Overview:
The Original Samsung Omnia caused quite a stir when it was released last year, and quickly became one of the most popular Windows-powered mobiles on the market, doing well against the Sony Ericsson Xperia and HTC Diamond. This leaves quite imposing shoes for its successor to fill, as both Sony Ericsson and HTC have also promised big things for their new smartphones, due to be released in the next few months. So will the Omnia II bring anything unique to the table? Let’s find out.
Preview:
The first big selling point of the Omnia II is its 3.7 inch AMOLED touchscreen. This may sound like over-kill for a mobile phone, but bear with the idea for a second.
Standard screens rely on LCD displays which uses backlighting that places a huge drain on a handset’s battery life. In contrast, an AMOLED screen uses individual lights to illuminate active pixels. The benefit of all of these little bulbs working in tandem is that the screen can be lit in certain places whilst black areas receive no light, which saves on battery and also makes for true blacks and vivid colors.
Not a company to skimp on customisation, Samsung has also provided a standard backlight which you can choose to use when you’re outdoors so that you can still read your text messages from mum.
Under the bonnet, the Omnia II promises to be a truly responsive handset as it has been bestowed with a Samsung S3C6410 processor that runs at a whopping 800MHz.
You won’t need to worry about a lack of space for all of your music and piccies with 256MB ROM, 8GB storage memory and 256MB RAM. If this isn’t enough for your acid rock MP3 collection, there is also a microSD/HC card slot available.
Connectivity-wise, you can keep in touch with the world through Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, HSDPA/HSUPA and there’s even GPS to help you find even the most remote pub in Britain.
The camera on the Omnia II is a surprisingly standard 5 megapixels, but with Samsung releasing the Pixon 12 in coming weeks, it’s understandable that the company doesn’t want to flood all of its handsets with a high-end snapper.
The Omnia II comes with a standard 3.5mm audio jack so you can listen to your tunes with a decent set of headphones. Next to the jack is a microUSB connector to synch your new Omnia with everything from your old one.
Out of the box, you even get a plastic case which may sound like something to gloss over, but is actually a pretty nifty extra to keep your phone scratch and make-up free when you throw it in your car’s glove box.
Samsung has gone minimalist with its button design, with almost art-deco call start and end buttons protruding out of brush metal. In the middle of these is what Samsung has called the “cube”, though in the wrong light, ends up a bit more like a hexagon. The cube will open the phone’s programme launcher and is basically your key to actually using the device.
All in all, Samsung has worked to make improvements on what was already a great-spec phone. Will it be enough to beat Sony Ericsson’s Xperia 2 or the HTC Diamond 2? We’ll have to wait and see.
The Gaj-It Verdict:
Design: 8/10
Usability: 8/10
Features: 8/10
Value: TBA
We Say:
Samsung has looked to markedly improve on the old Omnia and has done an admirable job of taking a pretty good handset and making it incredible. The AMOLED screen is a huge upgrade on the old model and makes this phone stand out in a market of ok colours and dying batteries. With its polished touch interface, the Omnia II has everything going for it to become quite the popular WinMO smartphone..
4 thoughts on “Preview: Samsung Omnia 2 i8000”
In my humble opinion – the second Omnia misses the charm that the first version had.
True, the specs are much better, and especially the screen, but the D-Pad is horrible, the plastic cover feels cheap, much of the customized applications are not as usable as in the first version, and the keyboard is not even close to the iPhone or Android virtual keyboards.
I used to be a big fan of the first Samsung Omnia very much, but I don’t see myself upgrade to the new version.
Here’s my very disappointed review:
http://mobilespoon.blogspot.com/2010/03/samsung-omnia-2-magic-is-gone.html