I recently got an Omnia i900 when I was in India. It cost me INR 31,000. It runs on Windows mobile 6.1. I had read some reviews before buying this. I am very much upset buying this phone for many reasons. The battery is very bad. It does not last for my 1 day use. You cannot expect a user to carry the charger when he is using the phone. I have used many Windows Mobile devices like the O2, HTC, HP, but they all gave me 1 and half day battery without any problems. The Rom I am using is Sep 2008 version. I was checking for an updated Rom for this phone, but I could not find a download for Indian version, so I assume that its the latest Rom.
I was using iPhone for some time and have experienced the touch feature of iPhone. The touch and scroll feature of iPhone cannot be compared with that of this Omnia. It comes no way near it. The resolution or the visibility is very poor. There are lots of thing that really bugs me about this phone. Biggest thing I hate about this phone is they have tried their best to make the user use thing phone without the stylus buy providing option for custom keyboard, bigger menu, etc, but its impossible to use this phone without the stylus. iPhone is made to use with your fingers and it is excellent. Do you know that you need to hang the stylus with your phone in Omnia as there is no slot like the other phones to keep your stylus, its really buggy.
Reviews on different popular website never mentioned about these things. I feel the reviews are influenced by the manufacturers. Some sites had some negative opinion but the pros were more than the cons. The pros what I have seen in this phone is the camera, 5 mega pixels and the storage, 8GB. The processor seems to be good and GPS is also working fine. The usability is not upto the expectation, but a first time pocket pc user may be happy with this. If you are a regular user of a windows mobile pocket pc or an iPhone, I am sure you will not be happy.
If you know any latest Rom update for Omnia i900 for the Indian Version, please let me know and also share your experience if you are an Omnia user. There are lots of new phones coming up with better usability features and touch experience like the Toshiba TG01. iPhone has excellent touch feature, but again that has some restrictions like the copy and paste feature, SMS forwarding, Email with attachments, but when we look into the usability, its much better.
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Hi,
Kishore, you said exactly what I wanted to say! I have purchased this phone from Kochi in Dec 2008 by paying same amount with a lot of expectation further to going through many reviews. The problems like poor battery life, poor resolution, external stylus and so on. I would like to add one problem that I am facing: 3G not working. Maybe this being an HSDPA. I work in Libya where HSDPA is not available but people very conveniently use 3G on other cheaper phones! ROM upgrade is such a thing the customer should not expect to do so soon after the purchase! Rather, I checked Samsung India website and there has been no mention about newer version of ROM at all. I tried to write a mail to “Contact us” but it never goes. In nutshell I can say that it was a blunder I did having purchased this so-called competitor of iPhone, HTC… which are of course more user-friendly.
Would anyone know how to make this phone good for 3G service, kindly let me know.
Rgds
Ya samsung omnia is not finger touch friendly but u can make it finger touch friendly using software available for windows mobile.u can use battery monitor to extend ur battery lyf for few more hours. there are many software which after installing u will find ur omnia more productive and useful. i am also looking for update for indian omnia. if anyone knws abt it plz onform me.