Samsung Omnia SGH-i900 (8GB)

Design

In true Samsung style, the Omnia has a very solid feel to it. It has a metallic bezel around the widescreen format display which is level with the screen--ideal for finger tapping and scrolling. Below the screen are two buttons, Call and End, with an optical directional pad between them which can also be depressed to select items. Beyond that, there are just a few more buttons on the right edge for the camera, volume control and one shortcut key.

The back of the SGH-i900.
(Click for larger)

Just one I/O port is available on the left edge, a Samsung proprietary connector for charging, syncing and connecting a wired headset. Though we usually don't like such an arrangement, the redeeming factor is that an adapter is included with the Omnia which allows you to plug in regular 3.5mm audio headphones, a good feature to have considering Samsung expects this device to be used as a media player.

Most of the back of the i900 is its battery cover. Though made of plastic, it has a brushed metal feel to it which is rather attractive. Also found round the back is the lens for this PDA-phone's 5-megapixel camera along with its LED light for photo-taking in dark situations. There is also a lower-resolution camera at the front for video calls.

Removing the back cover will reveal a small battery, a SIM card slot and a microSD card slot. The annoying thing is that you need to remove the battery to swap the microSD card, a minor inconvenience for those using more memory than the built-in 16GB storage.

One thing that's prominently missing is a stylus slot. Whether it's a space constraint or a deliberate exclusion, this won't go down well with some users. A stylus is included though, and this has a clip on the end which fits into an optional leather pouch but not anywhere on the device itself. For most users, this isn't a practical solution, so a third-party stylus pen may become part of the Omnia user's arsenal.

Features

Picking up from the fact that it lacks a stylus, the Omnia can't just do with the default Windows Mobile 6.1 interface because it isn't optimized for use with finger taps unless your fingertips taper to a toothpick point in thinness. Certain elements of WM have been skinned over on the Omnia. This is most prominent on the Home screen. By default, it features a widget interface similar to Nokia's Internet Tablet devices. This means you can drag and drop mini applications from off a bar on the left onto the screen, allowing you to customize what you want to see. Though pretty, this isn't particularly useful as each widget takes up quite a bit of space and the different items don't exactly fit together like a jigsaw, which wastes even more space.

The widget interface on the Omnia.
(Click for larger)

From the settings page, you can instead choose the Samsung Today screen, which we found to be more effective in displaying important information. This includes a large clock, a submenu to essential settings and three icons showing your call log, messages and email status. Tapping on the main menu will give you a 12-icon page with some commonly used applications. From there, you can tap on another Shortcuts page which is customizable by the user.

There is also a Programs page which lists all installed applications in a scrollable list. Swiping your finger up and down this list will move it, much like the way you use the iPhone or the HTC Touch with its TouchFLO interface. But unlike HTC, which has managed to integrate TouchFLO into most parts of the WM interface, the Omnia's finger scrolling works only in very few applications. It won't work in the default programs list and settings pages, for example. This may be confusing for the user and certainly doesn't make for good UI design because of lack of consistency.

One of the most innovative things about the Omnia is the implementation of haptic feedback. What this means is that every tap of the screen is accompanied by a slight vibration which tells you the phone has registered your input. This is excellent especially when typing out messages using the onscreen keyboards as you are not left wondering if the software has "felt" your touch.

Three custom text input methods have been implemented on the i900. Like the HTC Touch Diamond, they are a full QWERTY, a half-QWERTY (two letters on one key) and a phone pad which uses predictive text input much like your regular phone. These work pretty well, our preference being the phone pad because it can be used with one hand conveniently. Our only gripe is that the backspace key is on the bottom left corner, which is unintuitive (it's usually on the top right).

Built into the Omnia is a motion sensor. This is used primarily for switching the screen between landscape and portrait modes. A slight vibration is felt when the mode changes and the screen shrinks down and re-expands into the new orientation, giving a visual feedback that something is happening. The sensitivity of this sensor can be adjusted in the settings page. We found the lowest setting to be the only usable one as anything higher made the device too sensitive to movement, causing changes in screen orientation when we didn't want it. Another annoyance was that the motion sensor remained active while the phone was keylocked. So if you don't also turn the phone off using the power button, the screen orientation will change once again with a vibration as you are putting it in your pocket--something that doesn't make sense since it's pretty clear you are not using your Omnia after locking the keys.

The display on the Omnia has an odd resolution for a WM PDA-phone, at 400 x 240. This is defined as wide-QVGA, and has an aspect ratio of approximately 16:9. This is good for watching videos in their native aspect ratios. A test video, which usually plays with black bars on the top and bottom in landscape mode on other devices, filled the whole screen on the Omnia, making it much more pleasing to the eyes. The DivX codec along with a special Touch Player application made it possible to play DivX video files without conversion on the Omnia. We tried out a couple of Xvid videos and those worked, too. There were some files which didn't play correctly though--kind of hit-and-miss in our tests with various files. Still, it's a good feature to have out-of-the-box. Just don't be too disappointed if some movie you downloaded from the Internet doesn't work properly.

The unusual screen resolution may also cause problems with some third-party applications. But generally, if the software can run in QVGA mode, it will work with the Omnia, other than the fact that there may be a small section of the screen which becomes inert as the app may work only within its own 320 x 240 space. For applications which work with it, like the included Opera 9.5 browser, it gives greater screen real estate.

The camera application on the Omnia is pretty responsive and offers good image quality for a WM PDA-phone (the standards are not high for this category). You get quite a number of features including autofocus, the use of an LED for night shots and anti-shake. The LED can even be turned on independently of the camera for use as a flashlight.

Performance

With a 624MHz processor and 128MB RAM, you'd expect the i900 to be snappy. It isn't blazingly fast but we found the device to be responsive in general. We did feel a slight slowdown when using the widgets interface--another reason the custom Samsung Today screen was preferred. The wireless radios performed without hitch. HSDPA downloads, connecting to Wi-Fi hotspots and getting a GPS lock using Google Maps all worked fine. For those so inclined, there's even an FM tuner included.

Battery life came as a surprise. We managed to use it for over three days on a single charge, which is excellent considering many PDA-phones require daily charging. The rated talktime for the Omnia is 5.8 hours.

Conclusion

The million-dollar, or rather S$1,098, question is this: How does the Omnia compare to the HTC Touch Diamond? As with the earlier Samsung SGH-i780, you get a lot more features compared to another brand's product at the same price. The Omnia has 16GB of internal memory, a full suite of wireless radios and even TV-out (requires an optional cable). But we do have to admit that the custom interface is not as polished as HTC's TouchFLO 3D. Nevertheless, it's much better than WM6.1's default interface, and we look forward to seeing Samsung improve on it in upcoming products or perhaps even in ROM updates to the Omnia.