Samsung I8000 Omnia2 tested

Samsung I8000 Omnia2

Overall verdict from the Your Mobile Phone Reviews Test Team

The Your Mobile Phone Reviews test team tested this handset for one week & during this time we used this phone for our day to day use & tested features that we feel would be important to you, the user. We found the wide selection of features & applications to be outstanding & we all felt that anything would be possible to do on this Smartphone as it supports truly business focused features complete with a Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system.

We found the handsets touch screen controls to be difficult to control using our fingertips & we were forced to use the stylus to prevent too much frustration when carrying out simple tasks on this Smartphone. Our team would have preferred it if the Omnia2 could comfortably support full fingertip controls but unfortunately it does not.

Our test period of one week was simply too long for one of our tester & after four days of trying to get to grips with this handsets usability our tester asked to stop using it as they just found the phone too frustrating for their day to day communication needs. We must remember the Omnia2 is a Smartphone & it focuses on so much more than just making calls & sending text messages, so our the tester mentioned continued testing but it was made very clear by this tester that the Omnia2 will not suit all users' needs.

Read more details of our testing results below.

Our test team gave the Samsung I8000 Omnia2 an average score of:

74%

Appearance & Size

Our test team liked the overall appearance of the handset & on first appearances this Smartphone gave all of our testers that exciting feel like a child gets when they walk into a sweet shop. It has a glossed effect black coloured back section which has been seen before by our testers & this design works well for other Samsung handsets. On the front of the casing around the call keys it has a matt black coloured brushed effect finish which is also attractive, & around the large touch screen is a highly glossed edging. Our team all liked the size & design if the navigation or menu key which has a cubed shape styling. On the right hand side of the casing there is a screen lock key & a camera key which can also double as a home screen key or provides access to the cubed menu options. There are so many options & methods on the I8000 Omnia2 which allowed us all to control entering our menus & features using the best located keys to suit each of us. On the left hand side of the handset is a two way volume key which is a standard location for a volume control on a Samsung handset. At the top of casing is the micro USB port which is covered with a plastic protection cover which we liked & the cover was very study in design.

Our team were excited about the touch screen & its size which measures 3.7 inches in size, but having a huge screen means we had to learn to handle a wide & larger sized casing. Generally our team would prefer a smaller handset but we appreciate that we had to learn how to handle a larger handset to gain the benefit of a large screen. The Samsung I8000 Omnia2 which measures 1.19cm in depth, 5.96cm in width & 11.8cm in height which is quite a size when held in one hand.

Our test team scored the appearance & size at:

80%

Durability & Usability

The Your Mobile Phone Reviews test team found the I8000 Omnia2 to be a highly durable handset & we felt this Smartphone could withstand a few drops. We definitely didn't feel we needed to treat this phone too delicately during our test period. It has a solid design casing & its glossy finished back cover would not scratch easily or crack unless truly mistreated. One member of team who has much experience of Samsung phones & adores the casing design with its quality feel, so therefore would recommend any of the recently released Samsung touch screen phones due to their hard wearing casing.

The Samsung I8000 Omnia2 is a Windows Mobile handset & although most of these handsets are shipped running version 6.1 of this operating system, the handset is easily upgraded to run version 6.5 which we were testing the handset on.

The feedback with regards to usability was rather disappointing from the test team as this handset made all of our testers frustrated at times due to the screen not being responsive, slow at times & being hard to navigate. We found it incredibly difficult to use finger controls on its touch screen as it made the screen very unresponsive, but the majority of the test team prefer touch screen controls using fingertips rather than the pen styled stylus provided with the Omnia2. We did like the layout of the main menu, home screen & we all adored the phones lock feature which consists of a lock key on the slide of the handset, as well as a slide unlock on screen for added protection.

Our test team scored the durability & usability at:

55%

Battery

Over our one week test period we found the battery was rather efficient & provided the majority of the test team with good battery talk times although when browsing the Web & watching YouTube clips for long periods of time the battery times where reduced dramatically. The battery is a 1500 mAh battery which is a good size battery which is needed for such a powerful phone, & it is a highly capable battery when considering the Samsung Pixon12 has a 1000 mAh battery capacity.

We all like the easily removable back cover which is releasing by clicking open the casing using the small opening at the bottom of the casing cover, allowing us to easily insert our battery with no major problems. A finger nail or pencil tip can be placed into this small opening if the user does not have a tool to hand then a simple click & the whole cover comes away perfectly.

Our test team scored the battery at:

90%

Camera

Our test team carried out extensive testing on the rear facing camera although only one tester commented on enjoying the front facing camera for video calling, so we can only presume video calling was not important for our other testers. Its rear facing camera is a 5 megapixel camera with auto focus but after much testing our testers came back with comments including too dark, good daytime pictures but poor & unclear night shots, always blurred, focused well but dark capture, nothing special, loads of camera options, hard to change settings due to the unresponsive screen, good still image capturing but poor quality video recording, all in all the camera is fair but it did not excite our testers.

Our test team scored the camera at:

65%

Music

Sound quality is good on the Omnia2 & all of our test team members mentioned the volume being excellent & the clarity of the sound being very good indeed. We all tested & continuously used the music player & many of our test team members used the radio feature. We used widgets to access our music & found it easy to access the music features via the cube style multimedia option of the interface. We liked the icon options when in the music player feature & found it easy to manage our music although the unresponsive screen when we used fingertip controls caused delays & a little frustration amongst our testers.

The I8000 Omnia2 comes with a good selection of games although our games professional did download some new games to help with the testing experience. There is a dice game, crayon physics, bubble breaker, solitaire & Asphalt4 games including but these games are very good but again the only complaint was due to the unresponsive screen & controls which frustrated even our enthusiastic game loving tester.

Our test team scored the music capabilities at:

70%

Messaging

A great variety of service available & we all used these messaging services frequently. We found the services easy to access from the main menu options but again all the services were compromised & letdown due to the touch screens lack of response, so our testers had to use the stylus only when creating messages. Our team enjoy the email service very much & found it an easy service to use which was one of the highlights of using this business focused phone. Instant messaging gained excellent comments & feedback but our testers had to use the stylus when in a hurry to send or create a message as it could take us several attempts using fingertip entry due to continuous mistakes being made.

Our test team scored the messaging capabilities at:

75%

Connectivity & Technology

This handset has it all, an A GPS System, Bluetooth® wireless connectivity, micro USB, Wi-Fi®, 3G HSDPA, EDGE & there is not getting away from it, it is powerful. We transfer data between our handset & computer easily & experience excellent high speed connectivity to the Web, but it all lacked excitement & usability in our opinion. We all rate this phone very high when it comes to being a technology focused handset & we compliment its power & capabilities fully.

We tested the Samsung I8000 Omnia2 throughout the UK & enjoy good network signal & coverage using a UK network providers SIM card.

Our test team scored the connectivity & technology at:

95%

Screen & User Interface

Our test team were excited to see & use this touch screen which is huge in size & an extremely clear display. We like its brightness, colours & its overall look & quality which are great for viewing videos & movies on. This screen does show finger print marks but this to be no major problem & to be honest some members did not even mention the finger prints so it is really not an issue. We feel the screen is hard wearing & durable which would take some force to break or damage. We liked the great range of wallpapers & customisable features on this handset allowing us all to create a new look to our phones without too much effort. Our test team really liked this screen but we were so disappointed about its responsiveness & the fact we all felt we had to us a stylus to use this handset.

The user interface is busy with many features & applications there ready to be accessed & enjoyed. The interface is neat & generally very self explanatory with colourful icons which all labelled accordingly for ease of use. Most of us tried to increase the size of the text on the higher & lower level sections of the interface which are incredible small which made it increasingly impossible to use fingertip controls rather than the awkward stylus which was not popular with our test team. We all aligned our screen several times to try to improve the handsets touch screen controls but it did not help at all unfortunately.

We really liked the menu which is split into four sections which we could easily scroll through which include my menu, multimedia, Internet & office sections. Our team enjoy using Microsoft Windows Mobile features which include Excel Mobile, OneNote, & PowerPoint Mobile which can all be found under in the office section of the main menu.

Our test team scored the screen & interface at:

55%

Samsung I8000 Omnia2 Gallery

The Samsung Omnia2 next to its product box

View of the opened back casing with the battery taken out

Would you like to learn more? Read our users Samsung I8000 Omnia2 reviews

Many thanks to our friends at mobiles.co.uk for providing the Samsung I8000 Omnia2 for testing.

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Samsung I8000 Omnia2 © 2006 - 2012, Your Mobile Phone Reviews UK Limited

UK mobile phones tested - Samsung I8000 Omnia2