So here it is, the Samsung Omnia 7 - T-Mobile's 1st Windows Phone 7 phone. Weighing in at 138g, a 4 inch capasative touch screen, AMOLED display, 1Ghz CPU, and Windows Phone 7 OS.
I got the phone delivered on wednesday, and must say.... i like it. The phone itself feels nice in the hand, the screen is ultra bright & the OS is promising. I say promising because i'm not feeling it 100%. Something is missing...
I'll get to the bad points later. 1st, the good stuff.
- Xbox Live - The xbox live service is amazing!! No doubt the best feature / app on Windows Phone 7 to date.
- Internet Explorer - Did I just say that?? Yes, IE on this phone is great, not quite as good as iOs, but not a bad attempt.
- MS Office - only tried this once, but was able to create & edit a Excel file. Best Office app on any mobile
- The Marketplace - This has its good & bad points. The bad being the lack of content - only 1000 apps. But as the OS is only 4 weeks old, I cant really hold that against it. The good news is the layout. This is the best looking app store on any mobile... iOs, Blackberry, Android & Symbian. It looks lush.
And now the bad stuff
- MSN Messenger - Did MS really leave out msn messenger? or am i missing something
- No Backgrounding - WTF?? Not even suspended backgrounding like iOs? It really annoys me opening Twitter, only to find it has to load my entire lists from scratch.
- Live tiles - Live?? Really? Most of my tiles are static!! MS need to open this up to all apps.
- One home screen - Really dont think i could live with only 1 home screen... I really like the scrolling affect, but MS need to allow multiple home screens.
All in all, it's not a bad phone, but MS mad one massive mistake.....
Back in 2007, apple released the 1st iOs device, the iPhone. It was a smartphone, but was missing key things ALL other smartphone came with as standard. MMS, no backgrounding, no copy & paste, no 3rd party support, a locked down OS.... but somehow, Apple still made the iPhone the greatest gadget on earth....
Now, in 2010, MS seems to want to emulate what Apple did in 2007, by taking there phone back to basics. No copy & paste (yet), an extremely locked down OS, no backgrounding and total control of there devices. MS are trying to do in 2010, what Apple did in 2007. Will they succeed?? I hope so, because the OS is very promising, but needs some work.
The Samsung Omnia 7 will be going back on tuesday, as I don't think the OS is quite ready for the big time yet. I really believe it's time will come. Maybe in a few months I will return to Windows Phone 7. Until then, back to my beloved iPhone 4.
The Samsung Omnia 7 is available on T-Mobile UK from £35 per month. See:
Samsung Omnia 7 Specifications
| Band | Quad-band |
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| Weight | 138 g |
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| Size (mm) | 122 x 64 x 11 |
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| Talk time (up to) | 6 hr 10 mins |
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| Standby time (up to) | 330 hr |
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| Charge time (up to) | 2 hr 30 mins |
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