Should I Stay With Verizon And Get The Omnia 2 Or Switch To The iPhone?
So the time comes in every quazi-techy persons life. Should I get the iPhone? Unfortunately I can’t answer that for you for less than $1,000. There are many other devices to choose from but as I believe the only real competitor that is available/soon to be available is the Omnia 2 I am going to write this post as if these are your only two options. I am not going to do a full review of either phone as I have spent alot of time discussing them but if you want more information you can read up on the 100 reason I feel you should buy an iPhone and everything you could ever want to know about the Omnia 2.
Did you read up on those? Here we go.
Since none of you actually read the info from either of those links let me catch you up to speed on the Omnia 2. Since mid summer we have been hearing rumors of the O2 and in August it was released in other countries. It is a beautiful phone. I don’t believe anyone will argue with me if I say that the Omnia 2 hardware far surpasses the iPhone in almost every department except the Omnia 2 has a resistive screen while the iPhone has a capacitive screen which is much more finger friendly. Resistive screens are the soft screens that work best with a stylus like you see on PDAs and smart phones. Capacitive screens are the hard screens seen on iPhones and a few other phones like the G1. A regular stylus won’t work with these as something conductive needs to press on the screen.
Whoa, tangent. Moving on…
Some reasons you would go with the Omnia 2 include:
- Windows Mobile
- Handwriting recognition
- Capable of running multiple programs at once
- Hardware, hardware, hardware — Even after Verizon removes the forward facing camera and possibly locks down the GPS to only be usable with their Apps the Omnia 2 has very impressive hardware including a 5mpx camera and AMOLED screen(real quick, an AMOLED screen only turns on the pixels it needs. If you are viewing black those pixels are actually turned off allowing for deeper blacks, better colors and better battery life)
- On the Verizon network which–for the time being–is more reliable than ATTs
- Tethering(the ability to use your phones internet connection on your computer) — Not really a perk as the iPhone will be getting that soon and right now you can jailbreak your iPhone to allow you to do it now(don’t do this! Apple/ATT don’t want you to and I don’t want to hear from you saying you broke your iPhone. In case you forgot what I said one sentence ago, DON’T JAILBREAK YOUR IPHONE!!)
That about wraps it up. If WinMo is a need for you then there isn’t really a decision for you to make, however if you want me to convince you that you don’t need Windows Mobile I can do that for you as well.
Some reasons to buy the iPhone:
- The Omnia 2 isn’t and will never be as finger friendly and intuitive as the iPhone. –I went into a VZ store and messed around with the Rogue which has the same type of screen(AMOLED resistive) and same interface (sans WinMo) and I wasn’t very impressed. IMO a resistive touch screen is never going to feel as good with a finger as capacitive
- The Omnia 2 hardware is the only thing that I cared about that it has over the iPhone but after Verizon gets its hands on it there will no longer be the forward facing camera, GPS will most likely be restricted to their Apps and the TouchWiz 2.0 UI will probably be tainted with their “improvements”
- The iPhone has a huge community following that the CDMA version of the Omnia 2 will never have. If there is something you wish the iphone could do there is probably an App to do it. Verizon is probably going to block every App store except for their own.
- The iPhone OS is snappy, especially with the 3GS, allowing you to be much more efficient. From the videos I have seen of the Omnia 2 it is not as responsive and it is probably going to be even less so when it is running WinMo 6.5
- I don’t want to have to use a stylus!
- The iPhone is made around media as well as productivity. With WinMo you have to download 3rd party programs to play most media types.
- The iPhone exists and isn’t just a figment of our imagination that Verizon is using to keep us with them.
- PUSH. Currently with WinMo you have to set your device to connect to the internet and search for changes every so often which can hog battery life.
Well, not to void this entire post I decided to withhold the following information from you.
I got tired of waiting. After talking to several employees of the big red I gave up. I spoke to cust srv and said I was leaving for the iPhone saying I was tired of waiting for the Omnia 2. My contract has been up for a while. I told them if I could get any info confirming that the O2 would be coming out in the next month or two I would stay with Verizon. They responded saying they couldn’t tell me anything but they “hoped that it would be out in the next couple of months”.
She asked me what the iPhone had that a BB didn’t have…. I didn’t really know how to respond to that in 10 minutes or less so I didn’t.
After taking all of the above into consideration this is the decision that I made. I ordered two iPhones last night.
I am not saying the O2 isn’t a good phone. It is beautiful and the international GSM versions I have seen have been incredible, but the forward facing camera for video conferencing was a big thing for me and since Verizon will be removing that my decision was easier.
I have said plenty good about the O2 and if I knew when I could get my hands on it and just how tainted by verizon it was I may have stuck around. But it comes down to the fact that it has been several months since we heard about the O2 and we dont have any information about it. And, now that I am with ATT I will always have the option of getting an international unlocked GSM version of it in all of its forward facing camera glory.
Everyone can make their own decision. I have said plenty about both the iPhone and Omnia 2. Here it is again:
http://www.forcatech.com//2009/07/100-reasons-to-buy-an-iphone/
http://www.forcatech.com//tag/omnia-2/
Go with the iPhone…always.
I made the mistake of thinking I could outwit apple by getting essentially the same great functionality and storage abilities of the iPod at a far lower price buy purchasing a Zune. The Zune is a microsoft product built to compete with an apple product. Did you catch that??? I will say it again: “The Zune is a microsoft product built to compete with an apple product.”
By definition, that makes it a very bad product. The Zune software sucks at best and is completely useless at worst, as in it DID NOT WORK. I couldn’t even install the software on my computer. I tried everything. All the updating, following all the instructions (there weren’t any), making phone calls, being on hold with Microsoft, long emails back and forth with tech support. They didn’t even know how to get it to install. It was a nightmare. I still have not been able to successfully install Zune on my personal laptop. I got it on another computer and loaded media on my now doorstop of a zune.
Then, find out that lots of nice and intuitive features that I like in itunes and with iPods are unavailable in the zune. That is what I get for trying to outwit apple.
Don’t try it. Just go with the flow. Apple has everyone’s best interest in mind, that is how they are slaughtering the competition. Respond to your consumer, open your product up to the community for the community to add value back to the product. Be cutting edge, be simple, be intuitive, in other words, be everything Microsoft is not!
I learned my lesson. I will be getting an iPhone eventually when data plans don’t require me to sell my child into servitude!
I just wish ATT had better service/coverage and slightly better pricing. I am considering switching to tmobile. The G1 is tempting.
get the HTC Hero, Moto Cliq, or Samsung InstintQ/Moment.
Sprint and TMO have much better pricing, with better customer service than ATT. Oh, and for Sprint and TMO, it’s not “acceptable” to get 30% of your calls dropped.