Samsung Omnia SCH-i910

The Samsung Omnia is the latest in Samsung's TouchWIZ phones for the global market, and also the most advanced

“The Window-Mobile 6.1 Samsung Omnia SCH-i910 is the best Verizon phone we’ve seen for photos, video recording, and Web browsing.”

However, it looks like there are some cons:

“Frustrating touch screen and accelerometer. No standard headphone jack. Video playback can be jerky”

I witnessed some of those frustrations myself when I played with the Omnia at the PDC. The concept is cool and the display is awesome but the overall performance was sluggish. Not sure if I’m a fan of widgets either…

The Samsung Omnia is the latest in Samsung's TouchWIZ phones for the global market, and also the most advanced, as that TouchWIZ interface here runs atop Windows Mobile 6.1 instead of a standard carrier OS. This idea of creating an overlay to improve Windows Mobile is all the rage right now, but instead of making things easier, the Samsung Omnia is more confusing and difficult to use. There are a few things this phone does well, including DivX movie playback and Web browsing, courtesy of Opera. But for the most part, there are better all-touch smartphone options for Verizon Wireless. All in all, we think the concept of TouchWIZ on multimedia phones works better than using the widget-based UI to turn a Windows Mobile phone into a multimedia powerhouse. There's no doubt about its potential, but eventually the overall experience left us feeling seriously annoyed

"The i900 is packed full of top-end features and presented to the user in a very good package...its specification is superior.(to the iPhone) My money would certainly go onto the i900 rather than the 3G iPhone."


The Omnia is a Windows Mobile 6.1 phone, so at the basic level, you know what you're getting. The difference between it and basically every other WinMo 6.1 phone lies in the TouchWiz UIcing that's been slathered on top, and the hardware. If you're doing a double-take after peeking Sammy's Behold for T-Mobile, we wouldn't blame you—the Omnia is kinda like the smartphone version of the Behold, since it's got an almost identical industrial design, the same TouchWiz UI and a 5MP camera.


Pros: Good Opera Web browser with cool 'upshifted' navigation. Fine camera with auto focus and loads of pixels. Cons: TouchWIZ experience disappoints when running atop Windows Mobile. Confusing redundancies in the interface.