Samsung I8000 Omnia II review: A surprising experience

28 August 2009
Samsung's top tier of Omnia devices is populated by some seriously heavy-hitters - first the 720p video recording Omnia HD and now the Omnia II - with its best-in-the-business display, WM 6.5...

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  • 28 Sep 2009

Anonymous, 15 Sep 2009Wow, so web browsing is the only feature that you think the... morezooming in and out on iphone is such a gimmick with the multi-touch - you gotta use two hands.... omnia is hectic in that u can use one hand to zoom in or out just by holding then sliding. much more practical even if its not as cool

    • S
    • Stoffe
    • p80
    • 27 Sep 2009

    The omnia 2 will have support more then 64 k colors with windows mobile 6.5. This review sucked hard.

      • ?
      • Anonymous
      • tV4
      • 27 Sep 2009

      rujhan, 22 Sep 2009AVOID THE OMNIA II AT ALL COSTS IF YOU INTEND TO USE ITS EM... moreActually its possible to use the phone in vanilla WM. But you'll have to dive into registry editing. But yes, the Samsung e-mail client is a mess. Still its possible to set the WM client as default. But you'll loose the Samsung QWERTY keyboard. It only works with the Samsung client (of course there are ways around it). But there's another problem. Even if you did get back to the default WM client, threaded SMS is not just enabling the registr entry. I've tried, and apparently there's some other registry entries preventing showing threaded SMS. So threaded SMS becomes show most recent SMS only.

      Yes its troublesome but well, some people just like the ability to tweak phones. Right now I have a mix match of registry hacks that combines both Samsung and default WM. It works great.

        • Z
        • Zica
        • ptD
        • 25 Sep 2009

        Thiru (Singapore), 24 Sep 2009Greetings , can someone tell me when this phone will be sol... morewell, winmo 6.5 comes out on 6.10, so all phones that appear on market round or after that date should have it boxed...

          • T
          • Thiru (Singapore)
          • veS
          • 24 Sep 2009

          Greetings , can someone tell me when this phone will be sold with windows 6.5 from the box straight? Would there be a noticeable difference?

            • Z
            • Zion
            • ibh
            • 23 Sep 2009

            Hey guys, can Media gate be installed into Omnia 2? Where do you guys downlaod games form?? Thanks(: I love this phone.

              • r
              • rujhan
              • tV4
              • 22 Sep 2009

              AVOID THE OMNIA II AT ALL COSTS IF YOU INTEND TO USE ITS EMAIL!! Or am I the only Omnia owner who's having problems? The biggest problem is that it will lose HTML formatting when replying, and renders text in a single unreadable (almost) line. Even if Samsung manage to overcome this problem, I will still be unhappy because the other big problem is that Omnia's email client is just so darn uncomfortable to use. The colors are all wrong, pictures can't be displayed, fonts are either too big or too small, no scrolling sideways, attachments can't be opened. I've upgraded the firmware at the service center twice and the problems still persist. When I first got it, it can't even read MS Exchange emails but fortunately this problem was resolved after the first upgrade. I hope Samsung will allow Omnia II to run in PLAIN VANILLA MODE when WinMo 6.5 arrives. For now, the phone is safely locked in my drawer..

                • m
                • mark
                • 0x7
                • 21 Sep 2009

                i just cant stop but laugh bout the iphone fanboys.the guy said it right:its maybe the browser that iphone is ahead of the omnia..the music player capabilities are awesome as in every recent samsung phone.even omnias UI works smoothly and looks great now,so why even compare the two phones..no iphone can match the specs of the omnias,let alone the SCREEN.but, if they re into wasting loooots of money on iphone,they know better:)

                  • j
                  • jon
                  • 3GQ
                  • 20 Sep 2009

                  read the title.. if you have nothing to say about samsung, dont say it....

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                    • Anonymous
                    • 2xH
                    • 19 Sep 2009

                    Anonymous, 16 Sep 2009I disagree. I USE my iPhone more than my friends use the... morefanboy lol

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                      • Anonymous
                      • mCS
                      • 16 Sep 2009

                      Anonymous, 16 Sep 2009Hi there you mentioned apple in your comparison using the t... moreI disagree.

                      I USE my iPhone more than my friends use their own phones. When it comes to finding something on the web, cinema times, anything to do with google maps like POIs or addresses, ebay, facebook, paypal, stocks, weather, MSN, Twitter, uploading videos to youtube, uploading photos to flickr, shazam, VNC, tethering, the list is endless.

                      Sure you can do these things on WinMo or whatever, but its not as easy, simple or elegant. iPhone wins hands down.

                        • ?
                        • Anonymous
                        • ft0
                        • 16 Sep 2009

                        kiff, 29 Aug 2009HTC, Samsung, SE..etc need to address one important issue a... moreHi there you mentioned apple in your comparison using the term "usability" so it invoked me to give you a little feedback about the apple use abilities,... let's talk connectivity you cannot use the Apple lovely phone with all it's models to send or receive files from other devices so no sharing with friends is allowed! let's talk about a memory card swappable ...apple ..sorry no can do let's talk about a battery replacement for any reason may it be..so if the battery is down the "i" is history the tones and Ipod application only uses registered songs from i Tunes other wise you need to hack it and it's a fact that the service of iTunes is not even available in some countries man when talking about iPhone it's the slim design smooth looks high price and graphics stylish interface but USABILITY oh no you wnt to the wrong place .

                          • ?
                          • Anonymous
                          • FJT
                          • 15 Sep 2009

                          oliver, 12 Sep 2009I have an iphone 3gs and just purchased the new omnia 2. I ... moreWow, so web browsing is the only feature that you think the iphone 3gs is better than the omnia. How many available apps are there for the omnia? Is it's music player really better than the iphone's? Coz according to professional reviews, the iphone is leaps ahead against any phones on music player quality. Also, does the omnia have better legibility outdoors than the iphone? Is zooming in and out on photos and web pages really better on the omnia than the iphone? Wow, where did you get your omnia? It must be a special edition version :)

                            • o
                            • oliver
                            • v}7
                            • 12 Sep 2009

                            I have an iphone 3gs and just purchased the new omnia 2. I have to say the omnia 2 is very nice device to use considering its WM 6.1.
                            The only feature the iphone excels at is web browsing. Omnia 2 just cant touch it . The iphone is quicker, the web browsing experience more enjoyable and fluid. I found the omnia at times cumbersome and slow and down right annoying to surf the net with. All other features on the phone are excellent I really like sms. I find the capacitive screen works better with sms, it seems more precise. Therefore i was making less errors as i do on my iphone. Camera and video are all great . All in all a good phone except the opera 9.5 browser which i dint really gel with.

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                              • Anonymous
                              • uC4
                              • 09 Sep 2009

                              Despite having what I would believe is the latest firmware, the phone is still somewhat buggy. Bugs mostly in poor integration of Samsung applications into the Windows Mobile OS. So those not familiar with Windows Mobile might find the phone mediocre. But if youo're willing to invest time doing registry hacks, the 800MHz processor will make a huge difference in experience.

                                • ?
                                • Anonymous
                                • uC4
                                • 09 Sep 2009

                                elprimero, 09 Sep 2009Hi, Does any one know if the color scheme as well as the b... moreYes the scheme and background can be changed. Although if you're referring to the Widget Plus interface backgrounds, I believe backgrounds can only be changed to pictures in your My Pictures folder. The folder where the Picture Gallery widget is linked to. As for theme, yes you can change the theme. However the reason they use a "blackish" theme is to show off the AMOLED screen. The way the AMOLED screen works make contrasting colours more vivid.

                                  • e
                                  • elprimero
                                  • 9xH
                                  • 09 Sep 2009

                                  Hi,
                                  Does any one know if the color scheme as well as the background can be changed? I was seeing lots of Black background and wondering if Samsung allows users to change to brighter & lighter color like White?

                                  Thanks.

                                    • j
                                    • joppe
                                    • A3m
                                    • 07 Sep 2009

                                    Anonymous, 07 Sep 2009Bought the phone yesterday. At the shop I had Omnia 2, Touc... moreIn the specifications it says that it does charge using microUSB. What is it, yes or no?

                                      • ?
                                      • Anonymous
                                      • R57
                                      • 07 Sep 2009

                                      Bought the phone yesterday. At the shop I had Omnia 2, Touch Diamond 2 and Touch HD in front of me. Touch HD no WM6.5 (officially), so off the table. Touch Diamond 2 great looking business phone. But then the sales person switch on the Omnia 2 and suddenly, there's no going back to 3.2". Seriously the 3.7" AMOLED screen is very good. Colours are very vivd.

                                      Pros: Fast, good screen, lots of applications (vs other WinMo device manufacturers), 8GB internal memory with MicroSD support, TouchWiz UI (not to be mistaken for the Widget Interface) is well done. TouchWiz runs very deep. Probably 80% of settings covered. Video recording is good. DivX support. 800MHz allows for high quality videos. Camera handles Macro shots pretty well. 3.5mm headphone jack. Good form factor. Slim and long rather than wide.

                                      Cons: Widget Interface is a memory hog and has no productivity widgets. Many widgets end up being links to either website or an application. TouchWiz is good but scrolling is not as smooth as say HTC's offering. General picture quality from camera is not up to mark. Charger and USB cables are not the standard Mini-USB. So bummer. No threaded SMS. Current registry hacks don't solve the problem entirely. Word out there is, the Samsung messaging application doesn't handle threaded SMS well.

                                      Overall good phone. The problems are the little ones here and there that ruins an otherwise great experience. Like going on a nice vacation, everything great but there are the few little things that mars an otherwise perfect vacation. That's the feeling with the Omnia 2. Its really good. But could be better. Good news is, most of the problems can be fixed through firmware updates (as in the problems are not hardware related).

                                      Advice? If you're not into widgets, disable the Widget Interface, stick with the traditional WinMo Today screen, keep the Touch Wiz UI on and set the Performance to High rather than auto. Omnia 2 is a different phone without the Widget Interface memory hog.

                                        • ?
                                        • Anonymous
                                        • PNj
                                        • 07 Sep 2009

                                        Why even bother making comparsisons to N900 ? They are totally different. N900 is a 'tablet' not a phone.