Samsung Omnia SGH-i900 (AT&T/T-Mobile)

Samsung is already wooing potential Apple iPhone customers with the Instinct, a successful design that offers Sprint subscribers a reasonable alternative to AT&T's popular handset, even if the Instinct isn't a true smartphone. Now the company is aiming for the high-end market with its unlocked Omnia i900, a full-featured smart device that in theory combines Windows Mobile power with generous hardware specs and a finger-friendly touch-screen interface. In practice, however, it's a clumsy mess, even if it has a number of redeeming qualities.

From the front, there's no denying the 4.4-by-2.2-by-0.5-inch (HWD) Omnia looks an awful lot like the iPhone. And at 4.3 ounces, it even weighs slightly less. One difference: more buttons. Send and End keys flank the Omnia's dome key at the bottom. Along the right-hand side, there's a Menu button that brings up an ugly icon-based touch interface, along with hardware volume controls and a camera button. The left-hand side features a strap hook and a covered slot that houses the usual proprietary Samsung connector for charging, USB sync, and wired earbuds. The panel contains a recessed power button, while the back of the unit is mostly clean, with a brushed aluminum design. Overall, the Omnia looks and feels classy.

The colorful 3.2-inch WQVGA LCD doesn't match the iPhone 3G's 320-by-480-pixel resolution. At 240-by-400, the Omnia's display is better than the usual 240-by-320-pixel vertical Windows Mobile 6 screen, but not by much. Samsung's iPhone-style TouchWiz UI sits on top of Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional. That makes the Omnia a true smartphone, and one that's in the same vein as HTC's various TouchFLO-based devices like the Touch Diamond. The Omnia TouchWiz UI supports tap, sweep, and drag-and-drop operations—albeit stubbornly, and only in certain apps. There's a custom widget bar that runs along the left-hand side of the screen for storing frequently used apps, but I found it clunky and difficult to use in operation. Eventually, I ignored it altogether.

The on-screen keyboard rotates to landscape orientation whenever you turn the Omnia 90 degrees to the side. Unlike the iPhone 3G, which restricts the wide keyboard to the Web browser, the Omnia enables it in other apps such as the built-in e-mail client, which is a good thing. Many times, however, I woke up the phone to find it locked in landscape mode even though I was holding it vertically, sometimes even when I hadn't last used it horizontally. The on-screen keyboard also shares the Touch Diamond's bad habit of covering fields you need to see while typing.

This device supports haptic feedback, which means the screen vibrates slightly whenever you press it. This is enjoyable most of the time, especially since Windows Mobile touch screens require a firmer touch than the iPhone's does. But the Omnia's erratic little "jolts," which I felt when the phone was pressed against my ear—complete with a short ringing "tail" after each one—were downright silly. The phone's in-call lock mode isn't strong enough to avoid accidental presses.

Samsung includes a stylus with the Omnia but doesn't provide anywhere to store it on in the handset, opting instead to design it like a pen (complete with cap). The idea is that you'll need only your fingers for day-to-day tasks. But, trust me, you'll need to keep the stylus on hand; all too often, I found myself groping at tiny Windows Mobile buttons with my suddenly gargantuan fingers.

On the other hand, the Omnia's voice quality was good. It sounded clear and distinct over a variety of test calls, although reception in a (admittedly) rural area wasn't as strong as I would have liked. It also paired with a BlueAnt V1 Bluetooth headset on the first try and sounded crisp in both directions, and the speakerphone was loud enough for use outdoors.

The Omnia is an unlocked, quad-band (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) world phone. Its HSDPA chipset is only dual-band, however, so forget about using 3G in the U.S.— you'll have to go with EDGE or nothing. Fortunately, the onboard Wi-Fi radio offers plenty of speed and connects to 802.11b/g networks; I connected to a WPA-encrypted hot spot without a problem. The phone's GPS radio supports A-GPS; Samsung preloads Google Maps for Mobile, which picked up my location quickly, but there's no voice-enabled turn-by-turn navigation software on board.

The next-generation, 624-MHz Marvell PXA312 CPU delivers plenty of horsepower on paper, and its excellent graphics benchmark test score reflects the CPU's built-in hardware acceleration. In practice, however, the phone felt just moderately responsive. There was also no easy way to bring up the Task Manager, which I often needed to quit apps that were hogging memory and slowing performance.

Being a Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional handset, the Omnia includes Microsoft Office Mobile for viewing, creating, and editing documents. It also supports Direct Push e-mail along with Microsoft Exchange and Outlook synchronization for managing contacts and appointments. Samsung includes a full copy of Opera Mobile 9.5, which is a handy way to browse the Web in full-screen mode. It offers multiple tabs, finger-swipe scrolling, and easy bookmarks management, although it's not as good at rendering fonts as the iPhone's Safari browser. You also can't zoom in and out with two-finger "pinch" maneuvers, as you can on the iPhone.

Multimedia is where the Omnia really excels. Built-in DivX and XviD support means the phone is a capable portable video player; my DivX files played back smoothly and looked good when blown up to full screen. The large screen is also sweet for displaying photos. (Two gripes: Finger swipes don't work with pictures, and the interface covers over part of each photo with icons.) Music sounded punchy and detailed with the handset's included earbuds, although a paired set of Cardo S-2 Bluetooth headphones offered warm but muffled wireless sound in comparison. The FM tuner delivers solid reception and crisp sound. Samsung bundles a touch-friendly media UI, which means (at least here) you won't need the stylus.

The 5-megapixel camera includes plenty of high-end features such as autofocus, face and smile detection, and auto-panorama. There's also an LED flash. (But no optical zoom, though that's a universal camera phone complaint.) On my tests, the Omnia took sharp, detailed, colorful photos that, at least when zoomed out on a laptop display, were almost indistinguishable from those of a dedicated point-and-shoot camera; even the lighting and exposure were about right. Shutter delay hovered at around 1 second. The Omnia also records well-lit but jerky VGA (640-by-480-pixel) videos and much smoother QVGA (320-by-240) videos at 30 frames per second. The phone comes with either 8GB or 16GB of storage,plus a microSD card slot, so you have plenty of storage options, although swapping out microSD cards requires removing the battery each time. The 1,440-mAh battery is replaceable and delivered a stellar 12 hours 11 minutes of continuous talk time.

If you're getting the impression that the Omnia suffers an identity crisis, you're right. The HP iPAQ 910 and Palm Treo Pro are successful smartphones because they embrace Windows Mobile for what it is. They complement and enhance Windows Mobile's broad, enterprise-friendly feature set, add thoughtful design touches where necessary, and as a result serve as excellent business-class handhelds.

The Samsung Omnia, on the other hand, tries to hide its underpinnings and trick you into thinking it's an iPhone, and it fails. It's not an awful device: If you're checking off a list of must-have features, such as GPS, Wi-Fi, and long battery life, the Omnia will probably hit almost all of them (3G being the notable exception). Its camera, video playback, and battery performance are all exemplary, and it's not a bad voice phone. But anyone with a feel for good software design should stay away—especially at this price. If you need a device with a touch screen. check out the iPhone 3G, the Samsung Instinct, or the LG Dare, even though the latter two aren't true smartphones. If not, the Nokia N95 8GB is an unlocked multimedia powerhouse.

Benchmark Test Results
Continuous talk time: 12 hours 11 minutes
Spb Benchmark Index: 472.52
CPU index: 1798.55
File system index: 194.35
Graphics index: 5591.47

Compare the Samsung Omnia with several other mobile phones side by side.