You know there are a lot of reviews, previews, and well just plain mobile-tech-smut that gets dumped online. Which is why we are glad Rleader has enlightened us with his thoughts on life with an Omnia HD. User generated information like this is as good as it gets.
Rleader of Allaboutsymbian has put this great writeup together. He reports:
Daily use with an i8910 Samsung “Omnia” HD :
HARDWARE
Screen – see above comments; it is the best available as of now IMHO – also has Haptic feedback, which I didn’t like.
Speed of O/S – this handset feels FAST. I read from other forums that it has ~799 (?) Mhz processor and performs roughly twice as fast as the Nokia 5800 Xpress. I don’t care about the details. The screen rotates from portrait to landscape quicker than anything I have seen before.
NB – In parallel, you can transfer files over USB, whilst using the DLNA media server, whilst surfing the web and receiving a text, with 8 programs running in the background; all without the ‘phone crashing.
In call quality: Acceptable. Speakerphone is clear. But for both, I expected better.
Battery :
It is 1500 mAh + a plastic door with Orange on it, but a firm fit and a good amount of pressure to slide off… I have slid it on/off only 3 times in the week. Twice on the first day, then once on day 5 as the phone appeared to crash (my only crash so far) via the Podcasts application.
Quick answer: you will have to charge it up every night as you WILL be using the i8910 a LOT ! but it lasts longer than my expectations. To Samsung / third party : will there be an extended battery? I always buy the 3000 / 3600 mAh (sometimes two of them).
Subjective battery use: always difficult to make a comment as everyone uses a phone differently; but I try:
from a completely flat battery i.e. mobile refuses to turn on (it gives message that you must charge it up) :
zero bars on the indicator – about every 20 minutes (followed by one minute’s use on the screen to allow the battery bars to equilibrate) the battery gauge goes up two bars. After 40 minutes, 4 bars stabilise etc. It takes about 2h of straight charge to fill up a flat battery to stabilised ‘full bars’ on the handset; I would say leave it on for 4h+ to be sure. This is ok.
For Samsung: Where is the super stylish charging cradle accessory? (e.g. to beat the inductive Palm Pre charging pebble!)
Everyone note also that the power/data port is a micro-USB connector (not mini-USB ).
External covers:
The i8910 has a cover for the headphone port at the top, the micro-USB data cable/charger port, and micro SD slot (up to 16Gb, but 32 Gb possible? not sure at present), both on the left hand side. This are for anti-dust measures I guess, but could easily break off under heavy use. Something else to worry about. NB when the 32Gb micro SD comes out, if it does work, I will buy and copy over my iPod touch / mp3 library. For the time being I stick with the onboard 8Gb.
Video-calling; 50p/minute in the UK, don’t use it myself. Made one call. Best experience yet, as the screen is so wide; you appear in a smaller window at the top. I made the call to a business friend in Europe. It was a great experience, fluid and a good resolution. Given the width of the screen and the size of his image, impressed. Not sure how much it cost me.
Next to video calling camera on front = proximity sensor. This turns off the screen when you hold handset to the side of your face. It takes about 0.5-1 sec for the screen to come back on, even during a call, when you lower the handset to view the screen. A bit funny at first, but you must just learn to wait for the screen to turn back on… obviously a battery saving measure.
Holding the handset:
Very slippery. Hand aches gripping its form after a 30 min call. Must get used to it. A finger-print magnet. Samsung could have rubberised/siliconised the side edges. One of the accessories could have been a micro-fibre pouch.
Exterior Camera lens / design:
No lens cover. No xenon flash, only LED flash. Both negatives IMHO. Handset rests, when you put it down e.g. on a table, on the metal ring around the camera lens. This metal ring will sooner or later get scratched greatly. There are no rubber feet on the back of the handset to stop damage.
Speakers:
Holes at top and bottom of handset. They are excellent and the best I have used on a handset. Enough said.
Lock button:
There is a locking button for your right hand thumb to use … assuming you are right handed … this is great, and something I have learnt to love from some WM6 based handsets. It is second nature to push this, thereby stopping any accidental on-screen touches or calls, as you slip the handset back into your (empty) pocket. Well done Samsung. It also doubles up to activate some in call functions.
SOFTWARE
Well, not sure where to begin, the Symbian O/S in its latest incarnation, to someone coming from WM6.1 and and iPod touch v2.2 … it does its job. You have to learn it. It is too early for me to say that on a week’s impressions… but the iPod software still is the easiest to use, I am missing my Windows Mobile software archive (bought and freeware) and the obvious business integration of WM6.1 that I have cultivated. Lots of menus that feel more hidden than they should be. Clunky, difficult. I am sure it is highly customisable, but I have yet to enjoy tweaking it. In due time, I will indulge in ROM updates etc., but probably not in the first year.
Profiles: when handset on, and unlocked via pushing for 1 sec the side Lock button, then push and hold the ‘End call’ button, a menu appears: e.g. Silent, general, meeting, outdoor; all can be used as a template and then customised and saved. Excellent.
Telephone application:
Very clear; big dialling numbers on the screen. Easy to get to contacts. I transferred my contacts from my old mobile, to Outlook, then to i8910 via the Samsung PC studio. Easy. Detail: no idea how to change or remove my old photo thumbnails linked to my contacts. They appear in the i8910’s speed dial application automatically, but i can’t change them (yet)! (?) Speed dial app is good.
Radio:
Works well, easy to store 6 presets on its main screen, with option to store more in a further menu. Amazingly, I found you can record to the onboard 8gb Mass Memory at anytime. I have no ieda for how long thought and it is difficult to start the recording (menu option). Also, the clip you record you can assign as an .mp3 ring tone immediately! Excellent.
But no Sleep function (?) like the iPod touch, so you cannot set the radio to turn off at night after e.g. and hour. That would have been a lovely touch.
Messaging app: does the job; all the icons, for all apps, are very clear on the OLED screen. Excellent.
BBC iplayer: .sis version works, sometimes slow to respond to touch (?). Also serves lower quality streams of shows than I expect. I still use the IPod touch…
Built-in music player: does the job. Screen rotates to landscape like ipod; but otherwise no comparison, iPod much better.
Built-in video player – apparently plays a lot of movies / codecs; I tried ripping a few bizarrely specified .mp4s with my IMTOO converter. These don’t play e.g. a 480p attempt. 480×272 did though. I tried to get an .xvid file (I am not used to doing this), which did on the PC, but not on mobile. Gave up through lack of knowledge and time (2h+ to get a failed xvid file is enough for me). I do not intend to pay for DivX encoding, so that aspect of the player is redundant to me.
Office folder, with applications in it:
Calculator / clock / calendar / converter / dictionary / smart reader (automatically converts business card into text, seems to work) / Dictionary / file manager / zip manager = all ok, look great on the crisp screen.
Adobe reader – fine, but NO FULL SCREEN mode??? Am I missing something here?
Quick office – MS word reading etc, BUT YOU HAVE
to PAY to get a licence to EDIT documents? Again, very disappointing. This is not going to happen.
Not yet tried direct printing to a bluetooth enabled printer, expect (LOL) it to work.
Digital compass:
Exists and appears to work fine. Useful. I do go hiking a few times a year, may be a life-saver to some. Maybe. Will still take a proper compass.
Opera mini 4.2. Excellent, works. Just install it.
Other applications tested, and ok.
Accuweather.
Gmail, but in Java form, only uses half the screen as it assumes some hardware buttons need to be put onscreen (?).
Realplayer – redundant sort of, as ue Video player.
Voice recorder.
Freeware: PaintPad; ScreenSnap; Timer.
Biggest problem with software from first week.
The ‘Podcasts’ application crashed after two uses, and refuses to start with a blank black screen, hangs in the background for about 30 min then a ‘Full Memory’ error appears. It is now broken and does not work. I do not have the expertise to fix it. May write to Samsung if time.
Timer
Screen snap
Games:
Asphalt 4; in-built (supplied) driving game. Seems ok, played for 10 seconds! no time. Removed all Orange games, as these are demos anyway which time out and are not optimised IMHO for this handset. Waste of space for me.
Good .sis freeware that works ok:
Blackjack
Meteor (v good Arkanoid/breakout)
Solitaire
Solo Noble
Sudokumaster.
- most others I found one evening do not install or do not understand the touchscreen.
The big conclusion IMHO:
The last time I had such a technology rush was with using the iPod Touch 2nd gen (my only iPod to date) for the first time.
The i8910 has the best screen to date on an easy to use mobile ‘phone with a great 8MP camera. It also plays back standard .mp4s with great clarity and colour depth.
BUT The iPhone still has the best O/S and surfing experience.
AND WM6.1 still has the best software base for me.
I am sure I have missed lots of points, E&OE etc, but this is what I have managed to note during the last week. I will try to reply to specific comments, if any appear, to this post, but I lead a hectic life.
PS I can’t find any FM transmitter; I’ll say again: disappointed can’t get any recorded HD content to play on my TV via PS3 DLNA! (even if sound is poor)
What do you think? Discuss in our forums.
Hi – thanks for the interest in my review on allaboutsymbian – I’ve now had the UK version if the i8910 for almost 4 weeks and my opinion has not changed much; but here are a few updated points, relevant to some of the comments above.
My firmware/handset seems unable to remember ‘hidden’ SSID settings, with WPA, which is rather boring (a bit like the early Vista release, if some of you ran into this problem before). So I have had to un-hide my SSID, but lock-down on MAC addresses instead.
1) re: battery life – still fine for a device that can do this much – however, one morning I did wake up and the battery was empty, for no good reason (I did all the usual safeguards (no background progs running etc + known tweaks), bar resetting the handset just before bed (but who does this anyway!). So, sometimes this handset can suffer from a rogue process(es) that drain your battery accidentally. BUT this has only happened to me once in almost 30 days… so no big deal. When an extended e.g. 3000+ mAh battery does become available, as it surely will, I will have that as a backup.
2) The video calling did cost me 50p/minute on a per minute (not per second) basis. So that is the first and last time I’ll try that, but it was certainly good fun & a rich experience. (one for the future, when operators make it cheaper).
3) There’s lots of Symbian OS tweaks I have learnt in the last 2+ weeks that have helped me solve a few ‘riddles of the menus’. You just have to remember to keep opening up any ‘options’ button that appears, if it is there unintuitively. This helped me reassign the .jpg assigned to photocontacts in the speed dial and remove the java app keyboard (go to the Application manager, the application icon in there, and dig about the options specifically for the app in question).
4) I have a black silicon shell, which now removes some of the trouble regarding scratching the lens ring, although I now notice that dust, or little hairs, can get trapped just inside the lens, between the lens and the metal ring, so a fine pair of tweezers are required to remove these. Again, no kudos to Samsung for not having a full lens cover. The lack of Xenon flash also means I have only taken two shots, out of hundres, in the dark… I also have 4 hot pixels, so low light/high ISO shots also require post-image editing to get rid of these white spots. No big deal. The camera remains incredible for such a device.
5) I have found some ’sleep’ timers to switch off symbian (re: for late night radio listening) but I can’t get any of them installed. Purely my own lack of effort/expertise. Shame it wasn’t builtin like the iPod…
6) DLNA and HD movie recording remain completely impractical for me, so you can essentially forget about these two ‘features’ IMHO.
7) I’ve started adding a few more java apps, but again, hit and miss at this stage whether they ‘know’ about the lovely touchscreen. MTextReader is pretty good though. ScreenSnap also only appears to work to E:/ScreenSnap.
I have just been asked the $64,000 dollar question on another forum (or should I say $64″trillion”dollar question in these times of ‘bail-outs’ LOL) – the i8910 or an iPhone 3Gs… sorry to say, if you are someone who hasn’t owned an iPhone/iPod touch yet, then I’d get the 3Gs – it is so much easier to use for daily tasks. However, like me, if you already have a relatively new iPod touch, or iPhone 3G, then the i8910 or one of the new Samsung OLED offerings, will do very well sitting in your other (!) pocket, ready for still camera duties and .mp4 film playback (not movie recording!).
Either way, when you’re outside in the sun, you will still struggle to see these new screens … my old WM6.1 (ROM-updated) handset (with keyboard) is much better in direct sunlight… you win some, you lose some. Go test!
correction – for 4) above, I did NOT mean physically inside the lens, I meant ‘beside’ the lens glass. These dust hairs/lint from pocket, or whatever, can just get caught up where the glass of the outer part of the lens runs flush with the metal ring. It’s really no big deal, but worth checking out the surface of the lens now and again, in case anything has gotten in the way…
another update: I did fix the broken Podcasts application by clearing out the cache folder I found that looked like it was associated to Podcasts, but I can’t remember the details on how I found the folder, sorry – then in that same ‘digging about’ session I managed to corrupt icons in the Media Album app, which I haven’t been able to sort out since. There’s always something…! Oh, the France24 mobile TV app works BUT it doesn’t know how to rotate the i8910 screen and it is stuck in portrait mode with half the image playing back off the screen.. shame, otherwise this would be a great app for such a big screen – perhaps France24 will fix it one day…
Thanks this is awesome!!!!
Don’t see the point of buying the i8910 if you are not going (don’t know how) to use video playback/recording/gps, that is where the phone is best, if you just need browsing then (and only then) any WM (HTC) phone with Opera 9.7 is much better option (or an android, but they have terrible screens).
And iPhone is only better if you are a really average user, and hate all the technobabble, because the phone is (in my opinion) an outdated piece of crap. (and no, I don’t “hate” Apple, I own an iMac and an iPod, but that phone is rubbish)
Pix: spot on, pretty much! The i8910 was the handset I chose this year and the disappointment all stems from what you cannot test (the software). All the hardware is in place, it is just all implemented at beta, sometimes pre-alpha IMHO, development! This is unfortunate (for Samsung). I still use my WinMo 6.1 handset from last year as TomTom/GPS works very well, and also carry my iPod touch 2nd Gen for the evening’s relaxation. Believe it or not, the killer feature I like on the iPod touch is the ’sleep’ countdown timer. So I can just drop off to sleep, safe in the knowledge that only e.g. 30min battery drains. The i8910’s battery drain ‘possible feature’ that I, and other users, have experienced (almost total battery drain overnight for no apparent reason) is the most serious flaw IMHO.
Additional info here: I’d like to add that there are reports of two new firmware updates, perhaps by mid-July, but who knows?
However, I predict that one will contain (it better do!) an option to record 1280×720, with audio in AAC 16kHz, but probably only at 20fps.How can I say that? Well, I found at allaboutsymbian a preview file, called 720p.mp4, posted by their excellent team on March 26th 2009, which plays back on VLC with the above stats! Look a third of the way down the page here:
http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/reviews/item/Samsung_Omnia_HD_Preview_I8910-Part_2-Camera_HD_video_and_Multimedia.php
Hey! I’ve got a question about audio quality… How do You evaluate it? Is it even comparable to iPod?
Re: audio quality
It is easily comparable to my iPod touch 2nd gen. I would say i8910 better for rock/punchy music. iPod better over the whole range of styles eg classical / jazz. V difficult to answer. But I don’t think you will be disappointed with the i8910 in this regard!
In overall agreement with rleader. Owned old O2 vda using win6 and found navigating and adapting far easier. Getting used to navigating Omnia HD but seriously ticked off with lack of applications that seem to be available that are compatible. I am aware that it’s possible to clean Orange’s firmware from it but don’t trust my techy skills and can’t see how this would help a lack of available applications. When typing password letters into the touchpad in phone mode you have to work it out in your head as it’s only a numeric keypad in phone mode – even though in text mode you can switch between numeric and numeric/alphabet. Samsung don’t seem to be concerned about the lack of apps – the GPS is next to useless as Orange Maps doesn’t work as I ported my number and their system couldn’t cope with this and their “techies” have apparently been trying to fix the issue for the past two months? Garmin comes on a tiny locked card, CoPilot don’t show compatibility with S60 but do with Win? Good news though – Route66 is apparently compatible and hopefully will pass through the postbox soon. Video and camera great though. Screen clear and touch works well. Shame about the software problems.
oops.
. It loads up, talks to internal GPS but the keys don’t work on the touch screen so you cannot access the features. As it has Orange firmware on it I think it’s to do with that after reading another review too late.
I was sure that I’d read that route66 works with Omnia HD and so ordered it. Put it on phone today and …..
Please how were you able to fix the podcast app, I can’t find any cache folder associated with the program. Please try to remember.
Hi,
Can some one tell me help me or the folowing problems with Samsung i8910?
1) Can not find videp editor. Only image editor is available.
2) My bluetooth headset, Nokia 900, is working fine for the calls but I can’t listen to music through the headset.
3) Is there any quick way to mark/ unmark multiple items?
4) How can I play videos in portrait position (vertcal position)?
A reply on my email is much appreciated:
mercy2997@hotymail.com
Thanx