Samsung Omnia II review – gigantic AMOLED touch-screen
For:
Advanced multimedia features; GPS, Bluetooth, 3G support, 3.5mm headset jack, Wi-Fi; easy-to-use TouchWiz 2.0 User interface; 3.7 inches gigantic AMOLED touch-screen.
Against:
Sluggish performance; Swype keyboard needs more acclimation; bit bulkier smartphone.
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
The Samsung Omnia II is based on WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM technology and supports WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM 850/900/1800/1900 bands. It is powered by 800MHz Samsung S3C6410 processor. The operating system is Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional Edition.
3.7 inches AMOLED resistive touch-screen of Samsung Omnia II has 800×480 pixels resolution that supports 16-bit (65,000) colors. The additional features are voice dialing and commands, GPS, Bluetooth, 3G support, Wi-Fi, EV-DO Rev. A Network, speakerphone, airplane mode, T9 intelligent typing, and HSDPA.
5-megapixel camera features flash, digital zoom, and video recording. The supported video formats are MPEG4, H.264, H.263, and WMV, while the Omnia II supports AAC+, AAC, WMA, and MP3 audio formats.
The Omnia II has 1500mAH lithium ion battery that has life of 600 minutes talk time and 430 hours standby time.
Razzle Dazzle:
The Samsung Omnia II has candy bar design like most of the smartphones, but it is a bit bulkier. It is 4.69 inches tall, 2.35 inches wide and 0.52 inch deep and weighs 4.76 ounces. The glossy back has 3D style red and black color. It attracts fingerprints even on gentle touch.
Inside Dope:
The Samsung Omnia II costs $199 with two-year Verizon Wireless contract after a mail-in-rebate of $100. There are several touch-screen smartphones available in the market. What the Omnia II offers as compared to them? It is the successor of the previous Samsung Omnia and runs on Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system. The smartphone features large touch-screen display, revamped Samsung TouchWiz interface, 3G support, GPS, Bluetooth, and other advanced multimedia features. However, the Omnia II still suffer from drawbacks including its bulkier design, average performance and the Swype keyboard requires more acclimation. If you are looking for an advanced multimedia smartphone with Verizon and do not mind sluggish performance, then the Omnia II will be a good choice. However, HTC Droid Eris and Motorola Droid are its good alternatives with Verizon Wireless. The business users can consider the HTC Imagio with HTC Sense user interface.
Design
You will find the talk key, Main menu button and Power/End key beneath the display on the front. The volume rocker and 3.5mm headset jack are located on the left side. As usual, micro-SD card slot is located behind the battery door. The camera activation/capture key, lock key, micro-USB port, and stylus are on the right spine. We will prefer the manufacturer to include a dedicated back button.
Display
3.7 inches AMOLED touch-screen of Samsung Omnia II has 800×480 pixels WVGA resolution. It consumes less power, but still provides brighter and sharper picture than traditional LCD displays. The display features inbuilt accelerometer that rotates the display on tilting the phone. We do not like that the touch-screen is resistive, instead of being capacitive one. On the bright side, it does not need a stylus and works quickly to switch between home screen panels and for menu navigation. Noteworthy that touch-screen will work accurately after some usage.
Virtual Keyboard
The Samsung Omnia II has onscreen Swype QWERTY keyboard that spells out the words as you type it. It also features predictive input and works mostly accurate. The keyboard will be rotated to landscape and portrait modes automatically on tilting the phone. You can type at a speed of 30wpm (words per minute) in accordance with Swype, which is a nice speed for a mobile virtual keyboard.
Samsung TouchWiz Interface
Samsung has included its revamped TouchWiz 2.0 user-interface in the Omnia II. It provides better multitasking feature and latest additions as compared to previous version. There is an expandable widget tray on the left side, from where you can drag and drop widgets. We like that Samsung also provides Widget Store to download more than 200 options by third-party developers including E online, LOL Cats, Digg, and so forth.
Windows Mobile 6.5 Operating System
The operating system is Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional Edition that brings new MyPhone backup service and upgraded Internet Explorer Mobile edition. The Samsung Omnia II also has Windows Marketplace Mobile to download applications for travel, productivity, entertainment, and more. It also comes with preloaded Microsoft Office Mobile Suite, Smart Reader business card scanner, voice recorder, memo pad, calculator, alarm clock, and others.
Messaging Feature
The messaging features of the Samsung Omnia II are quite similar to original Omnia. It features Microsoft Direct Push Technology for real time mail delivery system and auto-sync with Outlook contacts, tasks, and calendar through Microsoft Exchange Server. It also supports conversation view for free/busy calendar lookup, unified messaging, emails and more with Exchange 2010. We like the new Samsung skin to the Outlook inbox.
The smartphone also supports POP3/IMAP4/SMTP email accounts. The Omnia II also has Verizon Mobile Email Solution, and instant messengers including AIM, Yahoo!, and Windows Live.
Phonebook and PIM features
The Samsung Omnia II can store contacts in its phone book limited to available memory. Each entry can save multiple phone numbers, notes, addresses, birthday, and more. You can organize the contacts into caller groups and pair them with ring-tone, group ID, and photo for caller ID.
The basic feature set includes text and multimedia messages, speed dial, voice commands and dialing, speed dial, conference calling, and speakerphone. The additional highlights of the Samsung Omnia II are Opera Mobile 9.5 Web browser, Bluetooth 2.0, GPS, 3G support, EV-DO Rev. A Network, and Wi-Fi. The supported Bluetooth profiles include dial-up networking, phonebook access, basic imaging and printing, file transfer, object push for vCard, hands-free kits, stereo and mono headsets. We will recommend using the Opera Mobile browser as it features tabbed browsing, easy navigation and handy zooming.
Media Player
The Samsung Omnia II is rich with numerous multimedia capabilities. The smartphone features DivX video playback, FM Radio, streaming player, and support for V Cast Videos and V Cast Music. The inbuilt basic player features shuffle and repeat modes, play-lists, SRS and DNSe audio effects. There is an appealing Cover Flow interface that allows swiping via photos, still pictures, video, and album art.
Camera
5-megapixel camera of the Samsung Omnia II features digital zoom, flash, and video recording. The mirrored camera interface is similar to that of Samsung digital cameras. The still capture options include several image sizes, anti-shake, ISO levels, white balance presets, shooting modes, and auto-focus. You can record videos in MMS mode, slow mode, and normal mode. The inbuilt video editor allows adding text, music, and others to recorded clips. We captured some pictures while testing. The overall photo quality was good and sharp images even in dark light.
There is a Communities application that allows one-touch uploading of pictures and videos to social media Web sites like Flicker, Photobucket, MySpace, and Facebook. What’s more – Digital Frame application rotates the saved pictures and displays phone memory status and date/time. The Omnia II also has TV-out capability.
Call Quality
We made few calls through the Samsung Omnia II via Verizon Wireless service for testing. The overall call quality was good. We received loud sound at our end, but the callers had to repeat themselves. The callers received clear sound at their end with a bit echo. The speakerphone call quality was good with loud volume but suffered from little voice distortion.
Battery Life
1500mAH lithium ion battery has 10 hours of talk time and 17.9 hours of idle stand by time. Its digital SAR is 1.06watts per kg in accordance with FCC radiation tests. The Omnia II is compatible to M3 Hearing Aid.
Verdict:
If you need a large touch-screen display with text-to-speech keyboard and do not mind average performance; then go for Samsung Omnia II. However, you can also check Motorola Droid and HTC Droid Eris.
