[04redgto]

I think basing whether you keep a device on the accelerometer is silly....seems like something that could be easily fixed by RIM with an update...and I'll be honest I've never had a problem with mine. I read one review that said it can take 10-15 seconds for it to flip over? Come on...if that's the case they must have got a bad one because mine goes in under a second every time

I agree...base it on what fits you! They are BOTH great phones! I just hope there is a update out by the time I get mine on Friday, so I can get a REAL compareson!!!!!!!!!!

[dtm]

anyone get the omnia yet?

I'm waiting untl they show up in retail stores (Dec 8 I think) and will play aroundwith one

[JRSCCivic98]

I'm trying to be fair here but no headphone jack? lol fail...I refuse to plug in another hardware just to listen to my music. The user interface looks ugly and unprofessional; too busy and those theme colors suck. Look at the lag switching between portrait and landscape and look at the bug at the end. Oh yeah, it's WinMo, thanks and no thanks

Lag in switching from landscape to portrait? The damn display does a 360 3D flip for god's sake. That's a bit more pimp then the Storm does. There's no lag in that. If you're saying it's lagging because it takes a while for the animation to actually happen (as in the animation is too long for what it needs to do) then that's different, but say so. When he flips the phone sideways, the animation starts. That's no lag to me.

[john doe iii]

I currently have the Omni and the Storm.

To be honest with you, I'd rather have the Storm with all the bugs than a perfect Omnia. The pictures on the internet do the Omnia no justice.... when you see it in person, it looks like a Mickey Mouse phone or something a kid should have....

The hardware itself is really nice and thin..... once you turn on that low res screen, you will think its a joke.

[imann101]

You can listen to music via a bluetooth headset, it doesn't really need a headphone jack.

A bluetooth headset is no where near as reliable. they cut out all the time ESPECIALLY when you're outside. Unless you have your phone strapped to your back right below the receiver it will eventually cut out. And then you have to charge it, and yada yada yada. All I know is if theres no headphone jack, that is a silly silly phone.

[dtm]

I currently have the Omni and the Storm.

To be honest with you, I'd rather have the Storm with all the bugs than a perfect Omnia. The pictures on the internet do the Omnia no justice.... when you see it in person, it looks like a Mickey Mouse phone or something a kid should have....

The hardware itself is really nice and thin..... once you turn on that low res screen, you will think its a joke.

You have hit on the one significant knock on the Omnia that may keep it out of my hands....the screen resolution. WIth more and more phones going to true VGA (640x480), it seems a step backwards to produce a device with 400x240, especially given thatI and others are looking for a true convergence device that icludes the ability to watch movies and surf the Internet with real clarity.

Sadly, the Euro model of the Omnia shipped with 640x480, but they dumbed it down in the U.S. I'll never understand the engneering decisions made by some phone manufacturers. You try to produce a device that competes with the most popular phones out there, and then you dumb down one of the most obvious features (screen res). Whatever tradeoffs they added by having a lower res screen were, IMO, not worth it.

[john doe iii]

When the Omnia arrived, I was soooo excited to see it.... it looked really nice out of the box..... once I turned the screen on

My Moto Q looked better.

Such a waste of a nice design. If ths Storm doesnt work for me, my only other option would be the HTC Touch.

[sdmilton]

have you even tried to the storm? from your "announcement" it seems that you are going off of reviews entirely! if that is the case, then please jump ship. we dont need morons using berries anyway.

[jason1332]

Samsung Omnia review (Verizon Wireless) - infoSync Reviews

[mbaverizon]

Thanks to everyone for an entertaining few months in the run-up to the Storm release. I've given it a good look, but will likely be jumping ship from my Curve to the new Samsung Omnia on Verizon. Decision is not based solely on the early problems I've read about with the Storm, but the feature set for the Omnia at approx. the same price is compelling:

• 3G (EVDO Rev A)
• WiFi
• FM radio
• Accelerometer
• 5 MP camera w/autofocus, flash, geotagging, panorama mode, camcorder -- all latest bells and whistles
• 8 Gb internal memory plus SD slot supporting up to 16 Gb
• 3.2 in touch screen (400x240)
• Immediate access to the new VZW VZAppsZone
• GPS and VZNav
• Stereo Bluetooth
• Opera Mini browser
• Push email via MSFT service
• MMS capable
• Access to full suite of MSFT Pocket applications
• And, most important, an optical mousepad between the Send and End keys for improved navigation -- you can set the phone in 'mouse mode' and use the touch pad to move a mouse pointer around the screen and 'click it', or use standard touch screen input.

Not trying to sell anyone else on this, and I'm crossing my fingers about the future stability of the WM OS (hoping for vast improvements in 6.5 and eventually 7.0), but it just seems like I'm getting more bang for my buck with this device. Guess time will tell.

Thanks for all your entertaining posts and responses. I'll still be a lurker in case this doesn't work out. Good luck to all with your Storms!

i ordered one yesterday, he-- knows when the storm will be in? but ill try both and then decide!

[04redgto]

A bluetooth headset is no where near as reliable. they cut out all the time ESPECIALLY when you're outside. Unless you have your phone strapped to your back right below the receiver it will eventually cut out. And then you have to charge it, and yada yada yada. All I know is if theres no headphone jack, that is a silly silly phone.

Get a better headset!!!!!!!!

[brandonhd]

Watch This!

[mike240se]

When the Omnia arrived, I was soooo excited to see it.... it looked really nice out of the box..... once I turned the screen on

My Moto Q looked better.

Such a waste of a nice design. If ths Storm doesnt work for me, my only other option would be the HTC Touch.

WOW! scary.

The screen res is the reason i didnt get it too. . Plus, isnt the screen smaller than the storm too? inches wise?

How is the typing? Easier/faster than storm?

I am getting to really like the click actually, i think i would hate a touchscreen phone without the click. I realized this when i installed opera mini and had to use the phone like a regular non-click phone and hated it.

but typing is still my number one hold back of the storm

sounds like the HTC Touch is my only alternative.

[pool_shark#CB]

A bluetooth headset is no where near as reliable. they cut out all the time ESPECIALLY when you're outside. Unless you have your phone strapped to your back right below the receiver it will eventually cut out. And then you have to charge it, and yada yada yada. All I know is if theres no headphone jack, that is a silly silly phone.

I use a bluetooth headset for my VOIP phone at work and I have absolutely no problems with it, my BT headset sounds better than my co-workers that use wired headsets. When I'm not on a phone call I use it to listen to music. The headset charges via USB, so anytime I walk away from my desk I just put it on the charger.

As far as the Omnia.
It arrived Friday. I don't like the widgets interface at all, so I don't use it. You don't have to use it, it's just an option, you can use the standard WM interface. Also since it's WM if I choose, I can purchase a different launcher to customize it just the way I want it I did with my Treo 700P.
I had the email working with my roadrunner account in minutes, paired to my BT headset in seconds.
I have been playing with it since it arrived and not one reboot, hang, or crash.
It has two browsers, Opera mobile and IE. IE is a lot slower than Opera. While using the accelerometer, if I'm using IE and a page is loading it takes a while for the screen to flip, it flips right away using Opera no matter what it's doing.
So far the only thing I don't like is the contacts. In PalmOS I can edit the fields (mobile, mobile2, email, home, work) etc, the fields on the Omnia are preset and cannot be changed. It makes a difference to me because my cell number is blocked, so I put *82 in front of the numbers in my contacts to allow my number to show, but you can't send text messages with *82 in front. It doesn't give me an option to have a second mobile number and it will only send a txt message to a mobile number.
I can easily just have my number unblocked and that problem goes away, but I think it will be more fun to install a different program for the contacts and/or phone app.

The active sync seems to work ok, I can't do as much on my home PC because I don't have outlook, I have outlook express which doesn't have the notes/memos. I use the memos a lot for all of the Unix notes I've accumulated over the years.
The typing is fine two. Once I realize that the screen worked better after being calibrated with the stylus instead of my fingers, I haven't had any real problems. The one thing I don't like about the onscreen keyboard is the send button is just directly under the letters. It would be better if there was a space between the two.

[tahoerob]

Watch This!

LOL!!! Nice find!

[slinky#CB]

Here's the scoop. The Omnia keyboard is far too thin (width) to be practical yet I was able to type with reasonable effectiveness in portrait and FAR better than on the Storm. On landscape it's a regular keyboard and more usable.

There were only 2 main negatives with the Omnia. The idiotic decision to leave out the headphone jack (you need an adapter dongle) and the lousy 240 width resolution. Neither is totally fatal although the second is more of an annoyance to me. Browsing is still better than I thought as scrolling is easier with just pushing your finger up and down and left and right. I had the same experience as pool shark in the store. Acceleromter was excellent for the most part. It's a usable phone on the surface.

The HTC Touch Pro is downright amazing - on Sprint. Verizon's is stripped down severely and has a lousy keyboard. The Sprint HTC is downright scary as to what it can do. I'm not crazy about the keyboard although it is miles better than a software keyboard.

[WDrake_98]

So if I've read things right, the only draw back for the Omnia is the lower resolution and lack of a head phone jack?

I don't know...I'm thinking I may be able to live with these "issues" for a year or so until RIM can get the Storm up to it's normal standards. I'll go check it out later today

[mike26xl]

hey I recently just bought the omnia nice phone real easy to text on lots of little things to get used to but should be fun let me know what everyone thinks

[04redgto]

I use a bluetooth headset for my VOIP phone at work and I have absolutely no problems with it, my BT headset sounds better than my co-workers that use wired headsets. When I'm not on a phone call I use it to listen to music. The headset charges via USB, so anytime I walk away from my desk I just put it on the charger.

As far as the Omnia.
It arrived Friday. I don't like the widgets interface at all, so I don't use it. You don't have to use it, it's just an option, you can use the standard WM interface. Also since it's WM if I choose, I can purchase a different launcher to customize it just the way I want it I did with my Treo 700P.
I had the email working with my roadrunner account in minutes, paired to my BT headset in seconds.
I have been playing with it since it arrived and not one reboot, hang, or crash.
It has two browsers, Opera mobile and IE. IE is a lot slower than Opera. While using the accelerometer, if I'm using IE and a page is loading it takes a while for the screen to flip, it flips right away using Opera no matter what it's doing.
So far the only thing I don't like is the contacts. In PalmOS I can edit the fields (mobile, mobile2, email, home, work) etc, the fields on the Omnia are preset and cannot be changed. It makes a difference to me because my cell number is blocked, so I put *82 in front of the numbers in my contacts to allow my number to show, but you can't send text messages with *82 in front. It doesn't give me an option to have a second mobile number and it will only send a txt message to a mobile number.
I can easily just have my number unblocked and that problem goes away, but I think it will be more fun to install a different program for the contacts and/or phone app.

The active sync seems to work ok, I can't do as much on my home PC because I don't have outlook, I have outlook express which doesn't have the notes/memos. I use the memos a lot for all of the Unix notes I've accumulated over the years.
The typing is fine two. Once I realize that the screen worked better after being calibrated with the stylus instead of my fingers, I haven't had any real problems. The one thing I don't like about the onscreen keyboard is the send button is just directly under the letters. It would be better if there was a space between the two.

To fix ur contacts problem, edit the in the WINDOWS Mobile contacts application! Click start then contacts, then click on a contact, the menu in the bottom right of the screen, then edit!

[Stuninc]

I am for sure sticking with the storm, not really sure how the omina is even competition.

But like it was said before to each its own :-)

[nylife]

I got my hands on an Omnia for about 12 hours the other day. I've been an avid BlackBerry user for a couple of years now. There have been a few Windows Mobile devices that I have found great, but many others that I do not like. I've found that most HTC devices are well built and get the job done. Particularly one like the T-Mobile Wing.

I've liked the approach that Samsung has taken over the past couple of years. They really began to make some quality devices, with the exception of a small few (Glyde for example). However, I think they really excel in the standard mobile phone market and fall greatly behind in anything else.

So my experience with the Omnia was not very enthralling. I found it to lack many things that could make this the phone for me. First and foremost, it's size was just incredibly too small. I didn't like the feel of it in my hands. It was just too narrow and much to thin.

The O/S was smooth and problem free for the most part. The accelerometer was much quicker and responsive than my Storm was with .65. It turned with ease and I suppose I liked the fact that the screen turned in all four directions, but why would you ever need to have the phone upside down? I didn't like that the phone vibrated when you turned it, but I figured it was something that could be changed with a setting and I didn't care to look for it. The problem I did find with this is that while I had the phone in my pocket a good part of the day, it constantly would vibrate as it rolled around.

During my time with it, I performed a hard reset and once that was finished I had to do the basic WM start up sequence including a calibration of the screen. Well, I found some trouble in this. It wouldn't respond to my pressing on the screen, fingers or stylus. At one point, I thought the phone had become completely worthless, and I couldn't understand why it wasn't working. The screen was responsive the entire time before performing the reset. I even through the phone on the floor a couple of times in anger. Before giving it up and returning it. I dug a stylus into the screen to the point I thought I'd break it. Eventually it took my calibration and continued to work as normal. I found this very strange.

The keypad lacked something to be desired and wasn't much fun to type on. I didn't particularly enjoy the home screen and the widget application, but I expected this.

I also didn't find the phone very impressive in style. I didn't see it turning heads like a BlackBerry, I-Phone or G-1 does. It looked to me like a perfect phone for a female to carry in a pocket book and the matching stylus confirmed this.

The camera took good quality pictures even in full zoom. However, I'm a firm believer that 5.0 MP means nothing with a pinhole camera lens. But the pictures looked excellent on the phone.

The one and only thing I can say that this phone has that is truly impressive is the 8GB onboard memory and an expandable Micro-SD slot. Certainly memory will not be an issue on this phone for some time.

All and all, it's alright. But no way could it replace a BlackBerry. We'll see how the upcoming HTC devices compare.

[hagar852]

I just got off the phone with Verizon asking about the Omnia and in particular the plan for it.. To make a short story short.. You have to tack on anther $40 a month to your existing plan for the data.. So I will be sticking with the Storm for the main reason of the email and messaging plan coming with unlimited data..

[04redgto]

Well, I finally got my Storm. Let me just say.........The Omnia will be going back! The Omnia is a VERY good phone! Seems to be the most Stable WinMo Phone I have had (I only used it 4 days, NO resets) It did everything as advertised! But the second I powered the Storm up.....I was hooked! The First thing I did with the Storm was Update to .75 before even activating it! I have had no issues with the Storm! The screen resolution is amazing! Just holding the Storm in hand, it just gives you the feeling it is a few steps above the Omnia! Please don't get me wrong, I like the Omnia, and think it is a very good phone, but the Storm is better, and will only get EVEN better! Thats my 2 cents!

[slinky#CB]

So if I've read things right, the only draw back for the Omnia is the lower resolution and lack of a head phone jack?

I don't know...I'm thinking I may be able to live with these "issues" for a year or so until RIM can get the Storm up to it's normal standards. I'll go check it out later today

For the most part this is the case. Here are my extended observations:

PROS:

1) If you like small, thin phones, this one is fantastic. It's much sleeker than the storm and it's quite well built. This is personal opinion. I would rather have had it a little wider in portrait mode. Build quality was very decent.

2) Optical Mouse: Having this in portrait mode is indispensible. No need to hold with one hand and drag your finger with the other. After using this you wonder what ***** at RIM couldn't figure this out. The trackball will be in the Storm 2.

3) Generally Responsive: For the most part it's quite responsive. I found that after seeing the phone a few times it didn't need one reboot but it's quick. Rotating the phone is much quicker than the Storm.

4) Ease of use: It's easy to use. Whine about Windows Mobile all you want but getting to applications quickly was MUCH easier and quicker than on the Storm. It's no Treo but let's call it like it is.

5) Browsing: Opera experience was extremely passable and quite acceptable. At times it was better than the Storm browser and rendered certain sites properly with the Storm did not.

6) 8GB RAM built in.

7) 5MP camera!!! Results reported to vary as to quality, but still...

8) WIFI!!!!

CONS:

1) Screen resolution at 240px was a mistake. It's not earth shattering but you will notice this if you do a lot of web browsing and would prefer to see more of the screen with smaller type.

2) No built in headphone jack. They do give you 2 small adapters and they can be purchase for $4 each. Not ideal but at least it's a workaround. It's also a microUSB which I hate.

3) No microSD (I'm pretty sure of this)

4) GPS reported crippled... however... rumor has it that hackers might be able to replace dll files and undo the damage Verizon has caused but this is unknown.

5) Keyboard in portrait mode is too thin although one can type on it.


UNKNOWNS:
1) There is "feedback" in typing on the Omnia with a vibration every time you hit a key. I don't like it but you can turn it off.

2) Build seems good, professional, but hard to say how it all lasts in the long run.


OVERALL:
This is good phone, assuming battery life lasts. Supposedly it's not great but I couldn't know. I was very impressed by how nice this phone was overall and think that of all Verizon's crippled, broken boned phones, this one is probably best. I'm not replacing my Curve which makes me far more productive but this one can make you wonder about it.

COMPARED TO THE STORM
People can insist until they are blue in the fact that their Storm miraculously works without a single hitch (despite the dozens of threads here and articles talking about the "much needed" update/fix for the Storm.) I don't believe them. They will put up with crap because they want to love their hardware.

There isn't nearly as much eye candy and 'wow' as you get from looking at a Storm. The resolution isn't as good and the icons/interface are OK but not that black/white 'wow' that comes from a Storm. But that isn't all a bad thing. Quite frankly, I found the unit MUCH more responsive than the Storms and at least this one worked for most of my tasks. The keyboard entry is a tough call - it's barely passable for people with thin or medium sized fingers in portrait mode and in landscape it's fine. But at least you wont get thumb fatigue like i've found from the Storm. I think the Storm is a more powerful phone overall but the Storm is (1) missing WiFi, and (2) doesn't work well or efficiently without the unknown software updates and missing trackball.

I don't think either of the above phones will replace your Curve. If I had my choice, I would probably choose the Omnia because it is so sleek and small and easy to fit in my pocket. It works well as something that disappears quickly and usable for the net in a pinch. The Storm is a bigger phone and, if it can't really replace my Curve, I'd rather not buy it until the Storm 2 comes out and they fix some of the oversights, e.g. no click keyboard screen with moving parts, add in the necessary trackball/trackpad, etc.

Just my thoughts FWIW.

[CelesteB]

maybe the RIM should put an animation on the storm that way no one will think its a lag..just a cute animation!!! but really i thought about the omnia months ago when it wasnt even in the states. maybe i will try it out but i dont think i will like it more than my storm.