Samsung's Omnia 7: Ominous for competitors?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Sunday, 07 November 2010 21:22

Your IT - Mobility

Samsung's Omnia range of Windows Mobile devices has now found itself reborn as a Windows Phone 7 device, finally delivering an Omnia with an actually decent operating system, coupled with a lovely and large 4-inch screen to visually volumise the proceedings.

When Samsung first launched its Omnia range, it launched with iPhone matching and beating features, with Samsung doing it all it could to add pizzazz to the tired old Windows Mobile's 6.x interface.

While it had success as a Windows Mobile phone of its day, it was eclipsed by the iPhone and its far more smoothly designed user interface, even if Apple's iOS lacked features WinMo 6.x users had come to take for granted.

Samsung released Omnia successors, but they suffered from the same basic problem. Now, as Microsoft reboots its Windows Phone 7 platform, Samsung's Omnia is back, and while the OS vendor of choice is again Microsoft, a completely different and far more successful result is this time expected.

Yes, Samsung has done very well with its Android line of Galaxy S smartphones, even going so far as to introduce the Galaxy Tab, while Samsung's own Bada OS is its own experiment in smartphone and potentially also tablet operating systems.

As it done consistently in the past, Samsung has placed several bets in the smartphone world, with Google supplanting Symbian and Microsoft finally coming out with its WP7 upgrade.

Samsung's Omnia 7 experience comes with WP7, a 4-inch AMOLED capacitive multitouch screen, at 800x480 resolution and capable of displaying 16m colours, has 8 or 16GB storage with no MicroSD expansion capabilities and a 1Ghz Snapdragon processor.

It also has a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, geotagging and image stabilisation, GSM/EDGE and 3G/3.5G HSPA-class 7.2Mbps down and 5.6Mbps up, Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, 720P 25fps video, Micro USB connection, GPS/AGPS, Stereo FM radio, compass, accelerometer, proximity sensor and up to 6h and 10 mins 3G talk time and 330 hours on standby.

These are all very standard specs, shared across many devices, some of which run Android instead of WP7, but that's the state of the industry today - ARM's processors rule the smartphone market with Intel's still yet to make an impact.

Given the restrictions Microsoft has placed on its smartphone hardware manufacturing partners, which act as strict minimum requirements, with above and beyond welcomed within limitations, each manufacturer has had to come out with a range of unique selling points while still perfectly fitting into Microsoft's system.

Continued on page two, please read on!