Samsung B7610 OmniaPRO preview: First look

TouchWiz UI keeps improving

The Samsung B7610 OmniaPRO runs on the Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional OS but you wouldn't guess that at first sight. If it wasn't for the start menu icon at the top right to give it away you might spend quite some time confused that you are working with a Samsung feature-phone instead. The company has done an excellent job of customizing the UI.

The company's proprietary TouchWiz UI is installed on top of the Microsoft OS and covers it so completely that it's hard to come across those boring native menus. From the phonebook to the settings menu, everything is covered by the customized interface. Even the settings themselves have been reorganized to resemble those of the Samsung non-smartphone touchscreen handsets.

With Samsung B7610 OmniaPRO you gen a different homescreen for the work and the life mode, which we mentioned earlier. While both use widgets the work mode has a completely new layout, while the life one is rather similar to what we saw on the Samsung I8000 Omnia II for example. The widgets for the work mode are also different and generally more practical.

The widgets in work mode are arranged as tabs on you scrollable homescreen in a customizable order. Each individual tab is also scrollable sideways if there is more content that needs to be displayed.

The new work mode of the TouchWiz UI

The life mode widgets are the usual mini applications that you can arrange freely on the three different screens available. In either mode, if the user needs to place a new widget on the screen all that has to be done is click the arrow at the bottom left corner of the homescreen and slide the widget bar out. Getting rid of an unwanted widget is done by dropping it back to the bar.

The life mode is far more familiar

The TouchWiz approach is quite similar to the one we witnessed on the Samsung i900 Omnia but the B7610 OmniaPRO has two key advantages over its predecessor. For one - the widgets interface has been nicely improved since, both visually and functionally with the two modes probably being the nicest touch. The other great benefit of the B7610 OmniaPRO is the fact that this time the Samsung engineers decided to go all the way and customize the interface inside out. Not seeing the dull looks of the native screens anywhere is a huge boost to user experience.

Pretty much all of the interface is customized this time

The new Task Manager is available through the custom Settings menu provided by Samsung. The Task manager not only does it display the currently running processes, but also their RAM and CPU footprint.

Samsung B7610 OmniaPRO task manager

There's also a Task switcher that doesn't display as much info about the running apps but allows you to switch between them.

The task switcher has pretty neat looks

Unluckily there isn't a back button on the Samsung B7610 OmniaPRO. It's not that the handset has lost some functionality because of this, but you will have to reach for the close or ok button at the top right corner of each screen. A key comfortably placed nearer your thumb would certainly have improved usability.

We are pretty confident that the omnipresent TouchFLO 3D interface will be ported to the Samsung B7610 OmniaPRO at some stage. However there is no need to rush getting it - as you can see the handset has quite a lot to offer itself.