- Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 11 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
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1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
1.0 stars
"A poor poor wannabe to Apple iPhone"
Pros: This product is not bad for a Windows Mobile OS system. In fact, Samsung has gone a long long way in building software around the dismal OS, to make it feel better. The camera is great. I has more features than any phone camera I had used.
Cons: The stylus is a dangling external fitting. That is ugly and irritating to use.
Summary: The product is a good looker. It is compact and light, and fits our hand very well.
The most frustrating element is the window available to view your messaging text. While typing in an SMS, you will not be able to see more than 1.5 lines of what you type.
The best way to key in data would be to use the Samsung keyboard that is a virtual keyboard built in. It feels like the iPhone's virtual keypad. But the keys are smaller in comparison, and therefore more cumbersome. The 'lift' of the key, while keying on an iPhone is missing. So, the keys you place your hands in are not visible, and therefore prone to mistakes. The next best input system is the transcriber, which does need input from the stylus. I have used the Palm before, and loved its transcriber. This one works as well, or dare say even better.
The entire model is built around you using the stylus. It is obvious by all the tiny, but essential controls tucked in the corners of the screen, that it takes great skill to use it by the touch of the finger. Then why would they give the stylus as a dangler, and not snug fit on the phone? Anyone who has used the iPhone or Blackberry Bold would know that the stylus is dead.
What were Samsung engineers thinking when they designed the SMS and messaging screen? Try replying to an SMS. You have the message sent filling 3/4th of the screen in large bold letters. We are left with 1 1/2 lines to view the message we type in. If you type in more than 2 lines of text, then we have to pull out the stylus and scroll up and down to proof read our message, before sending it. It would have been lovely if we had the whole screen to type in our text. This is the simple most frustrating element in the whole phone.
Windows Mobile OS is bad. It is sluggish, and irresponsive may times. Another iPhone wannabe feature, scrolling by pushing the finger up or down, works dismally in this product. Most of the time, you end up opening the contact or program while trying to scroll.
The web browing software built in is Opera. It is good. But I miss the tilt screen sensitivity here, that the iPhone has spoilt us into the convenience of that.
After all this, I wonder why would anybody buy the Samsung Omnia? Would it be the die hard Windows fans? Perhaps the convenience of the close integration of this OS with MS Office Outlook? Or for the 5MP camera?
No advises to diehard Windows users. They would love this product. To the 'seamless compatibility' minders, Apple iPhone, along with iTunes connects and works with MS Outlook and other windows systems much better than iSync.
So why would you ever buy this phone? Buy it for the camera. It is feature rich. There are 14 different settings to make your picture look better, and it is conveniently available to you on screen, and you can get there in an instant. It is simply brilliant.
Buy it for the camera and the camera alone.
- 4 replies to this review
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What a FANBOY....
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nothing is perfect if i may be a little "compromised". but omnia is close to perfection. as a "common" mobile phone user, this is a perfect phone vs. the iphone. iphone has no bluetooth for data transfer, no mms, audio file only MP3, can't forward messages, can't send SMS to multiple contacts, 3G isn't stable, only 2MP camer w/ NO autofocus, u cant pick contacts to be put in a group - you have to re-input the number directly to the contact group folder. the only good thing about iPhone is its user interface, and - to those we like browsing on a mobile - full web browser (something omnia also has). like i said as a "common" user i don't care about other applications on iphone let alone game when these thing suck the life out of the battery....so for now (even if iphone has the software updates for all this, except the pixel of the camera, such thing can't be upgaded through software), objectively omnia is far far far better and incomparable to the iphone.
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You make no sense. It obviouse that you are a fanboy
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OMNIA = i PHONE KILLER
Samsung Omnia (16GB, Unlocked):
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