In the posts that have appeared up until now we have covered most important stuff, the only things missing are video calls, Opera Mobile, TV-out and navigation features. The last two topics will be in the last post, due to technical reasons, so let's see the other ones.

So video calls. It's hard to write about this: we can do it and it works. There are many options during calls, we can hide ourselves, we can switch between the front and back cameras, we can change camera settings (digital zoom, brightness, effects), we can take notes, so we really have anything we might need.

Many of you have been asking about Omnia's screen quality. To tell the truth, the best way to describe it would be "strong medium". We can't really call the 240 x 400 pixels that come with the 3.2" diagonal a high resolution and the display is weaker from other points of view too than the great competitor iPhone. Color fidelty, for example, is not that good, it's a bit harder to see in sunlight, so no matter what we say, this is a Windows Mobile handset, with an appropriate display. It has been asked many times: no, it's not a capacitive screen, but we can still control the default programs easily, first because the display is appropiately sensitive and second because this is how the GUI has been designed.

Hirdetés

And now let's see web browsing. There are two applications on the phone: Internet Explorer and Opera Mobile 9.5 (build 1663), and of course this latter one is the default. It works great, although it slows down a bit sometimes, but according to the promises there will be no such problems with the final handset. Unfortunately we can't use the volume control keys for zooming, so we can only do this by tapping the screen, as opposed to HTC Touch Diamond. There is no separate YouTube view, videoscan be played back with Streaming Player (this is the brother of TouchPlayer). Many had some doubts about usability, due to the display, so let's see some screenshots as an answer.

There is quite a high number of settings, the software has a pop-up blocker and JavaScript support too. On the whole I can say that although the software is not as good as Safari in the iPhone, but it's basically very good and easy to use, it is much better than other WM-based handsets.

I didn't yet mention that the Samsung menu (accessible with the bottom right softkey) has many views, not only the 3 x 4 icon grid you have seen until now. We can scroll the picture both vertically and horizontally, in the first case we can see 12 icons, while in the second case we can see an editable quick-launch part, which is highly useful. There is another feature I didn't mention yet: zooming. Anywhere, anytime. Keeping the volume up key depressed makes the phone zoom in the displayed image, may that be viewing an SMS, main menu, settings, anything. Zooming increases proprtionally with the time we keep the key pressed, this might be very handy for those with visual impairments! It's functionality is interesting and unique: the phone practically creates a screenshot of the display and it zooms this one, so functions don't work in this case, no matter we tap an icon, the application won't launch. We can return to normal view with a double-tap.

And finally here are some answers to your questions. Bluetooth can be turned on with six taps by default, just like on other WM-based handsets that don't provide access to the data communication manager software from the Today screen (so it's like this: Start > Settings > Connections > Bluetooth > Mode > Turn on Bluetooth). Unfortunately Bluetooth has no shortcut in the Samsung menu and we can't even create one manually. The music player cannot be controlled with the lateral keys, we can only use the touchscreen and the appropriate Widget, if we use the proper Today scheme. The phone doesn't overheat a lot, the back is a bit warmer during charging, and that's all. It doesn't disconnect from the network at all, or at least I didn't have such a problem. The black background theme is not installed on the phone I have, and I cannot set such a thing manually either, but it will hopefully be present on the final edition. I didn't observe anything special about synching, I could do anything that's supported by ActiveSync. There can be no complaints about the sensitivity of the built-in GPS recevier, Omnia does location very fast and it stays connected. And as I have already mentioned lots of times: iGO 8 runs on it!

I again would like to apologize for the lots of delays, and I hope that I have answered all of the questions. If not, then fell free to post them in the forums. There is one more post coming before the summary review, that will cover navigation and maybe the TV-out. I can't guarantee any date, as it mostly depends on things independent of us.