Omnia HD (i8910) Preview - GPS, Touchwiz, S60 and Conclusions

[Rafe]

In the final part of our three part preview of the Samsung Omnia HD (i8910) Rafe looks at the GPS and web functionality, explains TouchWiz, and comments on the device's S60 integration, before drawing some overall conclusions. Part 1 of the preview covered the general design and hardware details of the phone and part 2 covered the multimedia elements of the phone.

Read on in the full article.

[jonnybruha]

Oh, now I can post a comment. Weird.

As I said a couple minutes ago in part two, not long now since it passed FCC testing.

http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2009/0...-fcc-approval/

Thanks for the review, Rafe.

i8910 futures "Predictive Text" and from another preview:"You can actually choose the response time depending on your own typing speed.".
Did you test these implentations?

[chilko]

according to mobile crunch samsung is dropping omniahd name and the phone will be called only samsung i8910

[Rafe]

I don't recall seeing those text entry options (and I'm fairly sure we checked). Predictive, as in T9, is there - not sure if that is what the other preview was referring too? But obviously worth checking both of these in the future. Its probably fairly obvious from the preview that there's a lot more to look at in the future in terms of nitty gritty details, but hopefully you'll have a good overview of the device now.

I saw the Mobile Crunch question, but haven't been able to confirm it. I think it might just be mis-communication about the dual nature of the name (it always had had two names). Seems late in the day to make this change (more so as the Omnia HD looks set to be one Samsung's big three). Its not like most consumers gives two hoots about the platform. Like the Innov8 / I8510 its quite likely that it could be marketed under a different name in different countries. As I recall the I8510 was used in the UK, but Innov8 was used in Asia - or was it the other way round? The original Omnia also had a dual name - i900 / Omnia. I think this could apply to the US (where the 'other' Omnia is strong) maybe? Maybe the Omnia HD in Europe, but we'll have to wait see!

Oh, I thought that the predictive text was for typing using qwerty. It's probably only T9 like you said.
But I really do hope that samsung could implement predictive text for qwerty-typing.

[PaulyLaw]

Hey Rafe,

Off topic, did you know the comments section is taking you to AANGage instead of AAS? I guess it happened with the forum update you mentioned but obviously means anyone clicking Home goes to AAN instead of AAS.

You're probably already aware but thought I'd mention :-)

[mCrem]

Great article, looking forward for this phone.

Theres some news up on Gizmodo saying that samsung is calling this i8910 instead of Omnia HD to avoid confusion. is this true? The codenumbers are way tooo boring. I thought we already got over that =o

[Rafe]

Originally Posted by PaulyLaw

Hey Rafe,

Off topic, did you know the comments section is taking you to AANGage instead of AAS? I guess it happened with the forum update you mentioned but obviously means anyone clicking Home goes to AAN instead of AAS.

You're probably already aware but thought I'd mention :-)

That happens when you have the AAN forum style applied. There's a link at the top that says AAS Forum Style which will switch you back... or you can use this link:

http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/forum/?styleid=22

It's not a perfect system at the moment. I need to improve it, but thinking about redoing the comment system entirely.

[PaulyLaw]

Originally Posted by Rafe

That happens when you have the AAN forum style applied. There's a link at the top that says AAS Forum Style which will switch you back...

Yep, that got it. Thx :-)

Originally Posted by Rafe

It's not a perfect system at the moment. I need to improve it, but thinking about redoing the comment system entirely.

haha .. good luck! I'm right in the middle of a complete rebuild of our media company's comment and forum engine and its definitely a "why did I ever start this" day today!

is it only A-GPS that needs a subscription or is it the whole GPS?

Geat review

[Rafe]

Originally Posted by mCrem

Great article, looking forward for this phone.

Theres some news up on Gizmodo saying that samsung is calling this i8910 instead of Omnia HD to avoid confusion. is this true? The codenumbers are way tooo boring. I thought we already got over that =o

See my comment above on this. But I think it may be miscommunication. The Omnia HD has always been the I8910 too. Or it could just apply to some markets.

[Rafe]

Originally Posted by PaulyLaw

Yep, that got it. Thx :-)



haha .. good luck! I'm right in the middle of a complete rebuild of our media company's comment and forum engine and its definitely a "why did I ever start this" day today!

Thanks for the sympathy Finding time might the issue. Its tempting just to use one of the Javascript drop in systems such as Disquz, but that has its own set of problems!

Originally Posted by Maisics

is it only A-GPS that needs a subscription or is it the whole GPS?

Geat review

A-GPS will be free, but it does need a data connection (generally only a few kb). The required subscription is for the Navigator application (Route 66) and this will vary by market.

[mCrem]

Ah sorry, missed that. Speaking of R66, is there any page which shows the supported countries? I know for sure that Nokia maps doesnt have full support for Maltese maps ( they only have non-navigable maps available). Google maps and garmin GPS modules support the island though..

wow, this is really a great phone!


and, it will not drop its name, samsung omniahd will be still samsung omniahd.. =D
here: omniahdmobile.blogspot.com