Samsung I900

rev_henry

Cavey wrote: »

The HTC Diamond is similar, has a higher resolution screen, but doesn't have expandable memory. Is also to be known as the T-Mobile MDA Compact IV. The Sony Xperia X1 is also due soon, but I don't know where you can get it from other than SIM unlocked. The HTC Touch Pro should be due soon and is a little more appealing to me as it has the QWERTY keyboard. Am going to have to wait until I can actually try an Omnia and see whether the screen is any good to type on.

There are also older phones, like the TyTN II, that are still available and are "N95 with a touch screen"-like, but the newer phones do have a somewhat enhanced and improved user interface.

The deal VaVaVoom got sounds tempting, but I am not on Orange so can't go through retentions Wonder whether it will make it to O2.

Yes it does, thanks very much for all that. I was aware of your first point a little, so I guess the question is does the diamond produce photos of equal quality to the n95 or the omnia?

Oops, sorry. Meant to quote your later post!

Cavey

rev_henry wrote: »

Yes it does, thanks very much for all that. I was aware of your first point a little, so I guess the question is does the diamond produce photos of equal quality to the n95 or the omnia?

I have not had all three phones, but comparative photos are usually posted by sites reviewing the phones. They tend to take a variety of images of the dark indoors/outdoors/motion/variable range types and then post them, unedited and at full resolution so people can compare them themselves.

For example, this site here has a review of the Samsung i900 Omnia vs HTC Diamond Touch (and the HTC Touch Pro and Sony Xperia, both manufactured by HTC and come with a qwerty keyboard).

Then, if you find a page for the N95 such as this review of it here.

By the looks of things I'd say the Diamond and Omnia are closely matched in terms of Quality, but the larger resolution of the Omnia will make its images more usable (ie they can be blown up bigger). The image on the N95 lacks details (for example look at the grass in this image from the allaboutsymbian.com review). However, this could be due to the photographer having it set to a setting that is not the highest, as they look more like JPEG artefacts than anything caused by the camera. The images otherwise seem to be as good as the others (focusing, colour and motion-blur wise).

If I haven't said before, what puts me off the Diamond is the 4Gb built in memory and no expansion card. Given the Omnia comes with 8Gb (or 16Gb) PLUS expansion card makes it a no brainer. And if you love the interface, if you give it a bit of time a clone will almost certainly appear on XDA Developers in the very near future. From what I can see, the Omnia blows the Diamond out of the water.

Vodafone's Omnia is locked and branded (in special Voda packaging and all, it has a different model number, i900v), the home screen right softkey has been changed from main menu access to a link to Vodafone live!, and Google Maps is missing. All the settings were mysteriously locked. Maybe they did that for the demonstration unit, perhaps someone with an Omnia from Voda can furnish further details?

I don't know how easy it is to install additional applications on a Windows Mobile device or if it can be debranded. Anyway they said they would unlock it for £20. The lady mentioned that if I updated the firmware from the manufacturer I would lose the Voda customizations. As mentioned, I am not sure if there are technical barriers to this; a Google search on 'samsung omnia debrand' turned up nothing useful.

Unless Vodafone have done something stupid and crippled the phone (this is something the Japanese carrier Softbank has been known to do and no-one, not even Softbank, can unlock it), unlocking is a 5 minute job, for free, with a tool from XDA-Developers.

De-branding a windows mobile is not like debranding most other phones. In some ways it is more complicated, in other ways it is easier.

You can install applications and thereby change it to how you want it to be with little trouble. Google maps is an application, it is easy enough to install it. Changing the soft key to something normal is a registry edit. Which settings did you mean were locked? If they are locked, chances are you will be able to find a work around, either using the registry to enable editing or to edit them directly.

If however you want to flash a whole new ROM, you need to CID (Carrier ID) unlock the device. This is NOT the same as SIM unlocking (which allows you to use a different SIM). CID unlock allows you to use a different carriers ROM, but the way this is being done appears to be changing since WM6.1 was released. Mostly, I don't find flashing useful as I can customise my XDA easily enough (although O2 don't *heavily* brand their WM phones), so I mostly avoid it.

fiish

I went scouting Omnias again... Phones4u are offering the black one (8GB) with Orange for £35/month for 18-months, either with 600/unlimited or 700/100 minutes/texts respectively. Web browsing is an additional 2.50/month. They also offered it with Voda for £55/month but a 12-month contract. Finally one P4u shop told me I could get it with the £45 O2 tariff but they can't have the unlimited web bolton that direct O2 customers get.

Incidentally they are also offering a '16GB' white Omnia which is really an 8GB one with an 8GB microSD card in the box. No one could give me any pricing details because they didn't have any in stock.

Now that it's being offered on multiple networks, I can confirm from more than one P4u outlet that the handsets are unlocked.

Cavey, I followed your tip and had a look on XDA Developers, the tools they have for unlocking don't include the Omnia in the compatibility list (I saw tools for XDA I, II and Mini), so it seems there is currently no cheap way of unlocking the device (unless I misread the tool's spec).

Cavey

fiish wrote: »

Cavey, I followed your tip and had a look on XDA Developers, the tools they have for unlocking don't include the Omnia in the compatibility list (I saw tools for XDA I, II and Mini), so it seems there is currently no cheap way of unlocking the device (unless I misread the tool's spec).

I am assuming you had a look at the "all in one sim unlock tool". Have to admit I managed to not think that one through, am just so used to WM devices being easy to unlock.

The problem with XDA-Developers (if there is one) is that it only caters for HTC devices. While the Sony XPeria X1 is a HTC device and probably will get covered, the Samsung Omnia is not and will not be give its own section (although you might find answers to questions do pop up on XDA-Dev).

My second port of call with all things WM is Modaco - http://i900.MoDaCo.com This does have a proper i900 section although there's nothing on there about it being unlocked yet. I doubt it will take too long to appear...

fiish

I read the threads on Voda Omnias on MoDaCo and it seems that they're shipping them branded and unlocked. This is contrary to what the store told me. I am wondering if it's possible to get a good deal on this phone by ringing Voda up directly.

There's still the matter of O2 and my contract with them, perhaps I shall take Voda's offer to them and see what happens....

fiish

The Omnia is now available on Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone at varying price points. Vodafone's seems to be cheapest currently at £35 per month on a 12 month contract (yes, I'm not kidding ), while Orange have raised its price so high even the highest tariff won't get it for free.

T-Mobile's Omnia is locked according to the retentions fellow I spoke to. Vodafone say theirs is locked but anecdotal evidence from MoDaCo indicates this is not the case. Orange's Omnia is a generic unbranded SIM free handset. As far as I can tell the Phones4u Omnias are SIM free as well.

Dave2012_2

Do you think O2 will get it? They seem to be giving out very mixed messages as to whether/when they will stock it. Personally I've been told 2 weeks, but I know others who have been told anything from "don't know" to "never"

Very tempted to ditch O2 and get the Vodafone offer at this point

Cavey

Dave2012 wrote: »

Do you think O2 will get it? They seem to be giving out very mixed messages as to whether/when they will stock it. Personally I've been told 2 weeks, but I know others who have been told anything from "don't know" to "never"

Very tempted to ditch O2 and get the Vodafone offer at this point

O2 always seem to be a bit behind the times, but do also seem to produce some of the best firmware. Perhaps the two are linked. They only just released the Diamond on their network, and that was on T-Mobile quite a while back.

Dave2012_2

update... I wouldn't hold your breath if you're waiting for one from O2 directly, I rang up for my PAC and was pushed hard to have an iPhone as expected. When I said I didn't particularly want to leave O2 but had my heart set on an Omnia, he gave up and sent the PAC.... you'd think he would have said "hang on a couple weeks / months" etc if there was any likelihood of it coming soon.

shona_2

What did you do in the end, Fiish?

I'm looking at deals on this too... Vodafone/Dialaphone seem best so far

Shona