The Samsung Omnia 2 is Sammy's latest Windows Mobile-packing smartphone. No wait, come back... the Windows Mobile 6.1-toting successor to the
Samsung Omnia i900 still has some features that make it sexier than your average WinMo model.
First up is the dazzling 3.7inch AMOLED screen, which renders movies and media brilliantly. Specs-wise, it's no slouch either, with a decent 5MP cam, HSDPA and up to 16GB of internal storage, expandable with a micro SD card slot.
The Omnia 2 also packs the same 800MHz processor as the
Samsung Jet, and the TouchWiz 2.0 interface makes this easier to operate than most WinMo devices. It'll also be fully compatible with Window Mobile 6.5 when it arrives.
It also packs an accelorometer, so videos and music have a nice landscape coverflow-style presentation and "composer" mode will shuttle you straight to your favourite communication functions easily and quickly.
There are three customisable homescreens which can be peppered with your favourite widgets – but gone is the weird lanyard stylus of the Omnia – this time you're expected to rely on nature's stylus, your finger.
Which is where things start to get a little frustrating. The resistive touchscreen just doesn't feel as intuitive as the capacitive iPhone or HTC Hero. Even our Samsung demonstartor had issues with sluggish responses, put down to "prototype" issues.
We'll test out this more when we have a full working model, but in all our first look at the Omnia 2 was a relatively pleasant experience, thanks to the smashing screen and TouchWiz 2.0 interface, but we suspect that the touchscreen and WinMo 6.1 may be the factors that will put some smartphone shoppers off...
