Samsung i900 Omnia review: The whole nine yards

25 July 2008
Now that the dust of the Diamond vs. Omnia PocketPC battle settles down, our up close and personal look at the rivals continues with Samsung i900 Omnia. Slick looks, great feature-pack and ingenious software solutions are things that hold true...

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  • h
  • ha
  • UXm
  • 22 Oct 2008

smoke-o, 02 Oct 2008is this phone better than the i phone 3g or not please advi... moreIF you like apple iphone 3G
IF you like samsung omnia

    • A
    • Anon
    • NaD
    • 20 Oct 2008

    VERT VERY DISSPOINTED with Samsung! Def not worth the price!!!! Its like they spent two days designing and buliding this phione! I dont need to say anymore. VERY DISSAPIONTED! One less customer!

      • N
      • Nickm
      • N7$
      • 18 Oct 2008

      I have had the Omnia for a couple of weeks and find that the phone side works well the camera is great except geotagging doesn't work. battery life is terrible, text display of who is calling and sms is very small particularly if looking to see it when driving etc. GPS works well most of the time very slow to start up to 5 mins to aquire satelites and the map display does not always refresh properly. Samsung support is terrible telephone support hadn't seen phone and didnt know what geotagging was then even sent me to an office that closed down months ago.

        • ?
        • Anonymous
        • mxF
        • 12 Oct 2008

        DV, 06 Oct 2008This phone looks interesting based on the review. It will b... moreno profiles. you can download 3rd party software at cost that will.. its a little annoying

          • A
          • A.Rasheed
          • mHx
          • 10 Oct 2008

          smoke-o, 02 Oct 2008is this phone better than the i phone 3g or not please advi... moreAt the moment I have this phone the i900 ITS tooo nice but I cant
          tell you what is best

            • D
            • DV
            • Qdg
            • 06 Oct 2008

            This phone looks interesting based on the review. It will be my first WinMo based phone if ever I decide to buy this phone. I am currently using a Nokia E90 and have had this for the last 15 months. I wonder if the Omnia has a profiles system similar to the Symbian OS Series 60 of Nokia where you can screen caller alerts to preselected callers (those in phonebook or those in a predefined group). If anyone can help me out this would be great. If the Omnia doesn't have this then that would be a deal breaker. Thanks.

              • T
              • Troy
              • TKb
              • 03 Oct 2008

              Yours Truly, 29 Jul 2008You are right. The back is entirely plastic, they seem to h... moreInitial reviews have already informed back cover is made of plastic. No surprises and I don't see any problem with tat. I was actually quite impressed of Samsung able to use plastic without making i900 look cheap. If the back is made of metal, another group of ppl will just come along and complain phone is too heavy. Ppl are just never satisfied.. thinking their SGD1000 deserve titanium or super duplex stainless steel.

                • s
                • smoke-o
                • N9A
                • 02 Oct 2008

                is this phone better than the i phone 3g or not please advise someone?

                  • T
                  • Tubac guy
                  • SvK
                  • 02 Oct 2008

                  After reading user comments here and elsewhere, I am having second thoughts about buying the i-900. Currently using a Nokia N73, the biggest piece of garbage on the market and I can't wait to get rid of it. But, from what I am reading here, the i-900 has the same basic problems: slow system response, slow typing, SMS and texting capabilites, poor display in sunlight and terrible customer support.
                  If you have used this phone for more than one week and live in Europe, are you having any of these problems? I can't find anyone who believes in the Windows Mobile O.S. and several say this is the main source of problems. Any objective answers? I wasted a lot of money on my Nokia and don't want to waste almost twice as much on this phone if it is more of the same.
                  Thanks!

                    • ?
                    • Anonymous
                    • uS}
                    • 29 Sep 2008

                    i ask my mom to buy me samsung omnia in California USA, can i use it in Philippines? Thanks

                      • n
                      • nick
                      • Bw@
                      • 28 Sep 2008

                      In the review it says flash dont wok, yesit does, install flash 7 for wm and flash workks in internet explorer.
                      t-mobile doesnt include the digital frame app, anyone know where i can get it. A good fone but my battery life is crap

                        • N
                        • Neo
                        • ftb
                        • 28 Sep 2008

                        I really like this handest. When comparing it to the IPhone it really kicks butt. I prefer this to the Diamond & the I Phone.

                          • m
                          • masshuu
                          • ms5
                          • 23 Sep 2008

                          samsung omnia (i900)

                          so i bought this phone a month ago. it arrived from hong kong very rapidly.
                          i read through the instructions, and installed a couple of apps online. i found that a lot of the windows mobile apps did not work with this phone

                          the blue tooth is appalling in comparison to other samsung devices like the yp-p2 and yp-s5, with the signal losing strength very easily, and cutting out a lot.

                          the phone oftens hangs once a day, and i have found that i have needed to remove the battery and switch it back on to use it again. which isn't helped by the very long start up time. i'm not surprised by the lengthy start up time, but could do without it on a phone.

                          as with all samsung products, they do not provide software for use on a mac, which is troublesome having to find a windows machine to transfer data, sync the phone, or make any kind of back-up.

                          i have found the text input works well, but for me the only viable option of the 9 available is the samsung phonepad, meaning i'm no better off than using a traditional phone. but this works much better than an my dads iphone which i've played around with a bit.

                          the battery life is poor. i found i could completely run down a fully charged battery in 3 hours with wifi turned on. with 3g on it would be dead in under a day. otherwise the battery life is great when used as a plain phone.

                          the camera looks great when it works, which i have found to be infrequently. §1the normal response when trying to start the camera is a box saying that the program can not be run to to a lack of video memory. even after closing all running programs this is not remedied.

                          the screen looks great, and the accellorometer works great, and i have no problems with the 1-3seconds it takes to rotate. the problem is with video playback. not only does the phone not play back .svi (samsung video) but when the device plays a movie it tends to be quite laggy and unpleasant.

                          i haven't tried using the phone with the headphone jack, so can't judge the audio.

                          network strength is fine. i find the phone book great although the touch and drag scrolling can be annoying. when you touch to drag, sometimes this doesn't scroll but opens the contact.

                          the menu system is great, simple, but the touch drag through programs proves problematic like with the phonebook.

                          adding further widgets does not work. so i couldn't add any weather widgets like with the htc phones.

                          opera browser is lovely to use, and should be available on all phones. it works in every way that could be expected, and i found it much better than safari on mobile. copying and pasting is a big point that windows mobile has over apple mobile.

                          the phone looks cool, and i have kept it in a sock so have no scratches or finger prints which keeps it looking wow.

                          my bottom line is that i think the phone is wonderful but windows is slow and prone to crashing so i am selling the phone.
                          having played with an iphone this last week, and trying the nokia n96, htc touch diamond and black berry bold, i am most impressed by the black berry bold, and keeping a separate device for media playing.
                          the htc dream is out this week, and new blackberry thunder (touch screen) so for now i choose my samsun d900i.

                            • B
                            • Bernie
                            • v}h
                            • 23 Sep 2008

                            Lots of good comments here and in the review and this looks like a pretty damn good phone. What I would like ot know is 'How does it synch its contact lists with your pc/notebook?' What software does/can it use for this purpose, will it synch with Thunderbird or do I need to install new software on my pc/notebook.

                            After all it is a smartphone that is supposed to be used fro business and this is one the most important parts of running a business.

                            Anybody care to comment?

                              • s
                              • scuba man
                              • kKW
                              • 23 Sep 2008

                              Does the Samsung Omnia use 3g in the USA? That is what i need to know before i buy it. Thank You.

                                • S
                                • Savage
                                • PU3
                                • 22 Sep 2008

                                After reading many negative point and very little postive point i decided not to buy i900. GSM user review comment had save me, thats great. I borrowed my friend i900 which is 3 days old and use it for few hours the messing is really sucks. It takes me long time to msg a simple text. So bye bye to i900 and for samsung if u can't make reasonable perfect don realeaseit.

                                  • l
                                  • lone-ranger
                                  • Sbf
                                  • 18 Sep 2008

                                  had a omnia for 2 days, sending it back and getting a w960i, the music player sucks, no cntrol if its in ur pocket like all Sony ericsson fones, have to get the phne out, unlock, go in menu and press 'next' or 'stop' texting is a farce, have to use the stylus, which has no housing, because my fingers are normal, not twig like . the wifi is good though but again let down by the input of touch keypad. avoid, unless you need 1,000,001 apps you will never ever use and have a month t get used to the interfarce!
                                  my 2 cents...........

                                    • s
                                    • samsung?
                                    • pP4
                                    • 17 Sep 2008

                                    I am not sure about the resolution and the response time of the touchdisplay. But I won't buy an IPhone because of only 2 MP camera and I won't buy a Diamond because of only 4GB memory.

                                      • W
                                      • Will
                                      • nFF
                                      • 17 Sep 2008

                                      Brummie, 08 Sep 2008I recently purchased i900 and after a couple of days I was ... moreI have the same problem, any luck yet?

                                        • W
                                        • Will
                                        • nFF
                                        • 17 Sep 2008

                                        Hi my Omnia arrived last week and I love the features, however I have a few problems. Could anyone tell me if I can create a group to send SMS messages to on a large scale basis? On my last Nokia this was very simple. Cheers all