Samsung Omnia HD i8910 reviewed in the glow of the AMOLED screen
By Ross Miller 
posted May 2nd 2009 5:44AM
posted May 2nd 2009 5:44AM
posted May 2nd 2009 5:44AM
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Is there still no kinetic (flick) Scrolling on Symbian s60 v5 menu's, contacts, photos, if not then this phone is not for us, come on samsung if Symbian will not enable it (LAZY) WHY dont you???? Lazy Nokia labs a releasing programs with flick scrolling???
I think Opera Mobile for Symbian has it.
At least the UIQ version does.
N97 at least got kinetic scrolling on web pages, but dunno if they will make it to all menus(don't think so).
I don't think there's much of reason to wait for big or any updates to 5th edition or 9.4 becuse all work is done for Symbian Foundation and for the release of Symbian^2 in summer. If Nokia did enable kinetic scrolling i wonder why Samsung didn't considering they got 600mhz proc on OMAP3 platform, so that shouldn't be a problem.
Then this MIGHT be a problem with many Samsung Symbian phones that they dont support their phones in the same manner as Nokia have been doing for past 3-4 years, but maybe that will change as Samsung seems to be taking strong approuch to Symbian as is SE with it's future phones. Plus of course this isn't still final product and it will only improve(it already looks damn good).
the menu looks kinda childish and I'm not too fond of the design. But it seems like a good phone.
You are totally correct. Although I give them props for the attempt, the old-looking S60 interface is cluttered and a pain to use.
This phone has some of the BEST HARDWARE of any device on the market. Besides the huge (capacitive right?) OLED screen, It uses T.I.s new OMAP 3430 which is a 45nm version of the OMAP3, with a 600Mhz ARM Cortex-A8 (faster than ARM11), PowerVR SGX 530 GPU, and 300 MHz C64x+ DSP.
Man if this thing ran Android and was heavily optimized for the hardware, it would be one of the technically best smartphones on the market period.
-said the guy who is named after a pokemon
Borat's doin' the review? ;)
The HD lacks 2 things - a proper OS and GUI. Let's wait für Symbian S60^2 or WinMo7.
Symbian is most advanced mobile operating system. However, UI might need some tweaks. Don't merge things that are not the same.
Forgot to say that things will change radically in Symbian^4 when they implement new Qt-based Orbit UI.
Symbian is the most advanced operating system? Where did this nugget of knowledge come from? Did Nokia's CEO Olli-Pekka (nice name) pass this down to the legions after mentioning that they were going to retrench and go chasing after the iPhone. I think they meant chase after the iPhone from behind. Well Symbian OS is up to version 9.5, so it better have something going for it. I heard some tech pundit claiming that Palm's first version WebOS is better than Symbian, but maybe that's just one man's personal opinion.
Doesn't look like it would be very useful to business-like users... Great video though, that's definitely a plus, and the screen real estate is awesome, but this phone seems like a pass if you're not strictly looking for a multimedia phone, and want something a little more well rounded.
It's a bit odd that they don't have kinetic scrolling in menus. It would be ideal since S60 ui uses focus-activate style in menus so it would be virtually impossible to activate thing by accident. It shouldn't be hard to implement and I hope that they will add this in newer firmware releases.
Haha, Samsung and (regular) firmware updates .. Just look at what they've done with the Innov8, which also runs S60 - nothing.
That's the problem. ;)
I'm sorry but how is:-
"trying to use it in direct sunlight's a lost cause"
"pretty minor "
Possibly because most of us live and work indoors?
......hopefully the reply system will work this time....
@ Mark Anderson
If you're happy to only use the phone indoors and at night time fine.
I just don't want a phone with a such an obvious design floor.
I agree. I have a phone now that sucks in daylight, and I refuse to get another phone that's not outdoor suitable. That's a huge flaw for a phone these days... the thing takes videos at 720p, what, of bats in a cave at night?
Hey, I live in Scotland. Too much sunshine isn't really an issue here.
Actually, even in a cloudy day the Samsung screen SUCKS and is totally washed out (I have the 910 Omnia) yes, indoors it looks cool but outdoors is a BAG of FAIL. WTF? You can't use your MOBILE phone outdoors? and they didn't fix it for the Omnia HD?
The specs are nice, not so sure about the OS though. Symbian OS still has some way to go before it matches WebOS or iPhone OS in terms of usability. Also considering the fact it has a capacitive screen, it doesn't look very responsive either. I believe the better choice for this phone would have been Android OS.
Amen! This phone needed to be Samsung's first Android phone... Hopefully it'll be third or fourth! :)
"the largest (3.7-inch) AMOLED screen to have ever been integrated on a cell phone in recorded history."
Because everyone knows cavemen had even larger AMOLED screen their phone but they never wrote how big they were.
actually it's a fair point, for all we know there have been civilisations that have had this tech before and it was just lost. Unlikely, but possible.
This conclusion is inconsistent. One of the advantages of OLED is how well they perform in direct sunlight. I don't know how you'd choose an OLED screen and not make sure it had this quality shared with its brethren.
the term "recorded history" is actually redundant
Not really... you see, History happens whether you bothered to record it or not. So, recorded history is just that. Unrecorded history represents either unknown historic events or communicated in means other than those considered relatively permanent, e.g. aural tradition.
See this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recorded_history
Thanks for the review, Borat.
"Points go to its HD video recording and playback, a surprisingly good battery life, and a form factor that's not too hard on the pocket"
Right, but what about the OS, which is any products most important feature? The first Omnia wasn't exactly a bad phone hardware-wise, but the operating system was incredibly sluggish - nay, useless - and there is no word if this has been improved, although it seems a little snappier.
they replaced Windows Mobile with Symbian so the OS is completely different from the original Omnia. Hopefully the responsiveness has improved as a result.
Looks like it takes great pictures and video but...
How does the screen hold up to scratches?
Is the virtual keyboard any good?
Looks like the menus underneath TouchWiz are almost the same as the 5800 which got pretty bad reviews for usability from this site.
Other than those gripes, this phone looks gorgeous. It's still in contention for my next phone purchase because I like to take pictures/video on the go.
maybe you should read the review they did not just watch the summary video review if you want answers to those questions
I did read it and they do not answer those questions.
One thing I'm kind of surprised by is the huge variety of devices that *don't* run Android. I kind of had the idea that all the awesome hardware crippled by WM would have Android rapidly ported to it soon after the OS was released, giving a wide range of Android devices. Instead, the G1 was alone for ages :S And still not many out-of-the-box alternatives.
Your first mistake is thinking a phone is "crippled" by WM.
Windows Mobile is still by far the best mobile OS for me. Not because I'm a fanboy, but becuase I need the feature set and open flexibilty.
That's true Symbian^2 is more like service pack 1 for the current 5th edition. While Symbian^3 brings example "Integrated support for seamless composition of hardware-accelerated content into UI elements (this incorporates “Screenplay” technology)" so it will be much more eye candyed and probally Symbian UI as how it works might have changed a bit. Much thanks to Screenplay that was already in Symbian 9.5 announced in 2007, but never got released because Symbian Foundation.
Symbian^4 will then be something totally different with LOTS of changes, but there's still time for that.
I've owned a flagship device for almost all major mobile platforms (WM, Symbian, iPhoneOS, Blackberry) and even a couple not so major platform (Motorola Linux phone), in my mind nothing is nicer than Symbian. It may not be as flashly as the iPhone, or have as many apps as wm, or have the email capabilities of a blackberry, but its the second best in every category and was rock stable for the lifetime i owned it, gave me the fewest problems and was generally just a pleasure to use. I see this being just a perfect device. Well almost, I would have a keyboard ala the n97, but wow just wow.
Symbian. WHY? WinMobile is far from perfect, but still better for device like this.
No it isn't. S60 is better than WinMo for consumer phones.
I would say that it is better for everything.
I think most iPhone competitors have it wrong when it comes to an iPhone rival. It's all about the software and what the phone can do than it is to screen and iPhone look-a-likeness. The Instict showed some promise, but with no real open code in order to create applications other than those already pre-installed the Samsung Instinct just falls short.
What blew me away:
- Video playback
- AMOLED screen
- Camera quality
What I liked:
- The flash in the browser
- S60 enormous library of 3rd party apps available
What I hated:
- S60 clutter
- S60 ugliness
- S60 dated UI
- Slow
This phone makes me look forward to my Tegra phone purchase!
In all honesty, this OS might just be that much better than the laggy WinMo used in the original Omnia.
I am not really sure how you can call a phone with a 360x640 screen capable of "HD playback". Capture, yes (if you call 720p HD), playback, NO.
Maybe I am just a little old fashioned, but back in my day we called 640x480 standard definition.
They mean the phone can play HD videos without down-conversion. Drag and drop the video and it will play it.
It's capable of playing HD videos. It's about the resolution of the video file, not the screen. Hence it has HD playback.
So will many other phones, big deal, it is still down converted by the phone for the screen, and it is still misleading for those who have not idea what the real difference is.
The point I am trying to make is they should not say it has HD playback.
It is like the SD TVs that say they support 1080i.
I have never met anyone who realized that all it really meant was it could take 1080i on the input and downconvert for the 640x480 screen. I have saved several people from buying these "cheap HDTVs".
And there is on more thing - HDMI output, so you can play those videos on your HD TV.
@Jeff:
Name ONE other phone that can play HD files (1280x720 resolution). You can't, because there aren't any (yet). Right now the Omnia HD is the only one. Decoding those files requires alot of processor power.
i think the HD is there because of the video recording, this is the only phone that can record 720p video.
Are you really that stupid or is this just some sort of joke?
Of course it supports 720p playback, but just because it's screen doens't have that resolution doesn't mean that it can't do it...
Think about it, how could it do this...
Oh, that's right!
It can output it to a screen that does have that resolution!
Whoa! Isn't that mind-boggling!
(Because, following your logic, Blu-Ray players don't have HD playback either, since those don't have a screen at all)