| iPhone-like Windows Mobile device has 16GB of storage |
Jun. 09, 2008
 Samsung has announced an iPhone-like Windows Mobile 6.1 phone with a proprietary "TouchWiz" user interface. The SGH-i900 Omnia boasts a 3.2-inch widescreen QVGA display, 8GB or 16GB of storage, a 5-megapixel camera with electronic flash, GPS, WiFi, and an FM receiver.
(Click here for a larger view of the Samsung SGH-i900 Omnia)
Clearly intended to remind one of the iPhone, the Omnia is visually similar. Measuring 0.5 inches thick, it has a brushed-metal back, a screen that covers most of its front, and a finger-touch user interface. Fortunately, one resemblance goes further than skin-deep: like Apple's device, the Omnia is available with either 8GB or 16GB of flash storage, making it the most capacious Windows Mobile phone we know of. Unlike the iPhone, it also has a microSD slot, allowing the addition of even more storage.
Samsung's Omnia has iPhone-like storage, plus a microSD expansion slot
The Omnia hides its Windows Mobile 6.1 origins under a "TouchWiz" user interface, which allows personalizing the home screen with "widgets," Samsung says. The phone's touch-sensitive, 3.2-inch screen uses "intuitive tap, sweep, drag and drop operations," and is supplemented by a tiny trackpad. As with the iPhone and other Apple gadgets, a built-in accelerometer automatically switches the screen from portrait to landscape mode when the phone is rotated.
The device has room to store movies, and its WQVGA (400 x 240) display is suitable for 16:9 widescreen content. Supported formats include DivX, XviD, H.263, H.264, WMV, and MP4 files.
Another media-friendly feature on the Omnia is a built-in FM receiver that, as with most mobile devices, uses the wires in an attached headset as an antenna. Other wireless interfaces include: quad-band (850/900/1800/1900MHz) GSM telephony, supporting HSDPA (high-speed downlink packet access) and EDGE (enhanced data rates for GSM evolution) data transfers; Bluetooth 2.0; and 802.11b/g WiFi.
The device includes GPS, with geotagging capabilities that allow recording the coordinates of photos taken using the phone's integral camera. More ambitious than on the vast majority of phones, the latter offers five megapixel resolution, autofocus, image stabilization, a face detection feature, and automatic stitching of multiple photos into a panorama, Samsung says.
The Omnia apparently also sports a digital-camera style electronic flash unit, based on Xenon-tube technology rather than the LEDs used by some previous cameras. Finally, Samsung touts video editing capabilities, said to include the ability to trim files, dub audio onto them, or add subtitles.
Features and specifications released by Samsung for the Omnia include:- Processor -- undisclosed
- Memory -- 128MB of RAM, and 8GB or 16GB of flash storage
- Display -- 3.2-inch 240 x 400 display
- Keys -- two main buttons, plus miniature trackpad
- Camera -- 5 megapixel, with autofocus, face detection, image stabilization, image stitching, electronic flash
- Wireless interfaces:
- WAN -- Quad-band (850/900/1800/1900MHz) and 2100MHz UMTS
- WLAN -- 802.11b.g
- WPAN -- Bluetooth 2.0
- GPS
- FM receiver
- Other I/O:
- USB 2.0
- Headset with proprietary connector
- Expansion -- microSD slot
- Battery -- 1440mAH lithium-ion, expected life not stated
- Dimensions -- 4.4 x 2.24 x 0.5 inches (112 x 56.9 x 12.5mm)
The Omnia will be available later this month in the Southeast Asian market, and in Europe in July. No information was provided about pricing or U.S. availability.
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