Samsung Omnia W: What I think of it

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I got this amazing phone, Samsung Omnia W housing the Windows Phone (WP) 7.5 "Mango" operating system (OS) as a gift from my dad about a week ago (Thank you Dad!). In this post, I will be sharing my experience after using this phone strictly as an end-user, as I've done for my previous mobile reviews. This review does not contain any tech specs, you can find them easily by clicking here. But the following basic points can be mentioned:

• Samsung Omnia W I8350
• WP 7.5 OS (aka "Mango") Operating System
• 1.4 GHz Scorpion Processor
• 3.7 inch SuperAMOLED touch screen (Gorilla glass)
• 8 GB internal storage, non-expandable
• 512 MB RAM
• 5 MP primary camera, with Auto-focus and flash
• VGA secondary (front) camera
• WiFi, USB
• Etc. etc.

For this review, I thought that instead of writing a "worded" review, I'll jot down my experience as points and post them here. Well, maybe because there was so much to write about this phone that I got a little bit lazy! But more than that, I thought bulletined points would make for quick reading for those looking for quick user feedback on the phone.

My Samsung Omnia W is, like I said, a week old. I got it for INR 15,500/- (plus change) at Sangeetha, Bangalore. I went in expecting the price to be about INR 17,500/- but was pleasantly surprised by the lower price on offer. Apparently, that's because Nokia Lumia 710 slashed its price hence Samsung followed suit with its competition.

Below are my tit-bits about this phone. The last week, I would just note down these points as I experienced them, in the online Microsoft SkyDrive OneNote application. This was stored in the cloud (SkyDrive), opened in the phone, points added, and synced back to the cloud. The experience (as you shall read later in one of my points) was quite nice.

- User interface is clean, fast and responsive

- SuperAMOLED screen is awesome

- Call logs store each and every call/text/chat for all contacts. Does not club them per contact.

- The "People" hub is simply amazing

- Seamless integration with Facebook, Twitter, Google Mail

- Cannot create custom MP3 ringtones

- Voice and video calling is great

- Primary 5MP camera works really well

- Stock earphones suck

- Copy paste is easy but no option to "Select All", or "Cut" (only Copy)

- Same volume level used for music output and ringtone

- Music player is just OK

- No equalizer for music player

- Apps are less but growing steadily

- No apps for chats (GTalk, Skype)

- Bing search is decent

- Bing Maps suck

- Use the "gMaps" app for GPS navigation

- Microsoft Office is good, but can only create Word and Excel.

- PowerPoint can be viewed and edited only, NOT created

- Wireless sync with desktop is cool

- SkyDrive works quite well

- WiFi is nice, detects and switches to wireless networks automatically

- Zune desktop software needs to be downloaded and installed (101MB)

- Zune desktop software not very easy to operate

- Phone gets regular updates from Windows

- Internet Explorer works well, with multiple tab facility

- Can switch between 5 processes (Alt-Tab)

- Live Tiles can be ordered, switched, changed

- Main menu only lists all apps in one huge list alphabetically

- No option to club apps/folders like iPhone

- Battery life decent, about 12hours with medium to heavy usage (calls,texts,video,browsing)

- Look and feel of phone good. Slim and light easy to carry and hold

- Speech recognition works quite well but it's no Siri

- Strangely sending texts fails a lot of times, need to keep retrying

- Shows the Facebook profile pic of a contact ONLY for incoming calls, not for outgoing

- Built in themes are a joke

- Windows Live ID needed to access SkyDrive. Apps and Windows settings depend on the location specified in that ID

- Photos will show all photos in the phone, in SkyDrive and albums from your Facebook

- Dictionary/auto-correction when typing is nice. Adding custom words is a breeze

- Message hub is fantastic. One place for text and Facebook chats (conversation style per contact). Wish GTalk was also integrated.

- No "drafts" facility in messages, only in mails

- With earpiece connected, difficult to use the QWERTY keypad in landscape mode

My rating for this phone: 4 out of 5 stars

Closest competition (WP 7.5 only): Nokia Lumia 710, HTC Radar (The Nokia Lumia 800 is almost twice the price hence is not a "close" competitor per se, in my opinion, but definitely worth taking a look at).

Final Verdict: This is a great bang-for-the-buck phone. If you can live with about 5 GB of space (of course, the 25 GB of SkyDrive is not counted here), not so great music player and some of the negatives that I've pointed out, then this is a great phone to buy. This is not a flashy phone, and its looks are not attention seeking. But having said that, this sleek and light phone in the age of behemoth smartphones feels solid to hold and use.