Saturday, May 30, 2009

Samsung Omnia HD Review


I'm a member of Symbian-Freak Forum, and it is a great community for symbian fans. One of the member Dogmann has just release a review of Samsung OmniaHD.

His Device is a Orange Branded OmniaHD. Almost everything he said about the phone are positive. He even mention that the build quality is excellent even it is made of plastic. He said that OmniaHD is the fastest and smoothest s60 device today. Well, I know you want to read the full review, you can read it here.

You can also ask him anything about the phone, just join the Forum and post some questions here.

Second Face Off: Samsung Omnia HD vs. Sony Ericsson Satio

This is the second face off of the two greatest phones of 2009. The Samsung Omnia HD and the Sony Ericsson Satio (formerly known as Idou). You can read the first face off here.

Samsung has just release their flagship device, Samsung i8910 Omnia HD, it is still unavailable in some countries but it is already available in some stores in UK while we still don't know the exact release date of Sony Ericsson Satio what we all know is that it will going to be in the market at Q4 of 2009. Last May 28 Sony Ericsson announces Satio, (They announce it last MWC 2009 but they really don't give specific information about it) The Satio will be Sony Ericsson’s flagship for 2009. It’s the first of a brand new line of phones, namely the Entertainment Unlimited brand.

So Lets get started.

CAMERA
12mp Camera plus a Xenon flash is superb. It is the highest mega pixel count yet. Well, more pixels doesn't mean good quality but Sony Ericsson is known for its Cyber-shot brand which is one of the best phone cameras out there. Entertainment Unlimited Brand (Which is Satio's Brand) is a combination of Cyber-Shot and Walkman brand plus others. Even without Exmor, i think it will still be great. On the other hand, Omnia HD got a wonderful 8mp camera (which is the same with innov8) plus a single Led Flash. Satio has a good Lens cover while Omnia HD has none. We can’t really compare the quality of both phones since there are still no sample pictures of Satio plus it is still a prototype.

DISPLAY
No changes from the first part: No question about it, Samsung OmniaHD is the winner in this part. It has the biggest screen of all; the 3.7” OLED capacitive touchscreen is just so amazing. OLED are giving the pictures its perfect color plus it is more economical. Sony Ericsson has 3.5” resistive touchscreen.

DIMENSIONS AND WEIGHT
Minor changes from the first part: Satio is smaller and lighter compare to OmniaHD, OmniaHD has a dimension of 123 x 58 x 12.9 mm and a weight of 149g while Idou has a dimension of 112 x 54 x 13 mm and a weight of 126g. (This is even slimier and lighter than the old prototype!) And Of course, we want a lighter device, so in this round Satio is the winner. The 3.7” screen of OmniaHD has its downside huh?

MUSIC
Sony Ericsson are known for its Walkman brand, one of the best music player in the world and Satio has it. OmniaHD got good visual effects on its music player but Walkman is really the best. The Satio has no 3.5mm jack which is really bad but instead Sony Ericsson includes a Wireless headphone on the package of the phone! However OmniaHD got some good answers, it has a DNSE 2.0 (Digital Natural Sound Engine) and a Virtual 5.1 channel Dolby surround for headphones.

VIDEO RECORDING AND PLAYBACK
We really don’t know anything about the capabilities of Satio in terms of Video Recordings, but its prototype can only records up to VGA at 30fps while OmniaHD has it all, it can record a High Definition Video at 24 frames per second, it can play a High Definition Video (720p), and it can play DivX/XviD/WMV/MP4 format. We still don’t have any information about the playback of Sony Ericsson Satio. As you can see, OmniaHD looks like a champion, but wait, have you heard that OmniaHD can only record a very low quality audio on its camcorder? A High Definition Video with a VERY low Definition Audio. Now that sucks! We are still waiting for Samsung to fix it. If ever they will not, and even Satio can only record up to VGA but if it has a good quality audio, I will declare that Satio is the winner in this part.

INTERNET
Since the both phones runs Symbian s60 v5, I assume that they will have the same browser.

STANDBY SCREEN
OmniaHD offers touchwiz where you can even download widget from the web while Satio offers Wallpaper animation. Both company has really did a good job customizing its OS, but I think Sony Ericsson did a better job doing it. You can search Satio in Youtube and see what I mean.

FINAL WORDS
Both phones have almost the same features, they run at Symbian s60 v5 with some similarities of applications. They both have Wifi with DLNA, GPS, lots of Camera Features, TV-Out, and many more similarities. As of now, Sony Ericsson has still no word on its CPU (but rumors suggest that it is the same with OmniaHD), also on its capabilities on Video playback whether it can play DivX/XviD/WMV or not, and if it has a digital compass and a FM transmitter while OmniaHD has all. (Except for FM transmitter) For me, as of now, OmniaHD is still the winner since it has everything except for some problems like the audio quality and the problem with Jar files. If ever Samsung has no answer for these kinds of problems, Surely Satio will be the over all winner.

I'm back!


Hi There! I'm back =D
Sure this blog misses a lot of things about OmniaHD but I'm back and I am going to update this blog again. Now let us see what we misses:

1. OmniaHD is OUT! Yey! it's been a while now, but still it not yet release world wide.
2. OmniaHD got it's first Firmware Update, wow Samsung that is fast!

3. Nokia's OVI store works with OmniaHD! now that is great news, but still not all applications there are working.


And now, since OmniaHD are now available in some countries, let us see what are some problems encountered by owners of the Samsung OmniaHD:

1. Bad Quality Audio in Camcorder, now this is an old news but still no update. Anyway here is a good news from Samsung:
"We are a small team trying to do a million things, including trying to ship the DevPack to enable developers to write apps for the i8910HD, writing and testing example apps, trying to get API documentation into good shape, writing and commissioning tech notes and tech papers, helping out as Symbian Foundation prepares to go live, trying to run our forum as well as the overall developer programme, supporting our Core members to ship cool apps, trying to support the organisation to improve the maturity with which it deploys open platforms in handsets - and escalating and trying to get resolution for the issues that get reported through this forum and others. Let me try to summarise this thread -

1. Some of you consider the i8910 broken because of its lack of support for AAC encoding in the Camcorder

2. Some of you find that problem annoying but not a showstopper because you value other features of the phone

3. Some of you have been starting to explore programming the audio and camera APIs

4. Some of you are so angry you can hardly control your anger

So what have we done?
- Escalated the AAC issue through the development team to understand the problem, through the engineering organisation to try to understand whether this is a defect or is by design, escalated through the management side to alert them to the need to plan for firmware updates, escalated through the management side to alert them to the damage this issue is causing

- Tried to answer your questions with as much information as we have, which sometimes is not very much at all

- Tried to hide our own frustration that our focus on developers is being diverted because of problems (like AAC and firmware update) that really don't have much to do with enabling you to write cool apps!
Right now, there is no more information I can give on if, how, or when this problem will be resolved. But we are not ignoring it. As soon as we have something helpful to tell you, we will post it! Ben."

See? They said that they are not going to ignore it, so let us wait and see.

2. Jar Application problems, If you encoutered a problem like your OmniaHD freezes when running Opera Mini, well your not alone. Well i can't really explain it since i have few knowledge about it, here I qouted something from Bec of Symbian-Freak forum:

" Java apps are run in a virtual machine wich has "heap" memory allocated by samsung. So it doesn't have direct acces to the huge amount of ram. "

Opera Mini is a Jar application, so you will encouter this problem, Instead of using the superb size of Ram of OmniaHD, it uses "heap" memory. Here I qouted another information from JonnyBruha of Symbian-Freak forum:

"So having twice as much memory compared to any other S60 device counts for nothing just because it's a different type of memory?"

Note form Bec: "by heap it just is a part of the ram memory. It's not a different memory. Samsung could fix it probably by just changing a simple value."

Don't worry guys, SIS files still works great here and let us hope that Samsung will fix it.

3. There is no FM Transmitter.

Well, that is all for now, I'll try too keep updating this blog so that you'll stay informed. I still don't have the phone but I will get it as soon as it will be available here in our country.

Saturday, May 9, 2009

No More Updates

Since I been so busy, i decided temporary not to update this site.
For more information about Samsung i8910 OmniaHD I recommend to please visit the following Sites:

http://www.samsungomniahd.com/


http://samsungi8910omnia.com/

http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i8910_omnia_hd-2691.php

Before I leave the site, here are some official specification/Information/Announcement from Samsung:
-OmniaHD will use low-quality AMR Narrow Band codec at 8000Hz 16 bit 2 channel 12.8 Kbps bit rate for its Video Recording including HD, D1, and VGA.
-OmniaHD will use OMAP3430 not OMAP3440, OMAP3430 CAN encode and decode HD Videos
-OmniaHD has a FAST GPS Lock, faster than any mobile navigator today.

That's all,
Bye for now! =D

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Videos fromYouTube


There a bunch of new videos of Samsung OmniaHD in YouTube. Some of them are already using the Final Version of Samsung OmniaHD. I notice that the final version of OmniaHD got a black and white "Dekstop Changer" or the 3 buttons on the upper left of the OmniaHD, before it has a Blue Cube. So, this if my way to find if the OmniaHD is a old prototype or the final one.

Here are some good new videos of OmniaHD in Youtube:

From Mobile-Review: (Kotikv)
http://www.youtube.com/user/kotikv
I am not really sure that it is from Mobile Review, he is just keep writing it on the Phone.
He cut the Videos in 8 Parts which are:
1 - First time in hand (Basic UI)
2 - Helicopter Demo (Video Playback)
3 - Office Applications
4 - Compass, Information of OmniaHD, Gallery
5 - Bluetooth Scanning
6 - Web Browsing
7 - Web Browsing pt.2
8 - Comaprisson with 5800

From ZParks TV:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T44KnJ3qPVg


OmniaHD is really great, Enjoy!

Saturday, May 2, 2009

SOHD: Official Samsung OmniaHD Ambassador!


No Its not us, LOL. Samsung Omnia HD Blog has just receive an information from Samsung that he is now an Official Samsung OmniaHD Ambassador! So stay tune to that site for more updates about the Samsung OmniaHD, Im sure he will give you the answer on whatever information you ask.

http://www.samsungomniahd.com/

TV-Out via 3.5mm jack?


Here is a video showing that OmniaHD has a TV-out not only via DNLA but also via 3.5mm jack! By the way, it's Russian.

OmniaHD (i8910) S60 SDK plug-in Alpha released


From ALL ABOUT SYMBIAN:

"Samsung Mobile Innovator has released the first iteration of the DevPak for the Samsung i8910 HD (formerly the Omnia HD). This plugs into the existing S60 5th Edition SDK to provide an emulator skin and control features, as well as additional APIs.

The DevPak provides the full Samsung boot sequence and Samsung i8910 look and feel in the emulator, along with device button, G-Sensor, and orientation controls. The look and feel is not complete, as the standard S60 toolbar is retained and there is no emulation of the Samsung home screen, with its widget support. The reskinned emulator provides three UI displays – standard portrait and landscape modes, plus a portrait mode optimised for laptop PCs."

READ MORE CLICK HERE

Source: All About Symbian.com