A day with the Samsung Omnia HD - Hardware and First Impressions

OK, this isn't exactly the main selling point of the Omnia HD, but I love the neon-esque menu icons.

The Nokia 5800 icons are good too, but the Samsung provides a nice alternative look.

the use of capacitive sensing means instant response to a screen touch - there's no need to press down.

Maybe I just have weird fingers, but I honestly don't have to press down AT ALL when using the 5800's screen. As soon as I touch the screen in any way it selects stuff.

I suspect it might be down to fingernails: my nails go all the way to the screen at almost any angle, but not everyone's do.

Nice to see an OMAP3 device, and hopefully some OpenGL ES 2.0 optimised games at some stage. Understand the PowerVR guys have been closely consulted on this handset so fingers crossed. Wonder what nokia are thinking....?

Come on Samsung! You're so close to perfection. You have to get that video capture sorted. The 720p is ridiculous and the D1 is just plain odd. Though the file is reporting that it has been captured at 30 fps, clearly it's not. There is a sequence just after Rafe waves his arms when the *actual* frame rate is as low as 18fps!!! What's all that about Samsung?

Fingers crossed this will all be ironed out in the final firmware. (>_<😉

Any word on the release date?
I'm sooo dissapointed with the absence of xenon flash! they should've put xenon+led for videos !!

And no multi touch? wtf so what's the point of a capactive screen then? :/

Are you guys sure that this one has the final hardware?
Because I thought the final i8910 would have the metal battery cover + lens protector like the one from GSM-Arena.

Have you guys compared page loading speed of this OMAP 3 phone vs current gen phones that uses the ARM 11 core?

That would be very interesting, and if my next phone runs symbian, it better be speedy.

Re: the lens cover, or lack thereof, it was suggested that auto-shutters like the INNOV8's have a tendency to jam... hence they went without.

Yes, fairly sure it was final hardware, or as final as it gets without actually coming off a production line.

Thanks for the answer Steve!
I'm still hoping on the metal back cover.

Does it come with wheels on the bottom and an extendable handle on the top? It's more like and internet tablet than a phone.

CORRECTED: (please erase my previous post)

The typing problem you mentioned can be fixed easily without the need of multitouch because it's capacitive.

PROBLEM with RESISTIVE:
Simultaneously holding two letters say "a" then "p" will also physically press a series of unintended letters in between the two such as (d,g,u,i). In effect, the letters pressed are now (a,d,g,u,i,p) instead of just "a" and "p". The system can't guess which letters you really intend that's why their solution is just output only the last key being released which is "p" in this case.

SOLUTION in CAPACITIVE (without the need of multi-touch)
Since capacitive is not prone to the effect of unintended letters in between, a solution is very simple:
Again we press "a" then we press "p" while still holding "a".

Algorithm: If ("a" and "p" are not located near each other) then
print "a" immediately as soon as "p" is pressed
else if ("a" and "p" are next to each other or no key in between) then
don't print "a" because it might be a sliding gesture.
end
print "p" after it is released.

In this case both "a" and "p" are printed because they are not located near each other.
Had it been "o" instead of "a" then "o" should not be printed because it's obviously a sliding gesture.

cheers!!

I really want to get this phone, but the fact that they have these bugs, and (or so it seems) no firmware updates. and the lack of qwerty holds me back. It would be a god send if it had qwerty.. only I know how annoying it is when you only have your ipod touch to reply to an email.. and that certain email's reply consists of a very long essay!

Are you still surprised at the lack of multi touch in Symbian Handsets?

It's not In Symbian so it won't be in ANY handsets untill they sort themselves out and add it in, even the N97 won't have it. Untill they do I'm sorry but in my opinion nothing using symbian with a TS will even come close in ease of use compared to (you guessed it) The iPhone/iPod Touch.

In other news I'm eagerly awaiting this device - the idea of HD video recording whets my appetite 😛

The Symbian touch screen phones may not be as easy to use as an Apple offering, but they are still very easy to use.

"It's not In Symbian so it won't be in ANY handsets untill they sort themselves out and add it in"

Like most modern software it will have a layer architecture, so it doesn't have to be in Symbian - it can be laid on top.

This post won't be in the discussion until I sort myself out and press the submit button.

10x guys you are the best cant wait for the rest of the hands on i think you would agree this has to be the best smartphone of the year for now 😊 for some reason the 720by480 is just not starting and it would be nice to upload somewhere the full size images of the phone reeeeealy awesome device( its a shame to call it a phone😊 )

Great review I'd really like to see how the Omnia HD compares to the N97 with web browsing. Could you do a video? I have a Nokia E90 at the moment and the web browsing is great on the 800px screen. Also, will the Omnia work with a Nokia bluetooth keyboard?

What does "humungous 163MB of RAM free after booting" means? 😊 Does it mean OmniaHD has 256MB or total RAM? 😊 😊

Where does it report 30fps? Here's what I see:

VIDEO: [mp4v] 1280x720 24bpp 20.000 fps 0.0 kbps ( 0.0 kbyte/s)

vlc reports the same, 20fps.

Nice overview; nicer pics. Man that screen looks incredible. Granted, its of no benefit if it washes out in the sunlight (for my uses) but sheesh that's a nice screen there.

Apple have the patents for multi-touch so unless you have an agreement with them you won't find muti-touch on a "phone".

There maybe workarounds such as simulated multi-touch which may not infringe on Apple patents but this is a very sketchy grey area.

I played the 720p clip in VLC player. It seems alright. But Quicktime is showing some sync issues.

Well, the phone is just gorgeous!!. I think Idou and this ultra piece of technology will surely put nokia in concern. I hope samsung get right along into firmware updating path seriously! Great preview AAS

For a lot of people, including myself, single-handed use is still king, which is why I don't care if it has multi-touch or not. Zooming and scrolling with one finger press isn't as "fun" as pinching and zooming, but it's a hell of a lot more convenient.

I welcome the capacitive screen not for the technology itself, but for the durability of it. The 5800XM always felt like it would tear to shreds if a sharp object came into contact with the screen.

Great Review Guys! So Finally How is The CPU,Ram,Rom????

btw i published ur news on my blog

Regards

Some answers:
- Yes, the unit we tried had 256MB of dynamic RAM. Though of course, there's a possibility that production units won't have this? We won't know until a boxed one arrives and we fire that up. Here's hoping though.

- If Quicktime says/shows a clip has sync issues then it does - Apple's MP4 routines are just about king in this dept.

- Yes, by multi-touch, all I'm angling for really are more intelligent ways to handle apparent screen coordinate presses, so that text entry can be quicker

- I doubt the Omnia HD would work with Nokia's Bluetooth keyboard driver, so we're probably waiting on Samsung writing one, or at least resigning Nokia's.

Steve. Is the sound recording really just 8 kHz AMR? Please say isn't isn't really so?!!!

Hi Steve,

My question is this: on capacitive screens such as the one on this Samsung, is it possible to select small areas of the screen with a stylus or other pointing instrument? For example, some programs written for earlier touchscreen OS like EPOC or UIQ or Windows Mobile require that you point to specific (small) areas of the screen to select an item or take some action. Do these programs become unusable in a device that's designed to be finger-friendly? Is it even possible to use a stylus on this Samsung? I understand that this wouldn't be the normal mode of operation, but it would be nice to have the option of using a stylus for programs that might be more usable that way.

Best regards,
Malcolm
www.freepoc.org

For those experiencing lag on the video, downloading it and watching it in your player of choice will give you the true playback quality. The Firefox Quicktime plugin causes TONS of lag but it plays much better in WMP.

@malbry: no, capacitive screens work using human skin contact... Watch for an article from me on resistive vs capacitive touch technology....

@johnny: no, you're giving people false hope. The test clips from the preproduction device had appalling sound sync. Period. They fixed it for VGA, however, over and above the problems of the INNOV8. The question is whether they can fix it for 720p HD recording, when there's obviously a lot more video info to encode and tie up the processors....... Hopefully they can, this being one of the Omnia HD's selling points.