After months of delay, the 'Ambassador' programme for the Samsung i8910 HD (used to be called the Omnia HD) has kicked off, with the production devices now delivered to contacts across the world. This means that SIM-free, unlocked phones are now in mainstream English reviewer hands for the first time. See below for some first impressions and, most importantly, sample HD video footage from the i8910 HD's camera. [Updated with new video sample, new compatibility notes]

Here's the box contents, by the way. Good to see the inclusion of a TV out cable, something that Nokia are omitting on their recent top end phones. 

The phone is nigh-on identical to the late prototype that Rafe and I examined and reported on in detail earlier in the year. Before going any further with our current/upcoming coverage, I suggest you read:

Samsung Omnia HD Preview (i8910) - Part 1 - General Design and Hardware

Samsung Omnia HD Preview (i8910) - Part 2 - Camera (HD video) and Multimedia

and Samsung Omnia HD Preview (i8910) - Part 3 - GPS, Web, TouchWiz, Software 

A few technical details of interest:

• The firmware shipped here is dated 15th June and is labelled "I8910XXIF7". This is apparently Italy-centric and indeed the default language of the received hardware was 'Italian', though changing it all over to English was one setting away. I'm guessing that it was easier for Samsung to pull 50 production phones out of the Italian market than to put something together for the UK - maybe it'll never appear over here SIM-free and non-import? Orange's stranglehold?
   
• The PC Suite CD that comes with the phone is v7.2.24.9.
   
• Plugging the one into the other(!) revealed a new firmware update, IG2, which installed fine. HOWEVER, there's no User Data Preservation - everything gets wiped, so you have to do a full backup beforehand and then restore.
   
• There's also no Over The Air firmware update facility - apparently this isn't a technology Samsung have licensed (from Red Bend) - a shame for a 2009 smartphone.
   
• The C disk (internal flash memory) is only 40MB total, so most applications will have to be installed onto the 'Mass Memory', here 8GB.
   
• Total RAM is 256MB and free RAM after booting was 154MB, a huge improvement on the Nokia 5800 and N97, both also running S60 5th Edition.
   
• The i8910 HD is VERY fast. It's fully booted and ready for work after 24 seconds. The full AAS front page, including adverts, loaded in 15 seconds.
   
• As we reported in our previews, and contrary to other blogger early reports, the i8910 HD doesn't have any mechanical camera glass protection.
   
• The digital compass that's built-in requires the same wrist-flicking as required by the N97, i.e. it needs manual calibration.

Samsung do seem to have sorted out their audio/video sync issues, thankfully. Here's a sample video shot on the i8910 HD today, with IG2 firmware and associated higher quality (AAC) audio. Click the thumbnail to play or download the full 50MB MP4 video file at full 1280 by 720 pixel resolution. Comments welcome.

Other points of interest:

• The Google apps suite isn't present, but this is good as it means that the standard/latest applications can be installed from the Web. E.g. the latest Google Maps 3.2 with Layers installed and worked fine.
   
• Text input using the capacitive screen was improved slightly from the prototype Rafe and I played with. Samsung has tweaked the haptic feedback and audio confirmation of each 'keystroke' and it makes a big difference, typing is almost enjoyable now.
   
• There was no sign of the FM Transmitter rumoured by some in the prototypes.
   
• The demo videos Rafe and I saw on the prototype are also preloaded here, with some extras.
   
• BBC iPlayer widget works fine, interestingly, installed from the usual www.bbc.co.uk/mobile/iplayer/iplayer.wgz - although there's understandably not a 'Download' option, due to the lack of proper DRM permissions. Quality looks like its getting the 5800's feed (QVGA?)
   
• Bizzarely, Samsung has copied Nokia's Nseries confusion by including FOUR ways to play video (not including launching them from the File manager or Web browser!) and two photo browsers. Surely some product manager bod, at some point, should have looked at the screen and thought "now that's a bit silly"? Just saying...
   
• Maybe it goes without saying, but the i8910 HD is as buggy as previous Samsung S60 phones I've hammeredplayed with. It's fairly easy to get Gallery to slow to a standstill and get the processor going at 100% in a loop... There's the Web bug above, I've had several 'Connection error's and Podcasting gives me pages of incorrectly rendered Unicode text. Just as examples. Hopefully, this time Samsung will be consistent in supplying fixes and updates.
   
• A 'Game' folder contains 'Asphalt 4', in native S60 (but not N-Gage) form - this plays very well with the built-in accelerometer for steering, plus a couple of install files for Java MIDlet games.
   
• Video editing is completely broken, Samsung seem to have (temporarily?) removed the function.

Feel free to fire in questions below, but note that we've only just got the device, that it's the weekend approaching and that it's school holidays here in the UK - there are only so many hours in the day!!

Steve Litchfield, All About Symbian, 23rd July 2009