Samsung Omnia 2 mobile phone

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Summary: The Samsung Omnia 2 is one of the greatest mobile devices ever! Running Windows Mobile, this is really a mobile office with full email and MS Office functionality, as well as a superb web browser, 5 megapixel camera, DVD-like video recording, video calling, GPS and motion games. It’s got a huge 3.7 inch display with the highest screen resolution currently available, and it can connect to just about anything via WiFi, Bluetooth, USB, 3.5mm audio jack and DLNA. It may be big and it may be expensive, but this is perhaps the most powerful smartphone so far released.

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Let’s declare some bias at the start of this review. At Mobile Phones UK, we’re fans of the Windows Mobile operating system, and we generally like the current generation of Samsung touchscreen phones. That doesn’t mean that they’re beyond criticism, but we tend to like them. Funnily enough, our users do too, which is why our user reviews consistently rate them at 4 or 5 stars on average. We loved the first Omnia, and so we’re really excited to be reviewing the new Omnia 2.

The Omnia 2 has been restyled, and looks almost identical to the Samsung Jet. It’s bigger and heavier than the Jet however. Bigger and heavier than the original Omnia too, making it quite bulky in fact. But there’s an upside to this increase in size: the screen has grown from 3.2 inches to a massive 3.7 inches, and the resolution has quadrupled to 480 x 800 pixels. Samsung have achieved this by replacing the old TFT screen with a crisp beautiful AMOLED display, which looks better and uses less power. Only the HTC Touch HD can rival the Omnia 2 in screen real estate. For power users, web browsers and mobile photographers, this can only be a bonus.

Apart from this outward change, the big change inside is the upgrade of Windows Mobile to version 6.5. Windows Mobile is a very powerful and robust computer-like platform for running a mobile phone. First-time users sometimes find it overly complex, but for power users it offers a very flexible and customisable experience. Version 6.5 brings some improvements such as My Phone, to sync text messages, photos, video and contacts to the Web; and Windows® Marketplace for Mobile, a new marketplace that will provide direct-to-phone mobile applications and can be accessed from both the phone and the Web. The new Windows Mobile 6.5 home screen provides a dashboard-like experience to items such as new emails, texts, missed calls and calendar appointments. It also includes an improved touchscreen interface, and an updated version of the Internet Explorer Mobile browser. Samsung have integrated this nicely with their own TouchWiz user interface, adding widgets to extend the functionality of the home page and providing quick links to applications such as facebook. We’re not disappointed by the user interface.

The Omnia 2 is a fabulous phone for all kinds of media. Whilst the camera hasn’t been upgraded, we can hardly complain. A 5 megapixel camera with autofocus, face detection, smile detection, auto-panorama and macro, the only weakness is the lack of a xenon flash. Instead the camera uses a power LED flash, which makes it trickier to get good exposure after dark, but otherwise takes excellent shots. The video camera is excellent too, and is capable of recording in 480p format at up to 720 x 480 pixels for DVD quality. The phone also supports video calling, unlike Android phones for example. When it comes to video playback, the high resolution screen is unbeatable, and there’s full multi-codec support including DivX support, so you shouldn’t have any format compatibility problems. The media player can also handle most kinds of audio format, and we are impressed by the audio quality. An FM radio with RDS is included. We also very much welcome the 3.5mm audio jack, which lets you plug in standard-fit headphones for the best possible audio experience. Top marks here!

The Omnia 2 has a superb implementation of the mobile web. With the highest resolution screen on the market, the latest release of Internet Explorer Mobile and fast 3G access using HSPA, you really couldn’t ask for a better browsing experience. Features such as one finger zoom make web browsing quick and intuitive. AGPS is included, with car and pedestrian maps and features such as geo-tagging of photos.If you get bored of all this, you can also try out the various games embedded in the phone. These make use of the touchscreen and motion sensor.

When it comes to office applications, the Omnia 2 has an edge, being based on Windows Mobile. Whether synching with Outlook or accessing push email with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, editing MS Office documents or running third party apps, you’ll find a real wealth of mobile office functionality here, that makes Windows Mobile 6.5 the best smartphone platform in our opinion.

The battery life of the phone is quite impressive, especially for such a powerful device. The use of a powerful 1500mAh battery and the OLED screen make all the difference here, although the downside is of course the size and weight of the device. The amount of memory available is also impressive, and has been increased to 16GB with an option to expand this to a humongous 48GB with a microSD card. This would let you store around 16,000 music tracks or 46 DVD-quality movies! The range of connectivity options covers all the bases: WiFi, Bluetooth, USB, 3.5mm jack, TV-Out and DLNA support. With 256MB of SDRAM memory and 512MB of Nand memory available for running apps, you’ll find that you can use the phone without any go-slow or crashes resulting from low memory, and the super-fast 800MHz processor packs enough punch to power the device without any noticeable lag.

Overall we’re just as impressed by the Omnia 2 as we were hoping to be. Samsung have made the device more powerful, yet easier to use at the same time. They’ve made the screen enormous, increased the memory, added a 3.5mm audio jack and updated the OS. The only issue is the size of the device. But it’s about the same as the iPhone 3GS, so we’d guess that isn’t going to be too much of a problem. No doubt about this one … 5 stars all the way!

Features of the Samsung Omnia II include:

• 5 megapixel camera with face detection autofocus, smile detector, auto-panorama, 4x digital zoom and power LED flash
• Video camera: 720 x 480 pixels, 30 frames per second / 3G video calling
• Display: AMOLED, WVGA, 480 x 800 pixels, (3.7 inches), 65,000 colours
• AGPS navigation with geo-tagging
• Music Player (MP3, AAC, AAC+, Enhanced AAC+, WMA formats) plus FM radio RDS
• 40-voice polyphonic ringtones / MP3 ringtones
• Speakerphone
• Voice memo recorder
• Messaging: SMS, MMS, email
• Document viewer
• Java games
• Memory: 2GB, 8GB or 16GB, plus microSD memory card slot (up to 32GB)
• Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0, Wi-fi, DLNA, TV-Out, 3.5mm headphone jack
• Internet: WAP 2.0, Pocket Internet Explorer / Opera 9.5 web browsers, GPRS, EDGE, 3G (HSDPA 7.2 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps)
• Quadband (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) plus 3G (UMTS 900 / 1900 / 2100)
• Offline mode
• Size: 118 x 60 x 12.3 mm
• Weight: 125g
• Talktime: up to 12 hours (2.5G) up to 8 hours (3G)
• Battery standby: up to 430 hours