Samsung Omnia 2 Coming To Verizon, Confirmed
The Omnia 2 has been officially announced for a Verizon release later this year. It has a 3.7 inch 480 x 800 pixel screen–largest screen ever put on a cell phone. While this is no iPhone 3GS it is a beautiful phone and has some features worth mentioning.
First the bad. It is going to come with Windows Mobile 6.1. Windows Mobile has never been a finger friendly intuitive touch screen OS like the iPhone has. Every smart phone I have ever owned or used that had Windows Mobile on it made me feel like I needed a stylus. With the iPhone it feels smoth and natural with your fingers.
It does have the Samsung TouchWiz 2.0 as you can see on the left side in the picture above but it is still just sitting on top of WM6. There will be the option to upgrade to WM6.5 which is suppose to be much more finger friendly.
One of the features that initially jumped out at me was the forward facing camera at the top left corner of the screen in the above picture. This with 3G or Wi-Fi and a program like Skype would allow you to video conference with a friend.
We don’t know much about the phone right now–Verizon is limiting the amount of info that Samsung can release now but here is what we do know:
- 65K WVGA AMOLED Display (3.7-inch, 480 x 800–largest AMOLED display yet in a phone)
- Advanced R-type Touch Screen
- Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional (upgradeable to WM 6.5)
- 5-megapixel CMOS camera with autofocus and face-detection, plus geotagging and a photo editor
- Video recording at 30fps@720×480, plus video editor (trim video, audio dubbing, live dubbing, add subtitle much like the iPhone 3GS)
- Audio supported: MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA, WMDRM, OMA DRM 2.1, plus FM radio
- Video supported: DivX, XviD, H.263, H.264, WMV9, MPEG4
- A-GPS with Navigation (3D Map)/LBS
- TouchWiz 2.0 UI with Mobile Widget/3D Media Gate
- Multitask manager/3D Interactive Games
- Bluetooth Stereo Headset (A2DP)
- WiFi
- 2GB/8GB/16GB of internal memory (3 different models)
- microSDHC expansion slot (up to 32GB)
- Up to 10 hours (3G) talk time
- Up to 430 hours (3G) standby time
- Dimensions: 4.65 x 2.36 x 0.47 inches (HWD)
For those trapped by the Verizon regime using Verizon who don’t have the option to get an iPhone this phone could be a good way to hold you over for a few years until the iPhone comes to Verizon if you want to get an iPhone with Verizon and pay more per month.
There isn’t an official release date yet but we can expect this phone to hit Verizon stores later this year.
