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...

Sort by:

  • ?
  • Anonymous
  • wdG
  • 30 Aug 2009

another flaw in the review: "65K color limitation of display"
This limitation is due to Windows Mobile OS which supports only 65K while the display of Omnia II supports 16M colors same as display on Samsung S8000 Jet
so this limitation is found on all WM device and GSMARENA should clarified this issue clearly

This is really the worst review I saw from GSMARENA,the worst part that GSMARENA doesn't admit their mistakes despite all the evidences were provided regarding the CPU speed....
They think that a big company like Samsung made a mistake in specification sheet of Omnia II and they got it right!!!!!very disappointed

    • J
    • JJ
    • ib6
    • 30 Aug 2009

    guys...no point arguing bout the processing speed inside the review.
    wat gsmarena said is right..it is the real time user experience that counts. no matter what the clock speed is, if it runs faster than most of the smartphones available out there now, then that's all you need isn't it?

    you want a test? go youtube a video for yourself...there are lots of videos comparing omnia II and other smartphones.

      • F
      • Fahad
      • nCe
      • 30 Aug 2009

      The processing speed depends on the voltage suppiled to it. If the voltage is pre-determined by samsung to 1.2v the we will get 667MHz of processsing , this would explain why gsmarena said that the processing speed is 667MHz instead of 800MHz , maybe their handset was at 1.2v

      •533MHz @1.1V
      •667MHz @1.2V
      •800MHz @1.3V

        • ?
        • Anonymous
        • 2@y
        • 30 Aug 2009

        whoopboy!, 29 Aug 2009down with samsung..! up with the N900! whoop whoop!nokia n900? yaaaaawwwnnn!!!

          • N
          • NuShrike
          • 424
          • 29 Aug 2009

          You forgot the Acer m900 with the 3.8 screen running the exact same cpu/gpu as the Omnia at a marginally slower clock speed. Only thing the Acer suffers from is a weak backlight and Kaiser level ram. Still lighter than a Kaiser and smaller than a Sony Clie NX80 that clocks in @ 4.1" screen.

            • ?
            • Anonymous
            • n{h
            • 29 Aug 2009

            @kiff.
            No, usability isnt everything. The iPhone might be great at that, but, when a feaure you need is not avalible, the iPhone is not interesting at all.
            And for many users out there, specs is more important.. and the user interface of iPhone, often just a gimmick...
            Few phones are so terrible from a user experience view that you cant use a feature... it might be one more click away than on an iphone, somtimes its even 2 less clicks than on an iphone... Multitasking is not yet avalible on iPhone, for users that depend on this, iPhone is useless... no matter how great the user interface is. cameralight, also missing on iPhones, and cant be solved by software update... if you need it, iPhones UI wont give you that. and so on.

            I for one prefers features, on a phone with a usable interface over lacking features on a phone with great user interface. after a while the interface gets old, no matter how great.. and then the lacking of features is the only thing your left with.

            In most cases your phone wont be under direct sunlight even... on a cloudy day, it isnt.. and most peoble spend most of their day indoor, inside an offie, theirh home, on the subway or bus, or in their cars.
            And the few days, that youre facing clod free skies, you can either turn around, thus shadowing the dispaly, use your hand as shadow or find shadow some other way.
            And really, how often do you have a desperate use to watch videos or use maps or even play games in direct sunlight?
            You can fully use the phone in sunlight, its just that its a little harder to see whats on the display, and you wont experience great colours.

              • ?
              • Anonymous
              • n{h
              • 29 Aug 2009

              The critisism about the reviewers not trying out the GPS navigation, is wrong. Think about it for a second, this is not an official unit, it ha win mob 6.5, thats not avalible yet, so you should get it by that.
              Download a demo? GSMarena reviews a phone at it is, with included software... If there is no GPS navigation avalible in the phone, they wont try it... Sometimes features like that are regional, so even if there are people out there with navigation software, that does not mean that it was avalible for GSMARENA with their unit. It wasnt, and this is not a resale package... its a prerelease unit, running win mob 6.5.

              This phone is not yet avalible on a worldwide basis, in some cases, like here in Sweden, it wont even come out, until it packs with win mob 6.5 oficially. If its not yet oficially avalible where GSMARENAs reviewer is located, the software package shouldnt be either.

              (according to specs over here, it will come with GPSnavigation software, with a 2 year license... however, only nordic region, wich suggest you should expect some regional relases of this software... and since its not global, or even covers all of europe, the usability is limited, thus making a review of this software obsolete)

                • p
                • post by GSMARENA ...
                • syj
                • 29 Aug 2009

                UPDATE 29 Aug: There seems to be a lot of commotion in various forums, our comments section included, about the actual CPU speed of the Omnia II. Samsung official specs seem to deliver some contradictory information and you should rest assured we will be contacting Samsung directly to clear up the issue.
                All that being said, it’s just numbers we’re talking here. If you think that calling it 667MHz makes Omnia II a worse performer, you’re wrong. The clock rate of a processor is only useful for providing comparisons between computer chips in the same processor family and generation and is hardly useful for direct comparison between competing mobile platforms. But we digress.
                Our point here is that no matter what the actual MHz number is, at no point did we judge the Samsung Omnia II by its pure clock rate. Instead we quite more value the real-life impressions of our experienced reviewers and we’ve hardly drawn any conclusions based on the pure processor spec sheet. And neither should you – no matter if it is 667MHz or 800MHz we’re talking about in this particular case, the Omnia II remains a leading performer among smartphones this year

                  • ?
                  • Anonymous
                  • puD
                  • 29 Aug 2009

                  Hi everyone!
                  I would to know if the Omnia II and the Omnia Pro have the same specs except of course the full qwerty keyboard?

                  thanks

                    • w
                    • whoopboy!
                    • nUY
                    • 29 Aug 2009

                    down with samsung..! up with the N900! whoop whoop!

                      • k
                      • kiff
                      • 32M
                      • 29 Aug 2009

                      HTC, Samsung, SE..etc need to address one important issue and that is the display sunlight legibility. I like almost everything about Omnia II but the screen's sunlight legibility is a deal breaker for me. What's the point in having a beautiful high resolution AMOLED display when you step outside and can hardly see anything on it? GPS is useless when you can't see what's on the screen when you're out and about, right? How come Apple managed to tackle this problem and others not? It's laughable seeing so many peple here claiming this or that phone is better because of the higher speed of CPU, screen res., more mpx etc - it's the usability that counts not the specs on paper.

                        • n
                        • nick
                        • nxw
                        • 29 Aug 2009

                        samsung have the best symbian devices
                        samsung have the best windows mobile devices
                        and i think phones such as the jet show that samsung can offer some nice non-smartphone devices too

                        competition is healthy and samsung provide it.

                        great phones lately, good job!

                          • A
                          • Andrew Tan
                          • ibb
                          • 29 Aug 2009

                          I always trusted GSMArena, but since this case where GSMArena just ignoring and not admit the fault report but given a more confusing to reader.

                          GSMArena is not trusted anymore. Bear in mind, GSMArena might given you more wrong information in future.

                          OMNIA II is confirmed and definitely running at 800MHz processor and have tv-output support.

                          How could we trust anymore the reviewer site that not care, not study and simply put the wrong information? Even a lot of proof is given and 1 day is nearly pass but it still remain unchanged!

                            • ?
                            • Anonymous
                            • ucw
                            • 29 Aug 2009

                            Aparadektos, 29 Aug 2009A real shame for the mobile community. It seems that gsmar... moreI am disappointed with the review too, but let's not get over-analyze here...
                            The review did say that the mobile phone is amazing device all in all...
                            We've seen poor review everywhere, and probably this is just one small occurrence ...
                            GSMArena, you gotta admit your mistake and correct it ....

                              • A
                              • Aparadektos
                              • p3I
                              • 29 Aug 2009

                              A real shame for the mobile community.
                              It seems that gsmarena is only good when they are about to review NOKIAs or praise iphone...
                              Omnia II has better, display and CPU than most of the apple/Nokia "smartphones" out there. So they had to taint it, watering down the numbers in order to keep they hype of the iphone/N97 as mush higher as possible.
                              Omnia has a clearly superior CPU and therefore it can handle the new, improved OS with optimal fluidity and can handle more and better applications. The 800mhz is an overkill atm and Nokia/Apple have nothing to face it for the months to come.

                              The huge, high resolution AMOLED display has superior rendering abilities, comparing it these phones an they had to taint mentioning the marginal defeat on sun readability.

                              This review sounds like it has been made from a Nokia/iphone fanboy...
                              I used to appreciate gsmarena and recommend it to my friends as a reliable source of information, but they have become market manipulators too, what a shame....

                                • ?
                                • Anonymous
                                • M9j
                                • 29 Aug 2009

                                Well here in sweden.

                                all information state that the Omnia 2 har 800 mhz cpu!

                                  • c
                                  • carmod
                                  • wdG
                                  • 29 Aug 2009

                                  another flaw in your review: "65K color limitation of display"
                                  This limitation is due to WM OS which supports only 65K while the display of Omnia II supports 16M colors same as display on Samsung S8000 Jet

                                    • c
                                    • carmod
                                    • wdG
                                    • 29 Aug 2009

                                    GSMARENA, you should say that there was no TV out cable to test the TV-out feature performance on the Omnia II then your statement will be correct
                                    or
                                    No TV out cable Included in the package but the TV-OUT feature is there

                                      • c
                                      • carmod
                                      • wdG
                                      • 29 Aug 2009

                                      technical sheet of processor S3C6410 of Omnia II as link below

                                      http://tinyurl.com/kohlur

                                        • ?
                                        • Anonymous
                                        • pWL
                                        • 29 Aug 2009


                                        If any of You can read Finnish this is a link to Samsungs finnish pages. It says explicitly that Omnia II has 800MHz S3C6410 processor TV-Out and preinstalled Route66 GPS software.

                                        http://www.samsung.com/fi/consumer/subtype/compare.do?group=mobilephonemp3&type=mobilephonemp3&subtype=mobilephones&prda=GT-S8000KKAXEE&prdb=GT-I8910DKRXEE&prdc=GT-I8000KKRXEE