick up and use. The video playback is simple and easy to use and surprisingly it supports quite a few video formats such as DivX and Xvid with the Touch Player that comes with it, so you can transfer those video on your PC directly onto the phone and watch it without much hassle. Access to WiFi and Bluetooth is actually easier thanks to Samsung’s widget system that has those features easy to access. Just switch it on and use it straight away. The camera can capture photos at 5MP and the quality comes out very high and sharp, it actually works pretty well as a photo camera. The camcorder function allows you to capture video at 640 x 480 resolution which is pretty close to DVD quality, and also surprisingly here, it is pretty good as well.
As you can see, the bad heavily, completely, utterly, immensely outweigh the good. Overall, I can definitely say that this phone is a mixed bag, or rather it is a messed up mixed dinner plate. It is a plate with a pile of s**t and vomit on it, garnished with some sugar sprinkles. Sugar sprinkles are nice, but on a plate of crap like that, would you still eat it? No. Despite this phone being better than the iPhone (review for that coming soon hopefully), this is still an abomination of all of mankind. Avoid this phone.
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Advantages: Powerful and speedy, Lots of memory, Good battery life, Good Connectivity Disadvantages: No voice dialling, A bit fiddly, Stylus on a string
Deru 03.03.2009 (14.03.2009)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Samsung SGH-i900 Omnia
Advantages: looks good, Wifi, 5MP camera, plenty of storage Disadvantages: camera is awful, lags a lot, slow start up, no storage for stylus, bad battery life
fixationonplastics 24.05.2009 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful
Review of Samsung SGH-i900 Omnia
Apr 13th, 2009
(May 4th, 2009)
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