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Samsung Omnia 7 review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £300
inc VAT

A great AMOLED screen and great build quality make the Omnia 7 an attractive phone, but Windows Phone 7 means your content is tied to Zune

Specifications

Windows Phone 7, 4.0in 480×800 display

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Samsung’s Omnia 7 is a first-generation Windows Phone 7 handset, and although the 7.5 “Mango” update is ready, it hasn’t yet passed the network operator certification process. Thanks to Microsoft’s early announcement, we know what to expect from Mango, so it’s not hard to imagine what the Omnia 7 will be like with the update.

Samsung Omnia 7

Windows Phone 7 is an attractive touch-based OS with a lot of potential. Mango looks to fix many of the problems with the initial release, adding cut-and-paste, multi-tasking and deeper social aggregation – pulling email from multiple accounts into one inbox and grouping contacts to aggregate their updates.

We still have some issues with the OS. Only “partners” will be able to deeply integrate their apps into the operating system, so only the largest social networks and services will be featured. Despite growing to 30,000 apps, Microsoft’s Marketplace is still way behind the competition. There are a number of high-profile apps such as Evernote, Last.fm and Twitter, but still no official Facebook app. The majority of apps are amateur efforts, with plenty of unofficial apps for popular services that turn out simply to be links to the service’s web page.

Samsung Omnia 7 top

Windows Phone’s live tiles are an interesting concept, but we find Android’s more customisable, multiple home screens, where you can place interactive widgets, shortcuts or bookmarks, far more flexible. As it’s sold, the Omnia 7 comes with a fairly decent selection of apps, with Office Mobile being the star of the show. However it’s undermined by the fact that you can’t browse the phone’s contents directly, and the Zune desktop syncing software is focused entirely on multimedia, so it’s impossible to drop files from your PC onto the phone to edit them. Even if you open a file via another app, the Office app doesn’t keep a copy. The only way seems to be via a Microsoft Sharepoint server, which home users are unlikely to have.

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Details

Price £300
Rating ***

Hardware

Main display size 4.0in
Native resolution 480×800
Second Display No
CCD effective megapixels 5-megapixel
Flash LED
Video recording format MP4
Connectivity Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, USB
GPS yes
Internal memory 8192MB
Memory card support none
Memory card included N/A
Operating frequencies GSM 850/900/1800/1900, 3G 900/2100
Wireless data EDGE, HSPA
Size 122x64x11mm
Weight 138g

Features

Operating system Windows Phone 7
Microsoft Office compatibility Word/Excel/PowerPoint editors
Email client POP3/IMAP/Exchange
Audio format support MP3, WAV, eAAC+, WMA
Video playback formats MPEG4, WMV
FM Radio yes
Web Browser Internet Explorer
Accessories charger, USB cable
Talk time 6.2 hours
Standby time 13.8 days
Tested battery life (MP3 playback) 22h 53m

Buying Information

SIM-free price £264
Price on contract £30-per-month, 18-month contract
SIM-free supplier www.handtec.co.uk
Contract/prepay supplier www.affordablemobiles.co.uk
Details www.samsung.com/uk

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