And so it begins... The SIM-free Samsung i8910 HD arrives in the UK

[UKJeeper]

Originally Posted by slitchfield

There's no sign of the FM transmitter

However it is there, you just have to know how get it to work. Go spend some time at samsungi8910omnia.com, you won't regret it....

[malerocks]

Originally Posted by Gajas

Does the bundled TV out accessory support 720p TV display output? I've read elsewhere that it is not possible unless you are using the DLNA dongle.

This is an excellent point. Anybody have an answer to this???

[slitchfield]

Originally Posted by stuclark

You need to re-write a lot of this article when using the IG2 firmware - as I posted in both the articles I wrote (one using IF4 and the second announcing IG2); Samsung have fixed a LOT, if not ALL, the bugs you mention.

Not true, I'm sitting here and they're all present and correct in IG2.

[krisq]

Originally Posted by malerocks

This is an excellent point. Anybody have an answer to this???

720p playback is available only through HDMI which I8910 doesn't have, via mass storage or DLNA.

Originally Posted by krisq

720p playback is available only through HDMI which I8910 doesn't have, via mass storage or DLNA.

That has been reported to be the case when a compatible TV out cable from a Nokia is used. Have you tried it with an official/bundled TV out cable for the i8910?

So far all the posts I have read about the TV out cable only supporting Standard Def are i8910 owners that did not have a bundled TV out cable with their package, but were using ones from either their old N95 or 5800XM.

[stuclark]

Originally Posted by slitchfield

Not true, I'm sitting here and they're all present and correct in IG2.

Browser crashing? Not EVER on mine, doing exactly what you quote!

[Tenkom]

You won't get HD signals on a A/V cable no matter who makes it, samsung or nokia. You need HDMI or perhaps Component. Forget about DLNA cause there's not enough bandwidth to stream HD content over the phones WIFI.

I think this review is a bit harsh and premature...I have had the phone serveral days now, and although I do believe the browser is a bit crap(this will be fixed w/new browser downloads coming)....this phone is the most awesome piece of multimedia technology, in a phone, you can buy (IMHO)...It takes a while to learn it, which can be frustrating at first, but after you work out the understanding and software and setup; it is simpy unrivaled at the current time. BTW: SO many of my iphone 3Gs friends are JEALOUS of the screen and drop/drag/memory card stuff...not to mention the HD Videos...mine look GREAT!!!

Me

[rvirga]

Originally Posted by slitchfield

There's no easy way to produce both QVGA and 16:9 HD renders though. Dare I risk leaving those out who want to watch on the phone itself? I guess I could produce a QVGA feed with black bars top and bottom?

Neither dropping the 4:3 RSS feeds nor adding black bars is a particularly appealing solution. This is why I was suggesting using Pan and Scan when you edit the video on a computer, if you can find a program/plugin that allows you to do it easily.

[slitchfield]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I think this review is a bit harsh and premature...I

Umm..... 'review'??? This was an unshamed set of very initial impressions. When we do a 'review', you'll know it because it'll be thousands of words long and (probably) in 3 or 4 parts. Give me a break, I'd only had the phone for a few HOURS!!!

[Tenkom]

Why would you want the phones show in widescreen? It's informational show mostly showing a bunch of phones and steve's face. And don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with that. I watch every episode. But there's no reason to go widescreen. Except maybe to show that phones can now record widescreen video. That's my opinion at least.

[capitaine]

Originally Posted by Tenkom

Over the air updates is one thing. But no udp is really bad. Especially considering how many firmwares this thing has to got through before even being close to stable.

a load of utter crap. Have you got the phone? Mine is perfectly fine. There are no stability issues. There are few major issues period.

[rvirga]

Originally Posted by Tenkom

Why would you want the phones show in widescreen? It's informational show mostly showing a bunch of phones and steve's face.

If you go to YouTube and search for the Phones Show episodes there, you'll see that, while the videos themselves are 4:3 pillar boxed (since YouTube has also transitioned to widescreen - part of that trend I was talking about before), the thumbnails of the videos are 16:9 cropped frame grabs. Looking at those 16:9 thumbnails gives you an idea of what a widescreen version of the Phones Show would look like. And precisely: you would see less of Steve's torso, and more of the phones he's usually holding in one or both hands. Since when I watch the Phones Show I'm more interested in the phones than in Steve's torso (although part of the female audience of the show might disagree with me on this point :-)), I think a ws version as an improvement over the current 4:3 version.
Although, I now realize, with an efficient use of widescreen as outlined above, Pan & Scan doesn't look very feasible, and maybe the simplest thing would be to use letterboxing to generate the QVGA version.

[Madcypher]

"Why would you want the phones show in widescreen? It's informational show mostly showing a bunch of phones and steve's face. And don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with that. I watch every episode. But there's no reason to go widescreen. Except maybe to show that phones can now record widescreen video. That's my opinion at least."

My friend, the global trend for widescreen has been underway for many, many years now. Movies have ALWAYS been widescreen, DVDs advanced the widescreen format and HD (broadcast, Blu-Ray, etc) is the icing in the cake. Cell phones are just starting to catch up within the last few years.

Widescreen is and has always has been the screen ratio of choice, if you were up on your latest phone specs, the majority of mid to high-end phones released in the past few years have widescreen displays.

Just a little fyi my friend.

Madcypher

[Tenkom]

Originally Posted by capitaine

a load of utter crap. Have you got the phone? Mine is perfectly fine. There are no stability issues. There are few major issues period.

Yes I do. I'm the "proud" owner of a 16GB I8910 with the latest( I think, I8910XXIG2) firmware.
The podcast player is just plain broken, the web browser crashes alot and for no particular reason. It will be in the middle of loading a page, crash and exit and when I start it up again and try to load the same page it'll be fine.
But the stability isn't really my biggest concern. it's the performance. The speed of the web browser is really sub par. Only a little faster than my n95. And reading rafe's browser speed comparison that means it's actually slower than the 5800. And I've seen 5800 browser reviews on youtube and scrolling is smoother on the 5800!
There is no flick scrolling like there is on the n97, I have to manually turn on full screen after the page has loaded. When in landscape and in fullscreen the button to exit fullscreen mode is sometimes REALLY hard to hit. Forcing me to turn it over to portrait just to exit fullscreen. For some reason page scrolling in landscape is much more jerky than it is in portrait.
The s60 music player really loses alot of it's efficiency without a keyboard. The landscape coverflow like effect is not very smooth(which it should be! 600MHz with really powerfull 3d acceleration).

It's funny, a fairly common metaphor when reviewing smartphones is "It's like putting a fiat engine in a ferrari". This is more like putting a ferrari engine in a fiat. Although the fiat part is only the software. The hardware really is a Ferrari, probably the best hardware in the world at the moment.
When I bought this phone I knew that s60 5th wasn't the most intuitive or efficient os in the world. But I thought the cpu and that BEAUTIFUL screen would enable me to overlook it. I'm sad to say I was WRONG. :(