Don
- Joined
- 20 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 17,070
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- In a house
So, last Tuesday I took delivery of my Windows Phone 7 equipped Samsung Omnia 7 phone.
OS review will follow later.
So, first impressions of the device on opening the box are very good. The aluminium body feels cold to the touch after its many hours in a delivery van in a cold October morning! Initial slotting together was really very easy, and the curved edges make holding the device quite comfortable. Although less so than the massively grip friendly and larger Toshiba TG01. The battery cover (hence 90% of the back of the device is aluminium. Another nice touch that operator branding (Orange in my example) is isolated to the plastic base cover. I suspect this can easily be removed by the usual methods.
Front on the device looks purposefull and simple. Its not a device with a massive amount of flair, or flourishes in the look department. Its a serious look and some might call it bland. I think I prefer the term "understated". The standard 3 buttons are available on the front. The "Windows" (home?) button is recessed and concave in shape, an feels smooth to the touch.
All the hardware buttons on the side of the phone are nestled inside the aluminiun casing, and are plastic in construction. Keypresses are solid and re-assuring, and the camera button has a half-press/focus function.
The top and bottom of the device are a plastic and the top contains a small sliding door to hide/keep clean the micro-usb port. A neat little touch! And the 3.5mm jack socket it also housed on the top. in my opinion, this is the best place for it. Having the two sockets on the same face makes perfect sense!
Powering on, and the first thing you notice is the blackness of the screen. Its not a wishy washy grey, but a deep solid and beautifull clean black! Initial setup of the device is quite simple, sign in to a few things, and import some contacts over as per usual!
The OS navigation is so quick and smooth, it's really a revelation. Menus are quick, and loading times between features are minimal. Animations and screen sensitivity are perfect.
Once you have the home-screen set as you want it, finding what you need is rarely more than a couple of gestures away. Most of the time, it's one click. This makes fiddling around through menus obsolete. I have not had to mess about much at all! No instructions use was needed.
Battery life has so far been impressive. Never had to worry about my battery dying during the day, and thats with 2 hotmail accounts syncing, plenty of games play and texting/calling. That to me is exactly what is needed. 24 hours of full use between charges. 48 hours with lower use and no games should be easily do-able.
The screen quality is awesome. The HD video example of the phone playes seamlessly, smooth, and with fantastic colours. People really do comment when they see the video.
I think I made the right choice going to the Omnia, it seems the right mix of screen size/looks/design and the screen quality pushed it to the forefront for me.
Overall, this is a top notch device. Easy to use, powerful, neat and feature-packed.
It gets a 4.5 out of 5 for me. To get the full 5, it would need to be a tiny bit prettier, and smoother edged for more comfort, but I am really nit-picking
OS review will follow later.
So, first impressions of the device on opening the box are very good. The aluminium body feels cold to the touch after its many hours in a delivery van in a cold October morning! Initial slotting together was really very easy, and the curved edges make holding the device quite comfortable. Although less so than the massively grip friendly and larger Toshiba TG01. The battery cover (hence 90% of the back of the device is aluminium. Another nice touch that operator branding (Orange in my example) is isolated to the plastic base cover. I suspect this can easily be removed by the usual methods.
Front on the device looks purposefull and simple. Its not a device with a massive amount of flair, or flourishes in the look department. Its a serious look and some might call it bland. I think I prefer the term "understated". The standard 3 buttons are available on the front. The "Windows" (home?) button is recessed and concave in shape, an feels smooth to the touch.
All the hardware buttons on the side of the phone are nestled inside the aluminiun casing, and are plastic in construction. Keypresses are solid and re-assuring, and the camera button has a half-press/focus function.
The top and bottom of the device are a plastic and the top contains a small sliding door to hide/keep clean the micro-usb port. A neat little touch! And the 3.5mm jack socket it also housed on the top. in my opinion, this is the best place for it. Having the two sockets on the same face makes perfect sense!
Powering on, and the first thing you notice is the blackness of the screen. Its not a wishy washy grey, but a deep solid and beautifull clean black! Initial setup of the device is quite simple, sign in to a few things, and import some contacts over as per usual!
The OS navigation is so quick and smooth, it's really a revelation. Menus are quick, and loading times between features are minimal. Animations and screen sensitivity are perfect.
Once you have the home-screen set as you want it, finding what you need is rarely more than a couple of gestures away. Most of the time, it's one click. This makes fiddling around through menus obsolete. I have not had to mess about much at all! No instructions use was needed.
Battery life has so far been impressive. Never had to worry about my battery dying during the day, and thats with 2 hotmail accounts syncing, plenty of games play and texting/calling. That to me is exactly what is needed. 24 hours of full use between charges. 48 hours with lower use and no games should be easily do-able.
The screen quality is awesome. The HD video example of the phone playes seamlessly, smooth, and with fantastic colours. People really do comment when they see the video.
I think I made the right choice going to the Omnia, it seems the right mix of screen size/looks/design and the screen quality pushed it to the forefront for me.
Overall, this is a top notch device. Easy to use, powerful, neat and feature-packed.
It gets a 4.5 out of 5 for me. To get the full 5, it would need to be a tiny bit prettier, and smoother edged for more comfort, but I am really nit-picking
) this is a massive improvement but then a 3310 would also be from that phone.
)
