First Windows Mobile - questions

6ix

I've just got my first Windows Mobile device - a Samsung Omnia - and I've a few newbie questions.

It's Vodafone branded but unlocked and I was thinking of upgrading the ROM to the latest clean version from Modaco.com.

How safe are these ROM upgrades? I don't want to end up with dead phone.

Also, are there any "must have" applications for the phone? From reading it seems that the SPB shell is a much better interface than standard windows mobile.

strecker

Not sure about the rom upgrades...

Spb mobile shell is the best ui-enhancement you can get imho - no wonder SE let spb design a panel for the X1 !!!

If it's your first wm device I highly recommend dinarsoft's 'MemMaid' - and alround memory maintenance program cum installer/uninstaller, tweaker etc etc... Very good, very reliable, and your omnia will never need an emergency reset once you get to grips with it

Mort player is a good free music player, and tcmp a great alround video and music player.
Anything else?
www,freewarepocketpc.net - have a look! Or handango.com make sure you always try before you buy

mkennedy

What do you want to use it for?
Spb mobile shell is a nice UI alright.
Although the Omnia's UI doesn't seem too bad tbh.
Take a look at sites like www.pocketpcfreeware.com (edit: just change the site's default language from french to english ), www.freecabs.de, www.handango.com, or www.pocketgear.com to get an idea of what apps are out there.
Personally i'd recommend Opera mobile or Opera mini for browsing, Tomtom for satnav, TCPMP (with flashvideobundle) for streaming video/youtube videos, Tomeraider 3 for reference works, the Gmail java app
for handy gmail, vtap for quick look-up of wiki articles/streaming video and Worldmate Pro and metro if you travel.
There are other apps like:
GSPlayer for streaming radio. Softmaker is more or less a fully functional office suite on your phone.
Handy Converter is a lovely universal converter app.
Yahoo Go 3.0 is a neat yahoo widget that brings together all your yahoo mail/IM/news etc.
Depends what you want though- check out those sites above as a start.

mik_da_man

Spb, TCPMP and Opera mobile would be my top 3 picks

mkennedy

Actually should've said- if you go to the handango site on your phone you are prompted to download the handango "in-hand" app which is a small updateable catalogue of apps on their site.
Haven't really tried it myself much and it seems a bit limited tbh (so you might be better accessing handango from a pc altogether) but it's a handy start.

6ix

Thanks for all that, I'll check those links and applications out. I had Opera and Core player on symbian devices before so I'll get them. Opera might even be on the Omnia anyway, I'm not sure. I'll definitely try to SPB shell too, see how it works out.

I'd love to upgrade the ROM to get rid of all the vodafone branding. It also seems a bit sluggish, so maybe an upgrade would help with that. Kinda worried that I'd 'brick' it though.

strecker

Yeah, I think you have opera mobile on your omnia
as to sluggishness: download the trial version of memmaid, and use the 'advanced cleaner' module... It gets rid of bad registry entries, old cached nonsense etc etc... Your omnia will be less sluggish - I guarantee! The trial version is fully functional, for 10 days or so, so even if you don't wanna buy it, you can clean out that slug

as to browser: a lot of folks are giving out about pocket IE, but try reensoft's "PIEPlus" - it's an IE plugin that adds a host of features including screen drag etc etc...it's less fun than opera mobile 9.5, but it lets you do things no other mobile browser does

kao123

I have upgraded the ROM on my Omnia twice now and each ROM seems to improve the performance and battery life, I would have no qualms about recommending doing an upgrade.

There are a few "cooked" roms as well as official Samsung ones available, you do need a windows XP machine though as there are issues with doing it through Vista.

I tried SPB Shell for a few days but with the Samsung Touchwiz running underneath it tended to get a bit slow and laggy after a few days which led me to pressing the reset button more times that I liked.

If you follow the instructions to the letter from modaco then you should have nothing to worry about, if you have a read through some of the threads here you will find out all you need to know, some people have bricked their Omnia's when trying a ROM upgrade that's true, but most of them manage to get them fixed with help from other members on Modaco.
Check out the dedicated i900 Omnia Rom forum here - http://www.modaco.com/category/368/i900-omnia-rom-discussion/