Samsung Omnia HD (i8910)

iwb

Just wanted to post about this phone. I got it last week out of Buy and Sell. Guy had it a week and didn't like it. He is now using a 3GS.

I had the 5800XM before it and it has the same operating system with fairly minor differences, so it wasn't a big leap.

I hated it at first and wouldn't dare admit it as my better half didn't agree with my purchase in the first place.

A week or so later, I have to say that the phone has grown on me a lot. Here are a few observations;

The screen is absolutely gorgeous! As it plays DiVX natively, I have watched about three movies on it now and it was very comfortable and great quality.

It records in HD video and this alone is worth the phone to me. With a clatter of kids who play sports and get up to all sorts, we have found that we have very little video as we don't bring the camcorder, or we have crappy video from a phone.

Having video in my pocket means I take far more and it is more than watchable afterwards. However, I have a netbook which won't play it back at full frame rate and my delapidated desktop pc won't either.

The still camera function seems very good. We have an SLR so we like to have good quality images. I haven't sat down and looked at the images in detail but am generally impressed.

There are a few surprising things. When I go in to find a contact, there is that annoying feature where it narrows down the letters once you type in the first letter. It takes probably a second or more on this phone to bring up the new screen which is a very long time. XM was quicker and it was annoying.

Web browser is not good. Probably same as XM as far as I recall. I loaded Opera 5 Beta and it was brilliant except when entering urls.

Touch screen is great but unless I am getting old, I seem to mis key quite a bit when texting. I think more often than with the XM even though I am using a bigger screen now.

I tried using adobe reader to read an ebook and it is a disaster. I will have to look for another application.

I have to note that I would probably have gone for a 3G iPhone except for the camera not being as high res and no hd video. Also, I resisted the cost of it and having to unlock and jailbreak.

My sum up so far is that with a few good apps like ebook reader, web browser and NAS viewer (for media on home network) it would be a super phone.

If you could put iPhone OS on it and remove some of Apples proprietary crap, it would be the perfect phone.

Almost forgot. Battery life seems very impressive given the specs. I am sure I watched a two hour movie and listened to music for a few hours also but with light phone usage last Saturday and it still showed a few bars on the battery at midnight that night.

Rsaeire

iwb wrote: »

Having video in my pocket means I take far more and it is more than watchable afterwards. However, I have a netbook which won't play it back at full frame rate and my delapidated desktop pc won't either.

You should install the trial of CoreAVC on your netbook and/or desktop and see how the video recorded from the i8910 plays back. I also recommend using Media Player Classic Home Cinema for the best performance.

There is a firmware update, XXII1, for the i8910 that addresses quite a lot of issues with the previous firmware; the list of updates can be found in the link provided. If you plan on upgrading, ensure you backup any content, e.g. contacts, pictures, videos etc, as the handset memory is completely wiped when upgrading.

Had it and found the thing way too big so got rid of it.

Great phone though.

6ix

I have the original Omnia and I've one huge tip - get SPB Mobile Shell - it's basically an alternative interface, which makes it a lot more user friendly. It's a completely different phone. New version (3.5) just released.

See demo/videos here - SPB Mobile Shell.

Out of all the applications I've tried, that's the most important one.

Rsaeire

6ix wrote: »

I have the original Omnia and I've one huge tip - get SPB Mobile Shell - it's basically an alternative interface, which makes it a lot more user friendly. It's a completely different phone. New version (3.5) just released.

See demo/videos here - SPB Mobile Shell.

Out of all the applications I've tried, that's the most important one.

The Omnia HD doesn't use Windows Mobile, it uses Symbian - Series 60.

6ix

Rsaeire wrote: »

The Omnia HD doesn't use Windows Mobile, it uses Symbian - Series 60.

Sorry, my bad. That's a pity. I don't know what the standard UI on the Omnia HD is like, but I really didn't like the one that came with my Omnia. Luckily, the SPB shell made a huge difference.

Rsaeire

6ix wrote: »

Sorry, my bad. That's a pity. I don't know what the standard UI on the Omnia HD is like, but I really didn't like the one that came with my Omnia. Luckily, the SPB shell made a huge difference.

The Omnia HD uses Samsung's proprietary Touch Wiz UI over Series 60 5th edition, as found on the 5800, N97 etc.

SPB mobile shell is amazing; I used to use it on my X1i before I upgraded to Windows Mobile 6.5.

6ix

Rsaeire wrote: »

The Omnia HD uses Samsung's proprietary Touch Wiz UI over Series 60 5th edition, as found on the 5800, N97 etc.

SPB mobile shell is amazing; I used to use it on my X1i before I upgraded to Windows Mobile 6.5.

How is 6.5? Is it worth the upgrade? I was tempted to get it but wasn't sure if it was worth the hassle.

Rsaeire

6ix wrote: »

How is 6.5? Is it worth the upgrade? I was tempted to get it but wasn't sure if it was worth the hassle.

It looks better, but I haven't really used it that much to make an accurate assessment on whether it's any faster. I'm currently using a custom rom, Jack v4.2 Medium, from XDA developers, so I can't say whether the official rom is any slower; generally custom roms have all the bloat taken out and, as a result, are generally faster. I installed Windows Marketplace too, which is cool to look around at what's on offer, however, the majority of the apps aren't free. Facebook, MySpace, Windows Live apps, of course, are free, but I'm not a big social networking user, so they're of no use to me.

iwb

Thanks for the feedback guys. I tried coreavc and it works like a dream. I can watch full frame rate on my netbook now!

Pity about that SPB mobile shell. It sounds great. Hopefully someone will come out with something like it for Symbian one of these days. Although the UI is pretty frustrating sometimes, there is also user error and lack of knowledge so i may need to rtfm.

I don't think I will upgrade the firmware just now. It sounds like it may be frustrating to work through and I would have too many other struggles at the moment with several pc's that need new os'es.

Rsaeire

iwb wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback guys. I tried coreavc and it works like a dream. I can watch full frame rate on my netbook now!

I'm glad you can now watch videos taken with the Omnia HD on your computer, as being restricted to only viewing them on the phone was probably frustrating to say the least.

chriski

I haven't used SPB shell but I have started using Iconsoft dialler and contacts.

It is far better than the one that comes with windows mobile - mainly since it is actually designed for touchscreen so my fat fingers can find the buttons.

And swiping actually does something

Anyway, highly recommend it

Download it here if you want to try it (includes a free trial)

www.iconsoft.com

jesus_thats_gre

Very seriously considering getting one of these myself

iwb

I have been reading up on some of the roms that are available out there. The hacked ones appeal to me most. Anyone tried any of those? I would like to get this phone to work faster. It has definitely showed down a bit with use.