Omnia: Everything you can Wish for

It's been a week since I got my hands on the Samsung Omnia (or rather, since raw power came into my hands). And I'm loving it.

The OMNIA, meaning 'everything' in Latin and 'wish' in Arabic, was unveiled at the CommAsia 2008 2 weeks ago and wowed spectators with its functionality. With all the hype surrounding the new 3G iPhone slated to be launched in the 3rd quarter of this year, any phone with a sizable touch screen is wont to be compared to the iPhone. And any phone-maker worth their weight in salt should be clamouring to jump onto the touch-screen bandwagon. Enter HTC Touch Diamond, LG KE850 Prada and Samsung Omnia to name a few.



The HTC touch Diamond retails at SGD 1,098 without a contract. This is the same price as the Omnia. I had no difficulty deciding on the Omnia over the Touch Diamond as I have heard that the latter lags quite badly and besides, the larger screen size of the Omnia gave it a huge edge over the Touch Diamond.

Over last weekend, Singtel was offering the Omnia at SGD 768 with a 2-yr contract. If one signed up for an added service such as SMS plus - $2+ a mth for 6 months - Singtel shaved off an additional SGD 300. An awesome deal right? So all in all, I paid SGD 368 for the Omnia, inclusive of a $100 trade-in.


The OMNIA

Screen resolution: Fabulous. I haven't compared it to the HTC Touch Diamond but I don't see a need to because I don't need anything better! I mean once the resolution reaches a certain threshold, any further improvements has little impact on the overall experience right?

Touch-screen Sensitivity: Since the Omnia doesn't have a keypad *horrors! how to sms liddat?!?* the responsiveness of the screen is the be-it and end-all of the gadget. I was happy to discover that the screen is indeed very responsive; better than those Besta Chinese dictionaries I used to have, but slightly inferior to my Lifebook T4215 Tablet PC.

Dialing is no problem because the number pad on the screen is reasonably big, however,chubby fingers would find it a tad difficult to sms as the keys are smaller. The solution is to rotate the phone horizontally such that the keys expand a bit. But even so, I doubt anyone with clubbed fingers would be happy with the keypad.

Camera: Significantly better than my previous Nokia 6288 which had a 2MP camera. However, I thought my Canon A80 5MP camera produced sharper images. (The truth is I haven't loaded the pictures onto my comp yet so I can't give a fair review of this function)

Lack-of-lag: 9/10

Looks: 9.5/10 (since I think the iPhone is 10/10)


Weight: This phone may be like the Incredible Hulk in terms of raw power, but when it comes to tipping the scales, it's really more like Jessica Alba - light and slender, yet not too anorexic.

Verdict: I've never been happier with any mobile phone before. 9/10.