Samsung Omnia CDMA User Reviews

I bought this phone based on all the things it can do, which is a lot.  Great pic with the 5.0, internet, Excel & Word, music, etc.  The problem is the performance.  The virtual buttons on-screen are too small, you need the annoying sylus-on-a-string to really get accurate results.  Even making calls is multi-step process.  I love it's capabilities, but it's too hard and terribly tedious to use, especially on the go.  In addition, there are tons of posts online from people trying to figure out the Critical Memory Low error.  I've been through all the suggestions, but still can't free up enough memory.  Just turning the phone is en exercise in patience since it takes so long to switch from portrait to landscape. If I wasn't already a Verizon customer, I would have gotten the iphone.

this phone is pretty good! i like having 5 megapixels on the camera, however my old LG Dare took just as good pics. The touch screen is real good. I installed SBP Mobile Shell on it and it runs real smooth. The windows media player works good on this phone and the speakers are nice and clear. I'd recomend this phone for sure.
 

As you read other reviews, they are mostly spot on with this phone. It overall is an excellent device with a lot of difference features and very customizable (if you know what you're doing) with the windows mobile interface. I wouldn't really recommend a phone like this to a casual user as you could potentially get very frustrated and get lost while moving around in the phone. I wouldn't say I'm an expert in computers, but I know my way around and this works very well for me.

The touch screen, despite what I've heard, is very good. The only drawback is that with windows mobile, not everything is quite as finger friendly as other things. I've found myself struggling to hit the 'x' button in the top corner several times to try and get it to register, but I've had no problem flicking around through webpages or using other, bigger buttons with barely a swipe.

The battery life is another area where people seem to have questions. If you a typically heavy user (constant music, internet, etc.) your battery will drain rather quickly (this is the case for any phone). I only use it typically lightly. I'll use it heavily for only about an hour or so a day, so I can go a few days without having to charge the battery.

I do with that some of the menus were more user friendly. Basic menus (phonebook, texts, etc.) are a chore to get to and navigate in. Just to check a text, I have to go through 3 screens to see what it said. However, I'm sure there is a program out there to help fix this issue, so its not that big of a deal.

The keyboard works suprising well. I am a large person and subsequently large fingers, but I find that I can easily type with the on-screen keyboard. I can actually type better with the potrait keyboard (with the very, very narrow keys) than on the landscape keyboard. How the keyboard worked was a deal-breaker for me and this was excellent.

Like I said, overall, this is a very good phone. It does what its supposed (for better or for worse) and then some. It gets good reception and I can even surf the internet in an elevator.

At first glance, you think this is just an updated windows mobile phone....but its far from it. The new windows programming is so much different, it takes a bit to get used to. Second off, the battery life is TERRIBLE. I've been searching for an extended battery forever, but have yet to find one, and I don't think Verizon will be making one since they are already coming out with the Omnia II. The camera is amazing on this phone! Just make sure to save your pics to either your memory card or the storage memory. Avoid saving ANYTHING to the phone memory, as soon you will get error messages saying, "Storage Memory is critially low, please move files." And avoid moving any program files, as when you do that, you will no longer be able to use those programs as for the phone will no longer be able to find them. Make sure you go into your texting options and set it up to save your files to your storage memory, otherwise it saves them to the phone memory and the critically low memory error message will come up alot. After you set up this phone for the best performance, the phone works great. Also, I'm not a fan of using the computer program to back up everything. I've found that spending the 30 bucks or so to download SPB Backup from VZAppzone is the best option, as it is like Backup Assistant only better. If you like smart phones, this is definately one of the best ones on the market, after you set it up properly.

Being the tech enthusiast that I am, I knew what I was getting with the Omnia. I did research for months before I bought it so I knew exactly what to expect. For me, it's spectacular: Windows Mobile has good email capabilities, allows you to customize just about anything using a variety of programs and it can even multitask. For example, I can sign into IM, stream Pandora online radio and browse the web all at the same time. It's got Bluetooth and WiFi that work well, a VERY nice camera (not as good as a standalone camera but probably better than your current phone's camera), FM Radio, and it's got a sleek profile. The dongle for headphones makes the connection a bit more cumbersome but works the same as a regular jack and isn't anything to worry about.
That all being said, the sleek body isn't super durable: I've already got a couple of light scratches on the front and back, and it's only been in my pocket the past 4 days that I've had it. If you go for this phone, I highly recommend getting a case along with it or shortly afterwards. Right out of the box, the phone works fine but I made a few tweaks and changes and is much better than when I first started with it. For example I've changed the Today screen, put in a better keyboard (FingerKeyboard2, free and highly recommended) and increased the finger friendliness a bit.
Windows Mobile is very powerful indeed, but the stock interface is a bit long in the tooth, and Samsung's widgets and other programs are OK but not the best. (The first thing that I did was to remove the widgets from the Today screen, in Start>Settings>Today). Right now I am trying out Spb Mobile Shell 3, which is very pretty, finger friendly and capable.The way WinMo works is also not ideal, most programs don't actually close when you press the X button so over time the phone can feel bogged down if they aren't ended through the Task Manager. This is easily solved by using a separate task manager like WKTask (free), that will make the taskbar act just like on a PC. The cache for the internet browser uses a lot of space, and that's set up to use the phone's main memory (not the 8GB storage). If you browse a lot, this will fill up the space quickly which is bad; things will not work right if "My Device" (name of the internal storage) is full. Tip: Always save and install programs to "My Storage". You'll also have to accept the fact that not everything is fluid and pretty all of the time. Once you get over that, the occasional glitches (that every phone has) and little inconsistencies don't matter so much.Like I said, the signal strength is disappointing; not absolutely terrible but it can sometimes struggle to get a decent amount of bars, and the antenna is located at the bottom where you place your hand, which lowers the signal a bit. Still, I haven't had a problem making calls or using data.Battery life has been fine for me, it's made it through the whole day for me with a good amount of use and still had charge to spare.In the coming weeks, Verizon and Samsung are supposed to release a new version of the software that unlocks the GPS capability, so you will be able to use VZ Navigator or a free program like Google Maps (only VZ Navigator is able to use GPS right now). Hopefully that update will have some other enhancements as well.In short, it's a great device that can do almost anything. However, it's not for someone who wants a phone that's super simple, and if you do install lots of programs, certain ones can conflict and cause issues that have to be debugged. A trip to the Omnia forum at PPCGeeks.com will get most of your questions answered by a friendly (and rapidly growing) community and help you tweak your phone to it's maximum capability; you will love it even more after making a few simple changes. And buy a case!
I'm very impressed and satisfied and look forward to using my Omnia.

This is the third phone I had purchased, one from US Cellular back in the day (a brick) and the second from Verizon. I wanted to try the IPhone after my first Verizon phone but AT&T's coverage in my area sucks.
I am a researcher when it comes to electronics and I studied all the phones Verizon offered and had actually chosen the BB Storm, following the hype, but after playing with it I realized it did not live up to that hype. That's when I went with my second choice, the Omnia. I am glad that I made the purchase and though there were a few problems with it I was able to overcome them. Both Samsung and Windows have there flaws, but they also have there pros. I hate it when people compare everything to the IPhone or another piece of technology when they've only had a phone for a day or two. You just can't expect something to work 100% straight out of the box without understanding the in's and out's of the device.
After going in and adjusting the settings for the Omnia I actually overcame many of the problems I had. It took a while but after a day or two the phone worked like a charm. It did everything it advertised in video and audio playback, email and texting. I was however disapointed in the fact that it used FAT32 which has a lot of slack for file storage. It had no 3.5 mm audio jack or second stylus. On the touch screen side, It's not an IPhone or IPod when it comes to responsiveness but it did have a better response and feedback than the BB Storm or any other Verizon Phone they currently sell.
I also enjoyed the ability to add and use my own ringtones. Verizon disables this feature on any phone which is not considered a Pocket PC phone. Being able to synchronize with my Outlook contacts, tasks and calendar has made it easier to import and export information and it keeps me from having to enter information more than once.
Three things I liked at first but later found annoying were the Samsung widgets, Internet Explorer (IE) and motion sensor or accelerometer. The accelerometer constantly rotated when I didn't want it to and the widgets just started to take up real estate. I was also getting tired of moving them to and from the main screen to access an app. My recommendation is to disable them both. As for IE, don't use it unless you have to. Stick with Opera Mobile and trust me you won't be disappointed by it.
Finally, I would highly recommend you install SPB's Mobile shell, YouTube mobile and the Google mobile apps on the device. Mobile Shell completeley changes the experience, look and feel you'll have with the Omnia. It adds the features which should have been included in Windows Mobile and Samsung. About a month after I had the phone a friend pointed me to their site and I read up on it. I downloaded the trial software and by the end of the next day I had purchased it. Just make sure you disable the Samsung Widgets before installing it. If you like them they can be turned back on after you install Mobile Shell.
In all the Omnia is a great phone and by far one of the best offered by Verizon. There are far too many features to write about in this review but Samsung's Omnia is lightweight, small and thin compared to other PocketPC phones sold in many Verizon stores. Though it doesn't have an HD the screen, it still looks great and having a combination of Windows and Samsung apps will add functionality where the other fails. Add-on SPB's Mobile Shell and you can get a similar feel and techiness from the Omnia that you would get from the IPhone without the cost or worries of having to switch to another network.

I would never reccommend this phone to anyone. The touchscreen is terrible, emailing is terrible, texting i terrible (the only good thing is the texs are threaded)

So first off I must say that I am a Verizon Wireless Sales Rep and I did a lot of research before actually buying this phone. When I first bought this phone I had only one issue with it. It kept telling my memory is full and I need to erase. Once I got into the phone I realized it was User Error.
The phone has 3 saving options: 1. My Device 2. My Storage 3. My Memory
NEVER EVER Save to "my device" that is a 250Mb partition for the operating system ONLY. once that fills up you will start running slow, getting errors and having issues with you phone. any applications you download need to be downloaded and saved to my storage which is what your 8Gb built in memory is called. Easy fix is to wipe that part of your memory from your Main Menu > Settings > System > Hard Reset. Then select My device and it will wipe only that info and your good to go!
Once I figured that out and fixed it so that no pictures or programs went to my device the phone is abosultely amazing! when you take pictures in the high resolution they come out spectacular, the call quality is very high, and the battery life is the highest of all verizon phones! I love my phone and reccomend it to anyone who wants something that not only looks cool but has amazing features, great qualities, and a learning curve that is very minimal!

Well the omnia in my opinion is a great phone that furfills all my needs.  THe omnia just like any other phone does take some time getting use too , this time is not long how ever.  I found with in my first day of use I was a pro at typing on it n getting around to other features.  The memory on this phone is awsome i have over 300 songz on it along with pics and vid and it works great , doesn't lag at all.  The call quality on this phone is absoutley amazing it was like using a house phone.  When in call mode the phone automatically locks a good feature that prevents accidently hanging up or opening thing u dont want to.  You can also unlock the phone while in call mode by simply pressing and holding the end button.  There is both internet explorer and opera mobile on this phone.  Opera mobile is my prefered choice since i think it works a little faster and smoother than the internet explorer.  I have also downloaded a legit YouTube app from the youtube mobile site that works perfectly.  The 5 mega pixel camera is good i wasn't that impressed with it.  Another feature i wasn't that impressed with was the widgets.  I think the TouchWiz interface is great but the widgets that are offered are to me pointless and some better widgets need to be added.  The ther versions of the OMNIA have recieved an upgrade on their widgets.  The Verizon version however has not yet gotten them and there is no official word when they will get the upgrade or if the upgrade will even be offered.  MY FINAL THOUGHTS!!!!------This phone does everything the casual phone user would want to do.  AS an added bounus it does have microsoft editing for the more professional users out there.  I can listen to music watch YouTube take pic/vids n make calls use the internet not much more i want in a phone.  I alos have to add that windows mobile is on this phone and im not a big windows mobile phone but i have to say that the windows mobile does'nt really diminish the experiance of this phone.  It is the best phone you can get for verizon i think it is better than the storm.  I'D EVEN PUT IT UPTHERE WITH THE G1 OR IPhoHE!!!!!!! I just cant wait for the OMNIA HD to drop in the USA it will make up for all that this CDMA onnia lacks 10 timez over.  ~SWIFT VIBEZ ~

Well, this is my first smartphone.  I have had nothing but issues with it.  To start, when I first purchased the phone, I was not able to hang up after a phone conversation.  The screen would not respond no matter what I did.  So, I spent some time on the phone with tech support and they told me I should return the phone.  I reset it and it worked great for a while.  Considering I was three hours from the nearest verizon store I hoped for the best.  about a month and a half later, my memory was full.  I hadn't downloaded anything and I had deleted tons of files and emptied my texts.  Still full.  So I was told to reset the phone.  Of course the smartpones don't have the backup assistant and you need Micrsoft Outlook to use the activesync.  So, I lost all of my contacts and information.  It did the trick.  But, it's been two weeks and my memory is starting to get low again.  can't figure it out!!  My system info tells me I have 88MB total.  What happend to 8Gb?!

I've had this phone for two weeks.  I really wanted an iPhone but needed to stay with Verizon due to superior coverage.  The Omnia is the closest I can get.  The Omnia is a gigantic upgrade from my old phone where I didn't even have texting enabled.  The touch screen is very responsive.  It was very easy to get it setup to link up to my Gmail account.  I now have my Omnia synching with my laptop and Google Calendar.  Compared to my 7 Mpixel camera the camera on the Omnia is only OK, but I don't plan to use it often. 
The only area I have a complaint about is with WiFi.  Although I have successfully connected at places like Panera Bread, my Omnia will not connect at my home.  There is a disclaimer in the Omnia documentation saying it doesn't work with all WiFi hardware.  Since I had to purchase an unlimited data plan this is an annoyance only since I have 4 bars of coverage at my home.
  Getting my old phones contacts into the Omnia took the technician at the Verizon store all of three minutes.

I got this phone on friday, and its now sunday, and im returning it tomorrow. the windows mobile software is terrible, and back up assistance that verizon provides does not work with smartphones(so have fun transferring all your contacts by hand). Then i have friends texting me and they say they keep getting error messages. the touch screen can either work amazing or not at all.

Let me first say that getting the Omnia was one of the best decisions that I ever made. I had the Blackberry Storm for 3 months and ran into the typical blackberry problems. Excessive lag, delay in pictures being taken, video camera freezing, phone freezing, and files being stuck (NOT VERY USER FRIENDLY). The Omnia has none of this. Yeah, it takes a little while to get use to the touch, but everthing else is AWESOME!!!!

Im gonna keep this simple. I liked the phone alot. It had all the features that I could want except one. It had no signal at my home or job. My Samsung Alias and Blackberry both had at least 2 bars in both those location but the Omnia had one or none. I returned it and got another one but it had the same problem.

To start, this is my first smartphone (Learning curve). However, I found it to be well executed, after some customization. SPB Shell makes this a utilitarian phone, with finger friendly navigation and lots of info and features easier to get to. I found myself finding new options every time I did something. Most of which I can see a good use for.
That said....WM is a business class operating system for phones. It has easy and very intuitive E-Mail access, Opera Mobile 9.5 is a great browser, and of course calls are great. On the entertainment side, some people don't like the dongles...I love the one that lets me use my noise cancelling headphones, and adds a mic to them. When I drive, it makes a huge difference.
The camera is the best in a phone I have ever used. I know I can import better, but in the NE, ATT is not nearly as good as VZW. Battery life is ok, not great, but that also takes a learning curve in managing programs, multi-tasking, etc...

34th phone in 6 years. By far the best! Love the camera. love the software applications. wish the gps worked with othre apps. other than just vz navigator.

Please dont be fooled by these reviewers when it comes to this phone it looks great on paper 8GB with WIFI and GPS its anything but the resistive screen is anoying and attracts scratches eaisly i scratched my screen and trying to browse the WEB with even a tiny scratch is horrible. i recomend the BB STORM big time the screen is scratch proof.  also when i try to touch to make a selection  i have to push hard i tried to calibrate the screen the best i could but when you have a resistive rather than capasitve like the STORM or IPhone you can only due so much. another thing is the stupid "X" even when you hit the "X" to close the app it still runs in the backround causing win-mo to slow down as if it were not slow enough.  not to mention the phones  UI is still buggy which i could live with if i knew updates were going to take care of this but NO...The Resolution is also bad on this phone

I had two of these phones over the course of a month. It's a piece of crap. I wanted to like it, I really did. This phone crashed or froze up on me almost every single day I owned it. The first one wouldn't recognize its own internal memory card and would only let me use 2.7 gb of the 8. The lack of a 3.5mm headphone jack is really stupid. The phone feels light and cheaply made. The resistive, relatively low-res screen is aweful. I always had to press the "x" button in the top right corner over and over to make it register. Typing in portrait was bad on such a narrow screen.
I bought this phone because of all the poor reviews the BB Storm received. After I returned this phone, I bought a Storm, not expecting much. I've loved the Storm, and would definitely recommend it over this POS.

Just to let people who don't know.. Verizon tries to suck all the money it can out of you yet again by requireing you to purchase a data plan if you want this phone.  It's $30 a month and all it includes is email and internet... what?! No texting?! Yeah.. you guessed it.. verizon makes you buy a data plan on top of your existing texting plan to try to suck as much money out of you as they can. The data plan really works out to be $1 a day when you do the math.. but I'm a university student who just wanted to use the wifi capability on my campus.. but was forced to buy a data plan.  It might come in handy but it's not really useful to have internet all the time for me since i'm usually on campus where there's free wifi.
Well besides Verizon being super evil.. the phone is pretty good.  First off, the touch screen isn't as good as the iphone, but then again nothing i've used is.  Since the phone doesn't have multi-touch (you can't pinch the screen with two fingers to make things bigger or smaller).. the touch screen can't really compare to it.  It feels similar to the LG dare in that you have to press a little harder and feel the vibration.  
This is my first touch screen phone so I had a very hard time texting on the keyboard at first.  I'm a skinny guy and i have pretty small fingers so i'm not really sure how regular people make the phone work for them.  It took some getting used to, but now I got the hang of it.  You're not gonna type as fast as if you had a qwerty keypad, but it's okay. 
The widgets are cool i guess but I loaded spb mobile shell so i could have a speed dial list with pictures.. it's an awesome program and I'd recomend it to anyone who buys this phone.  Since this is my first smartphone i thought windows mobile was going to be a disaster since everyone tells me it's such a bad OS, but i found it really easy to do things like load excel files, set mp3's as ringtones, etc.  I don't have to try to find backdoors to get around Verizon's usual limitations on their phones to try to get you to buy everything from the "get it now" system. 
As for performance.. the phone noticably will slow down from time to time.. not sure why.  It's frozen a couple times on me too while i was just going through the settings.. so it's not perfect.  Usually it's pretty smooth though.
Conclusion:  I was going to return it.. but once i got the hang of it I really warmed up to this phone.

i could write a short book about how samsung did a windows mobile phone right. i hated pda/smart phones due to my palm treo and other windows mobile device experiences, and a few blackberrys (i hated the wheel). the omnia though has changed all of that. there are features on top of features (that work!) wrapped in a useable fast interface. they probably could have sold this phone as just a digital camera due to the features the camera has by itself. if you are a semi-technical capable person you will love this phone, if you are not read the novel of a user manual it comes with then you will love it. I also can't believe it took cell phone makers so long to come up with a usable mouse for those small windows mobile settings.

ive had my omnia for a mounth now and cant say anything bad about it,takes great pics outdoors not so hot indoor pics media player is great plays allmost anything and the browser is very good,i never had wm phone allways had blackberry but i must say i like this phone better than any bb i ever had ,and if verison unlocks the gps so you dont have to pay for it, wow that would be nice.

When I started looking into the new touch phones knowing my upgrade was coming I originally was going to go with the storm - went to store to get the feel of the storm - decided right there that I didn't like it - it was slow - hard to type (I have nails and keyboard too small)  so then I started looking at the Omnia and was hesitant at first but am really glad I decided on it. Picked it up last Saturday and am loving it granted it is going to have its quirks (it a windows phone ) I have not had a problem with the battery as some have complained about. I put it on the charger at nite and it is fine all day for calls, and email - the key here is to make sure you close down tasks you are not doing and battery will work fine. Have no problem typing on the keyboard. There is a small learning curve to get used to win mobile mostly - I put the spb shell on and it is great. Coming from a regular phone I thought I would have a problem but not the case here.

I bought the EnV when it first came out a few years back, and LOVED it.  I've been waiting for something ever since that I would like just as well.  My company told me they would pay for a PDA phone, so I went and did my research.  I settled on the Omnia.  It is, without a doubt, the best phone I've ever had.  It meets all of my needs.  It keeps me organized, lets me play my music, takes fantastic pictures, and is really fast on the net for a phone.  The only complaints I really have about it are that the stylus isn't attached to the phone, and the accelerometer is a bit sluggish.  Many people seem to have issues with typing on the keypad, but that's mostly due to human error.  I found it hard to begin with, but once I learned the technique, and that you can't type anything head on, I don't make errors.  Fantastic phone, I'd recommend it to anyone.

So yesterday my Omnia came in the mail...first impression was very good. I really enjoyed activating and starting to play with my new phone. My wife also got her Storm in the mail the same day. So, needless to say, it was a good day at my house. After fumbling around a bit, I am now a bit torn. As I was trying to type and hitting the wring keys and options due to the SMALL letter and number sizes, my wife was typing away with hardly any errors. I was just a bit proturbded. So I pull out the mini stylus pen....what a pain. Do they really expect my to use that thing just about any time I need to type something or choose an option? If your hands are at all thicker or "worked", you will have issues using your fingers for sure. Is this an issue for anyone else? I'm thinking about exercising my right to swap phones at verizon and going after a Storm myself. I have changed font sizes and all that jazz, but without the "pen on a string", you are pretty much screwed. Any thoughts?

I originally had the voyager. I liked it when i first got it. Then I hated it. I wanted something better. So I got my early upgrade and i got the Omnia.
First off. Nice slim, light phone. Nice touchscreen. Pretty visible in the sun.
Features.
5mp camera. Okay quality. But best camera phone I've used.
Call quality Good. Speakerphone. Good.
Performance.
The accelerometer was OK. It moved when tilted. But it tended to move in my pocket even when locked. Or even when on the phone call. The screen is supposed to lock automatically. But sometimes it doesn't. Or the screen will go blank.
The menu. I hated. The widgets didn't work for me. I wanted the date and time. and at least a message thing. But the problem is, when you drag it, it took up to much of the screen. I didn't like it. So i switched it to the samsung today screen, which was much better for use. With this phone, i felt like i had to open and go to different menu's to access either phonebook, or messaging. It's probably the Windows Mobile which didn't really work with me. I liked the openness of the OS, but it gets to complicated.
Tex-ting was OK. The qwerty keyboard felt cramped up. And i felt like i was hitting the wrong keys.
Battery life was sup bar. I felt like i left the house with a full bar, and getting home with already 2 bars left.
The signal reception was weird. I've always had good reception in the NYC area. But with the phone it was up and down. and some areas i had no reception in areas i had good reception.
Overall.
An Ok phone. For more business ppl. May Like.
Next i'll try my luck with the Phone. Or just wait..until something better comes...