Review: Samsung i8000 Omnia 2

Samsung Omnia 2 Review

Phone rating:

In a nutshell: 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.
Best buy: *Free* with half-price line rental from Mobiles.co.uk.

Review: November 2009.

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

Samsung Omnia 2 Consumer Reviews

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Average rating from 21 reviews:

Reviewed by Geo from UK on 29th Jan 2010
An amazing phone for lovers of Windows Mobile. Have owned a number of Winmo phones inc. Touch HD and Xperia and this is by far the best I've had. It has excellent battery life lasting 3-4 days with average usage (far beyond anything I experienced on other Winmo phones), an excellent camera with duel LED flash, lovely 3.7" screen that looks amazing and is fast and responsive This is an excellent media player for both video and music...the sound from a decent pair of headphones is out of this world and can easily replace your mp3 players...oh yes, and it's a great phone to use as a phone. Windows Mobile newbies beware as this may not be the phone for you but for those familiar with Winmo you'd be hard pressed to find a better phone
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Reviewed by Andrew from UK on 14th Jan 2010
It is an outstanding phone. It has a lot of features that are useful and is quite fast. The only vad bit was the price
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Reviewed by Yas from UK on 12th Jan 2010
bought this phone 2 weeks ago and have had it replaced twice already! has excellent features but is so slow and freezes constantly. total waste of time
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Reviewed by Kris from Thailand on 29th Dec 2009
I dont think both the Omnia i900 and Omnia 2 are sticks. Both of thess phones are great, but it's only for people who want something useful and ready to learn and tweak. Not just a call/receive phone. Anyway, I think everyone would agree with me on this, "We dont buy a plane to drive on the road, and again we dont use a Jaguar to do construction." These two omnias are like plane compare to simple nokia, and it's like a huge truck compare to i-phone. Each phone serves different purposes.
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Reviewed by nellie from UK on 19th Dec 2009
nice look and feel, but the interface is ridiculously complicated so the phone has gone back. gonna get myself a Nokia X6 instead.
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Reviewed by Matt from Slovenia on 19th Dec 2009
This is the worst telephone ever. Very unreliable OS, it's very slow, non-responsive, writing SMS is a nightmare,forget about fast typing, because the keyboard is very slow to respond. I regret switching from Nokia! Do not buy the phone!
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Reviewed by Owen from China on 12th Dec 2009
Phone is beautiful very slick and better feel than the Iphone. It has all the features anyone could ever want. It made sense for me to buy a smart phone that uses Windows since I am already familiar with Windows and was hoping that it would be easier to understand and use and my computer also is a MS Windows XP OS. The Win Mo is a little confusing hope after a few days of serious playing I can make sense of it. Updating was not with out its problems and I hope that 6.5 makes win mo easier to use but the jury is still out on that. Camera flash seems to be a problem as it’s not in sync with the shutter. If anyone has a fix for this please let me know. The Flash fires and then 1/2 second later the shutter opens and closes. I am not sure if it’s just the shutter “sound” that’s a ½ second late or if it’s the actual shutter but I have tried to get it to solve back lighting conditions and it always fails because the shutter and flash don’t operate at the same time. Any help with this problem would be appreciated. One other problem I am having is that it is hard to get the phone to stop trying to use the GPRS to get online rather than using the wifi/wlan. I think this problem will be easier to solve but since I am new to win mo and the Samsung UI it is just going to take some time to figure it out. I also feel it would be much better if the folks at Samsung with just put the Win Mo 6.5 at the factory. I am in China and it makes it even harder to update since I had to deal with the Chinese version of Win Mo 6.1 and I don’t read Chinese (nightmare) and finding people here that both speak English and understand Win Mo in English is not an easy task.
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Reviewed by John from UK on 3rd Dec 2009
This phone is amazing. Nice speed.
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Reviewed by Joe from England on 29th Nov 2009
I got this phone on the o2 network, and the signal is amazing! on my old blackberry, the signal was ALWAYS poor at the best of times in my hosue, but on this it is amazing. the gadgets are also great, wiht the internet access being second to non and the camera being a 5 megapixel beast. i reccomend this to everyone who needs a phone that works well, and does it all very, very fast. one of the best handheld devices ever!
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Reviewed by Amy from UK on 24th Nov 2009
This is my first windows phone and I must admit it is not a complicated as people originally made it out to be, the phone has a beautiful screen, which is regularly commented on and I love the fact that to turn the snooze on the alarm I roll the phone over(simple things:)). This is much better than other phones on the market, and I am constantly finding new features, the only extra feature that Samsung could have added is the ability for the phone to make me a cup of tea and cook me dinner when I get in from work!!!
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Reviewed by Dave from England on 20th Nov 2009
Had this phone a week now and have to say its fantastic. It does everything you could ever wish for in a phone. 10 out of 10
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Reviewed by savannah from england on 15th Nov 2009
this phone rings people when you dont want to.
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Reviewed by Jane Taylor from UK on 9th Nov 2009
Returning my user-unfriendly and hugely disappointing Sony Ericsson Satio for this. Only comment is that I thought it only came with 2GB Internal memory in the UK version and no microSD card in the box? www.mobiles.co.uk says only 2gb internal memory... I wanted a great camrea which is why I started with the Satio but would rather have a great phone and 5mp camera rather than a 12mp camera but terrible nightmare of a phone (the Satio).
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Reviewed by Jeff Christopher from Glamorgan Business School on 3rd Nov 2009
Yo what up homies, this phone is the shizz!
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Reviewed by vernon from New York on 2nd Nov 2009
this is absolutely amazing phone...had omnia hd for quite some time and got this as the gift from my uncle; believe me the os is much intuitive and easy to use then the symbian one on omnia hd. As far as the camera performance goes, honestly the hd video resolution didn't really convinced me since the video were quite jerky and the video size would ballon to several hundred MBs even for few minutes recording... the music quality is amazing and it seems quite much more pocketable then the ommia hd. Battery lasts quite better then the hd. So far i am utterly pleased with every aspect of this phone. Much better then nokia n97 for sure...
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Reviewed by shaid from uk on 1st Nov 2009
excellent phone, responsive compared to all touch screen phones. Video quality is excellent. Beware of one downfall, if you use your headset often do not get this phone. Volume on headset is so low you can barely hear it. Have checked with suppliers and tried different phones and headsets they are all the same. but do not let this deter you from what i think is the best phone i have ever had
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Reviewed by hmmm from englan on 1st Nov 2009
jus lov dis fone.......... win mobile 6.5 is the best thing in the world right now for sure...with symbian getting old and android catching up you r sure not to miss anything else with this platform... thankyou samsung , this is the best foneeee
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Reviewed by Fred from Luxembourg on 29th Oct 2009
Brilliant phone, works exactly the way you always wanted a phone to work. Crystal clear screen, all the buttons in the right place. Fits into an iPhone leather pouch. Customise how you want it to look and operate. Loved it from the moment it was switched on. Battery lasts for ages - low SAR. Set up and Sync'd with Exchange Server 2008 in less than 10 minutes wired or over the air. Great !!!
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Reviewed by malc from UK on 28th Oct 2009
Fantastic phone. No problems at all, no freezing, crashing or anything negative. Screen is amazingly clear and phone is amazingly fast. youtube etc is no problem at all viewed on this phone. All in all i am very happy with the phone and would recommend to anyone. Also looks amazingly cool too.
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Reviewed by Jo from oz on 19th Oct 2009
WICKEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
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Reviewed by andy pull from uk on 9th Oct 2009
This phone is awsome ive had a omina i900 before and upgraded to this baby its bigger faster.the screen is so clear compared to old omina a 5mp camara and auto focus.the screen is much easier to use than the i900 as sometimes the scree was delayed might have been the windows 6.1.this has 6.5 and is way better.it also recors in vers slow mode or in hd video format which is very good indeed.ive dowloaded about 20 apps already most of them free it has an apps store hope ive helped you out :)
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You can read more Samsung i8000 Omnia 2 reviews at RecommendedBuys UK.

Samsung Omnia II links