Samsung Omnia 2 Cell Phone Reviews

Sporting the new AMOLED touch screen display technology, the Samsung Omnia 2 is set to blow your mind away with its large 3.7 inch screen which displays at 480 x 800 resolution - offering users an all new touch screen experience.

Omnia 2 has an 800MHz processor which is unarguably one of the best available in the market. Other specifications include a healthy 256MB of RAM and 512MB ROM. The internal storage capacity is 8GB.

Samsung ships the phone with an AC Adapter, Li-Ion battery, microUSB data cable, 1GB microSD card, Stylus pen, NAVFone Plus navigation software, Stereo headphones with microphone extension cord and a carrying pouch.

Design

Omnia 2 has a simple and straight forward design. It resembles Samsung Jet in many aspects, but is bigger. The most striking feature on the phone is indeed its giant display. Everything else has been kept to a bare minimum. Most controls on the phone are in the front. The rear part of the phone simply houses the 5 megapixel camera.

Display

The display is brilliant. It produces crisp and vivid images. On the flip side, the display supports just 65000 colors as against the 16 million found on Palm Pre, iPhone and N97. Another drawback would be the display plastic housing which gives a cheap and less than desired feel to the phone built.

Features

Samsung Omnia 2 runs on the Windows Mobile 6.1 OS. It also features Samsung's TouchWiz user interface which makes it easy to control the phone with a fingertip. Samsung has said that it will provide an upgrade to the Windows Mobile 6.5 Pro version when it becomes available later this year. Omnia 2 supports full HTML web browsing and 480p video recording and playback.

Camera

The 5 megapixel camera has a dual LED flash. Picture quality is acceptable with sufficient lighting. Video recording has improved. There is some noticeable delay in the camera. Video playback is great. It supports MPEG4, WMV, DivX, XviD, H.263 and H.264.

Performance

Performance is adequate. You will have no issues understanding the callers, but the voice quality could have been better. Sound too could have been a bit louder. Battery life on the Samsung Omnia 2 is above average with a 10 hours talk time rating. Standby is rated at 430 hours.

Conclusion

With Omnia 2, Samsung has done an excellent job of penetrating the Windows Mobile market. The biggest selling point of this phone is indeed the TouchWiz 2.0 User Interface. The menus are large and finger friendly. Omnia 2 comes very close to being the best, but there are a few things that hold it back. For instance, the lag experienced when navigating through the menus and options may get worse enough to wreck the entire experience. Look beyond these shortcomings and you may find Samsung Omnia 2 a great phone overall.

Availability

Samsung Omnia 2 is expected to be released by GSM carriers in Europe. The GSM version is quad-band based with HSPA 850/1900, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Verizon will most probably be the carrier of this phone in the US. The Verizon version will be a CDMA phone with EV-DO Rev.A.

by Sam Lee