Omnia Apps

Samsung i8910 Omnia HD

February 18, 2009 marked the introduction of Samsung’s HD smart mobile phone, the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD. This recent addition to the company’s long line of touchscreen phones certainly offers a lot of new features that will give other mobile phone brands a run for their money. But just as they say almost everyday every mobile phone company is able to come up with newer features that would appeal to the tech-savvy market, lets just see how long would this Samsung HD phone stay in its current position in the market.

The Samsung i8910 Omnia HD hails from the impressive Omnia series. As a successor of the Samsung Omnia i900, this magnificent mobile phone flaunts its AMOLED screen, which guarantees an increased contrast and aspect ratio which is 16:9 QHD resolution display. The 3.7” capacitive touchscreen has a resolution of 640 x 360 pixels and is able to display over 16 million vibrant colors. This makes Standard Definition and High Definition viewing more pleasurable, thus bringing mobile multimedia to new heights. Another benefit of the OLED is that it does not eat up much of the battery’s life. Aside from that, since it has a capacitive panel, the screen is more responsive and sensitive to touch. If there would be some delays or touch control trouble, it would mean a software glitch. Lastly, an AMOLED screen is able work well even under the glaring sunlight.

This mobile phone also takes pride in incorporating an 8 megapixel camera and in having a 720p HD video recording capability (24 fps). This feature makes you shoot and record digicam-quality photos and videos. It also has a built-in flash bulb so you can take decent pictures even when there’s not enough lighting. Other imaging bonus features include smile and face detection, WDR setting and geotagging.

Another remarkable feature of the Samsung i8910 is its high speed internet access capability of HSDPA 7.2Mbps and HSUPA 5.76Mbps. This makes uploading and downloading relatively faster.

This candybar-classified phone also features and accelerometer, a magnetometer and a proximity sensor. It has an FM radio with RDS and an Office document viewer. As with the memory storage, you can opt for either an 8 GB model or a 16 GB unit. But if you’re one who loves to download and save a lot of applications, there’s nothing to worry about since this gadget has a microSDHC card slot expandable memory up to 32 GB maximum. When it comes to connectivity, it has USB 2.0 port, it has WLAN 802. 11b/g with DLNA and is Bluetooth capable.

Samsung deviated from using Windows Mobile and instead used Symbian version 9.4 S60 5th generation as Samsung i8910 Omnia HD’s operating system. Web browsing is made possible thru WebKit and it also has Flash support.

In general, i8910 Omnia was able to keep the functionality and the excellent-quality performance of the earlier Omnia i900. However, like all other mobile phones, there would always be a downside or a limitation. Add to that is the fact that the tech-hungry market would always find some fault and inadequacies in most gadgets. Well, as the old adage says, you definitely can’t please everyone.

Some product experts as well as i8910 Omnia users complain about Samsung’s decision in switching to a Symbian OS from the supposedly more user-friendly Windows Mobile. As a result, the previous Omnia’s TouchWiz widget User Interface was also replaced to fit the new OS. Aside from that, scrolling and switching between menus became complicated. Add to that would be the poorly-designed onscreen keyboard as well as the confusing and complex navigation system which makes basic calling, OS navigation and even contact management difficult to do.

This innovative addition to Samsung’s smart mobile phone line is the world-leader when it comes to having an excellent in performance camera and 720p video recorder. The capacitive AMOLED screen is also something that sets this phone apart from the rest.

If you are not so particular about the OS and the navigation or control keys, the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD would definitely make other mobile phone makers think deeper in the battle. The good thing about that however, is that at the end of it all, the real winners would be the consumers.