| Samsung Omnia, the most iPhone-esque WM phone yet? |
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| by Alex Zaharov-Reutt | |
| Tuesday, 11 November 2008 | |
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Page 2 of 3 The Omnia also has smooth graphics and effects that compete with the iPhone, delivering what is arguably the most feature packed and best iPhone competitor yet – and it’s but one of a suite of Samsung touch screen phones that have already been launched, and are yet to come. Featured Whitepaper
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And while I make fun of WM’s “clunkiness”, it’s still used successfully by millions worldwide every day, and as noted Samsung has gone to extraordinary lengths to hide it all in quite a successful manner through its own “TouchWiz” UI that lets you place icons on your home screen wherever you wish amongst easy to use on-screen keyboards and more. But the Omnia still has some surprises of its own – even down to a very cool little “finger mouse” that lets you control an onscreen Windows mouse through a fingertip controlled “glide pad” which in “non-glidepad” mode works as a four way controller. Set to sell for AUD $899 outright, the Omnia will initially be available from Vodafone and Three Mobile (Hutchison) stores on an AUD $79 per month cap (over 24 months). Coming with a 3.2-inch rather than a 3.5-inch screen as with the iPhone, it’s naturally a little smaller but at 12.5mm “thin” fits very nicely into the hand, while delivering an 0.4-inch larger screen than many competing 2.8-inch screen smartphones on the market. Larger screens make a difference in today’s mobile web and digital content world, and until “roll-up” screens become robust and cheap enough, screens around the 2.8-inch to 3.5-inch sizes will be smartphone mainstays. And on these large touch screens you can perform what Samsung calls “intuitive tap and sweep operations”, which when combined with haptic feedback as is included with the Omnia, you get “responsive tactile feedback”. The Omnia also makes use of more than just one button. A button that would be under your right thumb (on the top right hand side of the phone) when holding the Omnia in your right hand is a “task switcher” button, quickly bringing up all the major capabilities at a touch of an onscreen virtual button. The aforementioned TouchWiz user interface is naturally patented, and lets you do those sweeps and taps, with enlarging of images not done with a two finger multi-touch but a one-fingered slide up or down the right hand side of the screen, which shows up as a slide zoom zone as you perform the action. What else turns the Omnia on, and what’s one surprising omission? |
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