Samsung B7300 OmniaLITE review: The light side of life

Introduction

It's business as usual on the WinMo front and all the action seems to be around the upper end of the pricing scale. Impressive as those top PocketPCs may be, they are hardly the stuff that makes the sales meters tick and bring the profits that fuel the R&D machine.

Samsung B7300 OmniaLITE official photo

Samsung B7300 OmniaLITE is one of the very few that dare to try and bring Windows Mobile to the masses. Budget PocketPCs are not unheard of but what makes OmniaLITE different is WinMo 6.5. The compact full-touch handset has the essentials perfectly covered, and sprinkled with a few nice extras too. But most importantly, the price tag won't make you wince.

Key features

• 3" 65K-color resistive touchscreen of WQVGA resolution
• Quad-band GSM support
• 3G with 3.6 Mbps HSDPA
• Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional OS with TouchWiz UI
• Samsung ARM 1176 667MHz CPU and 256 MB of RAM
• 3 megapixel autofocus camera with smile detection and VGA@15fps video
• Built-in GPS receiver with A-GPS
• Wi-Fi with DLNA
• FM radio with RDS
• DivX and XviD video support right out of the box
• Stereo Bluetooth 2.1, standard microUSB port
• Office document viewer and editor
• Excellent response and performance
• Above average audio quality

Main disadvantages

• Low-end display resolution
• No standard 3.5mm audio jack
• Poor screen sunlight legibility
• No two-position shutter key, despite autofocus functionality
• No stylus slot

Most of them Samsung B7300 OmniaLITE specs are quite a good match for the original Omnia. There are some differences of course but in the eyes of the potential buyers they just can't be make or break we think. And besides it's a pretty fair trade-off considering the asking price.

Samsung B7300 OmniaLITE live shots

The doubled RAM and standard microUSB port come at the price of a smaller screen and a downgraded camera. But those differences are not really enough to pull the two devices that far apart.

We guess the LITE version looks quite a bargain - at least on paper. But don't think Samsung have suddenly become charitable. The thing is the original Omnia has produced an impressive offspring. And the strong lineup is so segmented and the market so evolved that users can enjoy a high-end feature set at a midrange price. But the important question is will the B7300 OmniaLITE survive in the shadow of its near-iconic sibling that easily tops our all-time popularity ranking of Samsung handsets.

As usual when such questions arise, we try to provide the answers. For starters, we'll check if the build quality and ergonomics of the B7300 are up to the high standards of its elder brother. So, hop on to the next page where we kick it off nicely.