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Microsoft has been having some substantial progress in promoting their Windows Mobile platform, a statement especially true for the state of things on the native American market, where Symbian products only score about 5% of total sales (as of Q2 2008) The active growth of the Linux segment, the amazing popularity of iPhone and a generally unimpressive demand for Nokia in the US tell badly on the popularity of Symbian products. The yearly financial reports indicate a steady decrease in the sales of Symbian products. In such circumstances, WM is quickly gaining power regardless of the obvious disadvantages (the canon flaws of WM include poor ergonomics, that’s why there has been a lot of development done towards better finger-friendly touch interfaces)
HTC was the company to pioneer this frontier with their TouchFLO interface. While the competitors struggle to present their versions of the concept, the company made another crucial step, having presented the next version of their interface used by the Diamond model announced in London this summer. The model remains the most popular WM product so far, featuring superior technical specifications. The HD phone is going to replace it shortly in the position of the company’s flagship, the former meant as a response to the Samsung i900 Omnia, which is the world’s first 5 Mp PDA. The closest analogs HTC Touch HD and Asus Galaxy7 will appear a bit later, by the end of the year.
Samsung have never taken a priority in the development of smart gadgets, rather taking it for a hobby direction where experiments and mistakes were seen as acceptable and justifiable. Over the course of the recent months, the situation was subject to serious changes. Samsung did their best to stimulate the development of their smart gadget portfolio, shelling out i8510 for Symbian fans and i900 for the less numerous followers of Windows Mobile. The former even beats Nokia on their native soil, offering a 8 Mp camera mounted on the S60 platform earlier than the founding fathers of the platform themselves. The latter poses a challenge to HTC’s ultimate flagship. Both devices looks extremely promising, let’s start from WM.
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Networks
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GSM 850/900/1800/1900 and UMTS 850/900/2100
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GPRS/EDGE
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+/+
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Operating System
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Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
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CPU
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Marvell PXA312 624 MHz
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Storage
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256 Mb ROM, 8/16 Gb flash, 128 Mb RAM
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Screen
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touchscreen, 3,2”, WQVGA (400х240), 65K
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Expansion slot/p>
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microSD
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Wireless
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Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, supports A2DP, Wi-Fi
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GPS
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+
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Keyboard
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–
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Radio
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+ (RDS)
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Camera
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5,0, auto-focusing
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Battery
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1440 mAh
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Measurements, mm
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112x56,9x12,5
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Weight, g
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127
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Guiding price, 8 Gb / 16 Gb
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700 / 750 euros
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Samsung i900 is marketed under the Omnia and WiTu alternate depending on the region, Omnia being the official international name. The model has already started selling, the prices being different for the two versions with different amounts of ROM: the 8 Gb variant sells for 700 euros, and you have to pay an extra 50 euros for the 16 Gb model. The only available alternative is HTC Touch Diamond, but the above mentioned models are right on the horizon, appearing on the market shortly. But the Korean handset isn’t ever going to face any direct competitions, since Diamond is cheaper and doesn’t offer a comparable level of functionality.
The phone sports a really neat appearance, but there’s too much analogy with iPhone. An important difference from iPhone is the lack of metal. This makes the new Samsung appear falsely cheap. Even the chrome-styled framing is no more than painted plastic. The back panel has a texture designed to remind a grinded metal surface, but quickly grows worn spots and scratches.
Compared to Diamond, the device has the obvious advantage of being less exposed to soiling, which scores i900 a few more usability points. On the other hand, the HTC handset has a much better looking exterior. The measurements and weight of the new Samsung gadget are closer to those of iPhone, which isn’t going to fall to everybody’s liking. The screen is untypically large for a WM product – 3.2’’. Combined with a powerful camera and a large amount of storage, this makes the device a temptative bargain for the multimedia lovers, also carrying a high performance CPU. A 3.5 mm headset adapter is included in the sales package.
The quality of assembly seems rather average against the background of Diamond and iPhone – we really hope the commercial version will be stockier. Another thing we would want fixed (yet obviously to stay the way it currently is) is the ergonomics: it’s rather average, not to say poor. Samsung took an endeavor in reinvented the wheel, placing the stylus apart (in a fashion reminiscent of LG Viewty) and leaving but two buttons below the screen, apparently mimicking E-TEN. A rather unusual solution, hardly explainable to our mind.
On the other hand, a really pleasing moment still in place: the touchpad supporting text input makes you think of Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1. You can force the control element to show up on the screen or right in the browser window. Another good thing is that the casing manages to keep slim even containing a powerful camera like that. The side-positioned elements are something we weren’t too happy about – the charger and interface cable slots, as well as the audio socket, are all of the a firmware build, which is a worse option than standardized ones. The memory expansion slot doesn’t allow for hot swapping, you have to take out the battery prior to switching memory cards. Сравним с HTC Touch Diamond:
Let's compare to HTC Touch Diamond:
Let's compare to Apple iPhone:
The gadget is compatible with GSM 850/900/1800/1900 and UMTS 850/1900/2100 networks, offering a full GPRS/EDGE/HSDPA support. The wireless communication is done via Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR and Wi-Fi. Either of the two services work without problems.
A2DP enjoys a perfect implementation – the sound is loud and crystal clear. Unfortunately, upon the a rare connection release the sound signal output is automatically switched over to the onboard speaker instead of turning off, which is a hardly explainable quirk of the WM platform in general. Besides A2DP, the following Bluetooth profiles are supported:
- File Transfer
- Generic Access
- Generic Object Exchange
- Handsfree
- Headset
- HID
- Object Push
- Personal Area Networking
- Serial Port
- A2DP
- Audio/Video Remote Control
- SAP (SIM card access profile)
A standard Microsoft Wireless Manager is used, providing the very basic functionality. An alternative widget mode is available for this part of functionality, though, shown as a block of icons listing individual properties for the Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GSM connections, each of these being individually customizable via an associated shortcut on the right side. Just like any other widget, this one can be moved back to the panel and brought back at will.
The FM tuner can also work as a widget, showing a passive frequency indicator (just shows the current frequency) and the Forward, Back and On/Off button. The application itself is very convenient and has a good-looking interface. There are two separate lists for favorite stations with an unlimited capacity. A six favorite bookmarks are shown on the screen. You can record the radio at 128 Kbps. The incoming signal level is high, but the sound output isn’t the loudest.
Unsurprisingly, WiTu comes with an integrated GPS receiver. The GPS service is powered by the Route66 navigation software. A-GPS is supported, reducing the cold boot timeout to about one minute. The GPS signal isn’t as high as with Quallcomm chips used in HTC products, but you only get a chance to feel the difference in areas with thick vegetation or compact planning.
The RAM and ROM sizes amount to 128 and 256 Mb respectively, but that’s not just all of it: Omnia comes in two variants, sporting either a 8 Gb or a 16 Gb integrated flash storage, which makes the PDA a highly efficient multimedia player. The storage can be expanded further with a microSD flash card, but there’s no support for hot swapping. The senior variant comes with a 1 Gb flash containing the Route66 GPS map pack.
A RAM size as big as 128 Mb is something previously unseen among Wm products. As the mobile applications become increasingly more demanding and sophisticated, this becomes more of a requirement than an option. Even a simple Internet Explorer window eats up to 4-5 Mb of RAM, resulting in a total 15-20 Mb RAM usage if the maximum of four browser tabs are opened. The core of the operating system itself takes at least 25 Mb. Finally there come the widgets. Now you see why a typical 64 Mb of RAM won’t be enough.
The screen is probably the most challengeable point of i900. On the one hand, we get an a good quality and size (3.2’’, 240x400), good sun-resistance, yet the non-canonical resolution may cause problems in specific applications. We only encountered a few instances of this during the tests, yet the point should be kept in mind.
The camera is above all appraisals. Until an analogous Gigabyte model arrives, this will remain the sole camera smartphone leader on the whole WM market. A direct blogging feature for the photos is included. The photo quality is up to the standard established by some of the latest conventional phones by the brand, no surprises here. For the time being i900 is leading in this aspect, putting this atop of its feature list. The competing Diamond can’t pose any serious competition on this front, let alone iPhone.
The following settings are available:
A few test shots:
Let’s see how the zoom works:
Video samples:
тестовый ролик 1
тестовый ролик 2
As you see, the photo quality is pretty fine, but this doesn’t apply to the videos – even a mid-end Nokia with a 3 Mp camera does better at video recording. This is twice as true about the sound in the video clips, which is traditionally poor in all Samsung devices. That’s a long-lasting issue which has never been addressed with a proper attention.
The device is powered by one of the most powerful CPUs available to WM products, running at a 624 MHz frequency. All the menu actions, including working with widgets, go very quick and smooth. The total performance score appears to be on a level with Diamond judging by the results achieved in synthetic tests:
Both versions are powered by a 1500 mAh battery which stands for a long lifetime, making twice the score of Diamond even during intensive use. A normal duty cycle wastes a full battery charge over 2-3 days which is a nice score for a top WM smartphone.
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Multimedia cycle, video (3GP)
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5:01
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Multimedia cycle, audio (MP3)
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19:17
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WiTu is going to become the best sold WM PDA of its class. Priced around 700 euros, the model is a very timely and adequate addition to the assortment of PDAs available from today’s market. A powerful support for and from the local service providers will make it immensely popular over a short period of time. The promotional budget for WiTu amounts to millions of dollars, even involving TV ads. The WM platform has never been given such a mass-scale promotional support. As a result, the flaws of WiTu are going to be left largely unnoticed against the background of multiple strengths and the artificially created ad hype. We can’t imagine HTC Touch HD or ASUS Galaxy7 repeating the feat, Samsung having placed a crucial bet on their new PDA.
Samsung i900 WiTu produces an ambiguous impression. The camera is great, but the overall balance score for this device can’t beat that of Diamond, suffering from a higher price and a worse ergonomics. A full-plastic casing makes it look more plain that it actually is and doesn’t go really well with a hi-end solution. Still, i900 has all the required support to win an immense popularity among products of its class. It’s a really smart devices with a focus on multimedia bound to become popular with people who value the variety of features over their practical usefulness, Also, this gadget is the best WM cameraphone among all already available or going to start selling shortly.
+ Powerful cam
+ Large RAM size
+ Numerous widgets
+ Large screen
+ High performance
+ Long-lasting battery life
+ Slim casing
- Exterior-mounted stylus
- Firmware interface slot
- Non-canon screen resolution
- No hardware 3D accelerator
- No support for memory card hot swapping
Author: Dmitry Ryabinin, ryabinin@corp.mail.ru SMAPE.com
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Nokia
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