Samsung Omnia W-Review

Windows Phone 7 as an OS has become mighty delicious after the Mango update. I would go on to say Microsoft has managed to offer a better user experience than what Android offers, making WP 7.5 second best only to the iOS. The Omnia W performs very well. Add an excellent battery life and a good display, and the dish is ready to be served, hot. The Omnia W is a representation of what a company like Samsung is capable of. The device is considerably cheaper than its competition but has excellent specs and usability. Here is our review on the Samsung Omnia W (Wonder).

Design(look & feel):

 

The Omnia W looks like a compact smartphone, with the 3.7-inch display ensuring it isn't very big to hold, a problem that some 4-inch smartphones face. The front has the display,  A singular ‘Home’ button resides at the bottom of the 3.7-inch Super AMOLED display and bears the Microsoft logo.  There are two touch sensitive keys – return and Bing search. The power key is on the right side panel, and not on the top where it is usually on most phones. The volume rocker is on the left side.

A micro USB port is positioned at the bottom and a standard 3.5mm handsfree socket is located at the top of the handset. 

Camera, Display and Multimedia:
The camera on the Omnia is a 5 mega pixel autofocus camera, with impressive light capture, the camera is one of the best cameras in its class of phone. The autofocus is fast, although you have the ability to tap to focus aswell, images can be clicked almost instantly. Video on the other hand is capped at a 720p HD quality, we often wonder why companies do not design the cameras to deliver 1080p, either way, video capture will require a lot of ambient light and indoor video is poor. The front camera is only good enough for low bit video calling , and should solve the purpose unless your friend on the other side is viewing your video on a big screen TV, if so is the case you will look like a character from Minecraft.
The display is a beautiful Super AMOLED display is a Samsung PenTile display which means that two red subpixels, two green subpixels, and one central blue subpixel is placed in each unit cell of the display. In layman words, its an old technology developed by Samsung back in 1990, and is still used in some of their devices. The display matrix arrangement has often received critique, and is not appreciated well. We however, found that the display was able to reproduce color well and had good deep black levels. The display is excellent for viewing video and and playing games. If you have a thing for the “world wide web”, or a bookworm within, then the display is capable of crisp fonts / texts on the screen for easy viewing. Outdoor visibility is low-poor, due to the inherent problems in AMOLED screens.

With limitations to the kind of files that can be played back on the device, it does not compete with an Android device. Bluetooth is locked and file transfer denied, for most of the things. However, whatever Windows can play natively will work on the phone, and you can always sync up using Zune, or Windows Phone Connector. The speaker is loud enough for music and watching movies. The included earphones are above average, but will not satisfy the bassphile.

Camera Samples

       

                                "Click on images to expand"

Internet, Battery and Operating System:

The internet is a domain which is not properly tapped on the Omnia, with limitations of the browser in terms of javascript and flash. That being said it is one of the fastest internet browsers out there. The screen is great for website browsing and even better to read daily news stories from iGyaan. With a host of apps from the marketplace you can actually find your fix for the web.

Battery life is impressive on the Omnia W with upto 2 days of standby and 5 hours of talk time. The battery fares well while gaming and heavy graphic games can be played for a good 2-3 hours. Music playback should last 10 hours while video lasts about 4-5 hours.

 

The OS is a different playing field in the world of iOS and Android, as we mentioned in our previous Reviews. The interface is one of the cleanest and snappiest out of the lot, and there is no crashing or lagging from the interface even when multiple tasks are running ( Surprising since Windows is the name attached). The marketplace is also ever-growing with a host of applications and games, the future of Windows Phone looks bright. With no access to file sharing over bluetooth and native file compatibility, the closed system may be a let down for some. Samsung has added Video Calling to the OS to make it a little worthwhile. Samsung also offers multiple apps to make the experience a bit better. The included AllShare will allow for you to stream media to other Samsung Devices.

Our Take:

The Omnia W is the cheapest Windows Phone 7 right now and is available for a price of Rs.14,390. That may seem like a great price for a handset with specs like these, however taking overall functionality into account, we were not impressed and you wouldn’t be missing too much by opting for another Windows Phone 7 device, right now even if it cost you a little more.

We Rate It : 4/5

Price Rs. 14390/-

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