Oh me, Oh my, it's the Omnia II

MANILA, Philippines - Easy to text: check; Easy to create phone directory: check; Easy to set up: check. When the dust settles, only the best are left standing, at least that’s what I’ve heard.

And so it is. And so it is.

As we wait, with not so bated breath, for the formal announcement of presidential candidates in the May 2010 elections, we hope that what they promise is what they will deliver.

“Who are you voting for?” I asked W, a twentysomething young man recently.

“I haven’t decided yet,” said W. “I need to study what the candidates have to say so that I vote for the most qualified one.”

“Define qualified,” came my follow up question.

“One who tells the truth, understands what the country needs, is reliable as in not a traditional politician,” W rattles off. “That is just the beginning of my list. All I know is that we need change — and change for the better.”

Ahhh… the young, they hold the future. Or so we would like to believe. For the not so young like myself, perhaps even jaded when nothing comes close to seeing the bright side of things, we look for reliability.

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Or, if you to do, make sure it comes out even better.

With people, there could be slight problems.

With gadgets, there could be slight problems, too.

But, we can also check around for the one that functions the way we want it to, when we want it to, right? Gadgets — cellphones, in particular, I always “friend.”

“What? You only have 13 friends on Facebook,” quipped a surprised W. “Grabe!”

I know, I know. It’s a social site, social being the operative word here. But, I am not a very social being — and gadgets work when I want, where I want — with no complaints.

It’s a gadget life

The words of a song, in the musical Little Orphan Annie come to mind.

They go something like this; “It’s the hard-knock life for us.”

But, I have taken the liberty of changing the words to “It’s a gadget-life for me.”

It really is. I am hostage to gadgets. Truly, I can’t live without them.

Enter the Samsung Omnia II, which has been hailed as the Omnia PocketPC, and how. The Samsung i900 Omnia or Omnia 2, is an eye catcher.

It comes with slick looks and is loaded with great software solutions, which only add to its great personality.

A cell phone with a personality — that is how I would describe the Omnia II. And, I am not the first one to be hooked. Matter of fact since the announcement of the launching of Omina II many Samsung groupies have been waiting.

The wait is finally over — and the Omnia II does not disappoint.

For starters it is the first five megapixel Windows Mobile cameraphone — and that is just the beginning.

Let’s get techie

As I opened the box with the Samsung Omnia II, I smiled — it was just perfect. And we are only talking about looks.

If there is one thing about cellphones it is that we definitely judge them by looks. After all, the cellphone we carry is a reflection of the person we are. We decide what we carry — and that means we make the choice to be that techie person.

Black, sleek, wide screen, classy are just a few words that come to mind when dealing with the Omnia II. It really feels perfect in the hand. And, the more you tap the touchWiz screen — the more you begin to fall in love.

It’s a quad-band GSM support with 3G and HSDPA 7.2 Mbps. It uses Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional OS. All this is easy to view in the 3.2-inch 65K-color touchscreen with resolution of 240 x 400 pixels. Of course, one of the main features is its 5 megapixel autofocus camera with wide dynamic range mode, face tracking, smile detection, geotagging.

And, if storing everything from your fave tunes, to photos to even secret files is your thing, the Omnia 2 is loaded with 16 GB of storage memory and has a microSD expansion slot.

But let’s not get lost in the techie specs. This phone is fun, and easy to learn to use. Ease of use is one of the principles that the Korean cellphone manufacturer has taken to heart. And, with the Omnia II — it only takes a short walk through and then you get the hang of it.

Perfect.

Go ahead, touch

As I held the Omnia II, I was impressed with not just the big screen, but also the great resolution of the images that I loaded into the phone.

I also watched the video loaded in the camera and had loads of fun watching.

I took the Omnia outdoors and checked what it would be like watching a movie with the sunlight shining down. It was Ok, but of course, perhaps it might be better to watch or look at photos when we are indoors.

I like that there aren’t a lot of buttons on the phone. This means that Samsung relies on the touchscreen interface to get the job done.

And, I must say that it does not disappoint.

The Omnia only has five hardware buttons — a main menu key and a camera key on the right, call and end keys and the optical joystick basically complete the list. The Omnia also has a unique touchpad that operates in two modes — it’s either a regular touchpad or you can use it to navigate an on-screen mouse pointer. In both cases however the touchpad doubles as a hardware button that you can press for confirming.

Move it

In touchpad mode a quick sweep gives one quick access to all the programs. A slower sweep over the touchpad allows one to select from four items at one time. It is convenient when you are scrolling for a program.

The mouse pointer mode is very interesting and can substitute for a stylus allowing for single-handed usage. You can scroll easily with the mouse by holding the pointer dead center on a side scrollbar and pressing longer. This activates the scrolling mode and a single sweep takes you up and down. A single press deactivates the scrolling.

I have used lots of Samsung cellphones with touchscreen interfaces. I must say that the Omnia II is the best one so far. The screen moves, as I want it to when I want it to. What could be better than that?

Widgets, widgets

The widgets can be moved around, as the owner wants. That is really the epitome of personalization.

All I had to do was get my fave widgets and fix them on the screen as I wanted. In any order, or at least in an order that makes sense to only me.

Some of the available Widgets are a digital clock, an analog clock, a world-time clock, a birthday reminder list, a photo browser, ringing profile selector, a music player, an FM radio, a Notes widget, and a calendar, plus several shortcuts to Windows applications such as Notes, Games and more.

There are two home screens, which can be viewed by swapping one screen for the other. Alongside the two home screens, there is also the main menu, which acts as some sort of an application launcher. The main menu is a lot like a regular feature phone menu and gives access to calls log, phonebook, music player, camera, FM radio, media library, image gallery, and installed applications. You also have access to Windows Mobile messaging and settings, as well as a grid of shortcuts to frequently used applications.

The third available home screen is a mix between the tabbed home screen and the main menu.

So, in the first two home screens the right-hand hardware key starts the proprietary main menu and the third home screen has the key, which starts the shortcuts.

So, who am I going to vote for?

For now, I am set on Samsung Omnia II. It has everything that a gadgets-lover like me looks for in a cellphone. I might go as boldly as to say that it is probably the first cellphone that is truly a Windows Mobile PocketPC, and a full-fledged multimedia device.

Of course, I might add that it’s not all about serious business, but it also makes having serious fun on the cellphone — whether that be watching videos, looking at pictures, listening to songs, browsing the Internet, texting or talking away — really cool.