Samsung Omnia (SCH-i910) from Verizon
After being on the European and the Asian markets for months , the Samsung Omnia (SCH-i910) debuted in the US via Verison’s 3G network a couple of days ago just in time for the Thanksgiving. It will be available with 2-year contract for $249 and it features just about everything you could want in a touchscreen smartphone except for the odd omission of a 3.5mm headphone jack like the T-mobile G1. Verizon’s Omnia offers a lot of the great features including a large touch screen with Samsung’s customizable TouchWiz user interface, a 5-megapixel camera, integrated Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS.
Design
The highlight of the Samsung Omnia is its touch screen and TouchWiz user interface. Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface lets you customize your Home screen with different “widgets”. It’s hard to ignore the 3.2-inch TFT screen that dominates the face of the smartphone, with a 262,000-color output and 240×400-pixel resolution on a 4.4-by-2.2-by-0.5-inch body. The Omnia weighs 4.3 ounces–that’s 0.4 ounce lighter than the iPhone
End and send keys surround a smallish optical mouse at the bottom of the device. A volume rocker and a dedicated camera button sit on the left spine of the phone; a proprietary headphone and charger jack, and a stylus tether sit on the right.
Verizon Wireless packages the Samsung Omnia with an AC adapter, a stylus, a USB cable, a 3.5mm/FM radio antenna, a 2.5mm headset adapter, software CDs, and reference material.
General Features:
The CDMA Omnia includes a speakerphone, conference calling, speed dial, voice dialing and commands, and text and multimedia messaging. The smartphone also supports visual voice mail. The address book is limited only by the available memory, and each contact can hold multiple numbers, addresses, birthdays, notes, and more. For caller ID purposes, you can pair an entry with a picture, a group ID, or one of 22 polyphonic ringtones.
Network and Internet Browsing
The Verizon Samsung Omnia work on the carrier’s EV-DO Rev. A network so you should enjoy faster Web 
browsing, e-mail, and downloads. The Rev. A offers an extra boost over regular EV-DO, bringing download speeds up to the 450Kbps-to-800Kbps range versus 400Kbps-to-700Kbps, while upload speeds will average around 300Kpbs to 400Kpbs (compared with EV-DO’s 50Kpbs to 70Kbps).
Bluetooth 2.0 is onboard for use with mono and stereo Bluetooth headsets as well as hands-free kits, object push for vCard, basic imaging, phonebook access profiles, and dial-up networking. If you want to take advantage of the DUN capabilities and use the Omnia as a wireless modem for your laptop, be aware that you will need to sign up for one of Verizon’s BroadbandAccess plans, which start at $15 per month.
In addition to the 3G capabilities, you also get integrated Wi-Fi. For Web browsing, you can use Internet Explorer Mobile but the Samsung Omnia also ships with the Opera Mobile Web browser. With Opera, you can open numerous tabs, zoom in pages by double-tapping the touch screen, bookmark sites, and much more.
GPS Navigation
The Omnia offers integrated GPS/A-GPS for navigation capabilities. To get a fix on your location, the smartphone will use both satellites and cellular triangulation but for real-time turn-by-turn directions, traffic data, and more, you will need to subscribe to Verizon’s VZ Navigator location-based service, which costs $9.99 per month or $2.99 per day.
Omnia OS
The Omnia runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional Edition with all the usual trimmings, including the Microsoft Office Mobile Suite and support for Microsoft’s Direct Push Technology for real-time message delivery and automatic synchronization with your Outlook calendar, tasks, and contacts via Exchange Server.
The Omnia can also be configured to access your POP3 and IMAP e-mail accounts. There are plenty of other PIM tools to keep you on task and organized, including a task list, a task manager and switcher, a smart converter, a calculator, and a PDF reader, among other things. You can also download more programs, games, and utilities from the Verizon AppZone. Some sample titles include Spb Backup, Agenda One, iSS Mine Sweeper, PhatPad, and more.
Multi-Media & Camera
For the Mutimedia, the samsung Omnia features the standard Windows Media Player 10 Mobile. In addition, Samsung includes something called the Touch Player, which features a nicer user interface and functionality similar to, but not as streamlined, as the iPhone’s Cover Flow. Supported music and video formats include MP3, WMV, WMA, AAC, eAAC+, MP4, 3GPP, H.264, DivX, and Xvid.
Other goodies include podcast support, a streaming media player, and an FM radio, though you have to use the included headset for the latter. Additionally, with a TV-out jack (cable purchased separately), you can easily view content from your Omnia on a bigger screen.
The Omnia comes equipped with a 5-megapixel camera with a slew of advanced features. In addition to video recording and digital zoom, you get a flash, auto focus, panorama mode, antishake, face detection, and SmileShot (can detect when someone is smiling and automatically take a picture) just to name a few.
In terms of memory the Verizon Omnia comes only in the 8GB model. Still, that’s a lot of memory and you have the microSD/SDHC slot for expansion capabilities which accepts up to 16GB cards.
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