RSSWill Samsung's Omnia rival Apple's 3G iPhone?
By Jacqueline Emigh | Published June 9, 2008, 3:57 PM
As some see it, Samsung's forthcoming Windows Mobile 6.1-based Omnia smartphone will act as a retort of sorts to Apple's new 3G iPhone. Although the Omnia isn't slated for full rollout until June 17, Samsung prereleased some details today.
Samsung's new Ommia will indeed offer new features not available on Samsung's existing Instinct smartphone. Both the Omnia and Instinct provide digital video and audio recording, along with 3G wireless, an FM radio, and GPS. Unlike the Instinct, though, the Omnia will offer Wi-Fi. Moreover, Samsung has boosted smartphone camera capabilities to 5 megapixels from the 2 megapixel camera in the Instinct.
The Omnia will also be the first smartphone to include Samsung's TouchWiz, a touch user interface for personalizing windows with widgets.
Samsung will preload Microsoft Windows Mobile Professional 6.1, Word, Excel, and Powerpoint onto the smartphone. Opera 9.5 will serve as its Web browser. Other features will include Bluetooth wireless; USB 2.0 MS Office Document Viewer, advanced PIM applications, push e-mail, auto rotation, and TV out.
Measuring 112 x 56.9 x 12.5 millimeters, the platinum-finished, ultra-slim phone will incorporate 8 GB/16 GB flash; an external memory slot; and microSDHC.
Capabilities of the new 5 megapixel camera will include face detection, smile detection, auto focus, image stabilizer, geo-tagging, auto-panorama shot, and wide dynamic range (WDR). It will support video recording in DivX, Xvid, H.263, H.264, WMV, and MP4 formats. Video editing capabilities will include trim video, audio dubbing, live dubbing, add subtitle, and image capture.
Meanwhile, Samsung and Sprint have been demoing the DVR capabilities in the Instinct. "It looks like Samsung and Sprint are going after some of the iPhone market share as they show off their video recording capability on the Samsung Instinct," asked Cory Bohon, on TUAW.COM, The Unofficial Apple Weblog.
"As Apple's competitors are slowly catching up, is it time for Apple to release video recording capabilities for the iPhone? I'm sure that most iPhone users would like to see video recording on the next iteration of the device."
Set for official launch during the CommunicAsia trade show in Singapore on June 17, the Omnia is expected to be available in Southeast Asia that same week, and in Europe starting in July.
I've been looking at the specs and reviews of this phone elsewhere this morning, and as long as it come in within the same price region as the iPhone, I can definitely see this phone getting my pounds, shillings & pence. This is THE best alternative to the iPhone I've seen so far and I do like it, in fact I like it in preference to the iPhone for many reasons. Let's see what price it comes in at.
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|This is the technology the iPhone2 should have been. Instead Apple went cheap. Not a bad thing either I suppose but I hope the Omnia will make it to the US.
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|**yawn**
Another day, another iPhone clone. They should have to pay Apple a licensing fee for such a blatant rip off.
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|Last I check Windows Mobile has been around LONG BEFORE the Iphone. So whos ripping who off?
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|Why does the US so often get screwed as a test market for cell phones? I suppose I should be happy that someone else will get to be the guinea pigs. What they should really do is add skype support to their Wifi functionality, but then no cellular carriers would want to carry the phone. The flip side would be that everyone would want to buy it and it would generate a lot of publicity.
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|hmm.. 3mg better camera that the Iphone, external memory, changeable battery, divx. Now this sounds like a phone that I would be interested in.
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|Me too, for the same price. But I get this funny feeling that it will be a fair whack more expensive... and/or not available locally until well after the iPhone.
It's a bit like all the iPhone killers people talk about - none of them seem to be on the same schedule as the iPhone, or pricing themselves in the same bracket. :/
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|Unless you have some special needs, you should be recording in H.264 which this phone also supports, it's a substantially better codec.
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