I was close to buying an HTC Magic. Close to switching to an iPhone 3GS, interested in the Toshiba LG01 and in the last week, an HTC Hero but when I saw the price of the Samsung Omnia Pro B7610 on Amazon today, I couldn’t resist.

For the last 3 years I’ve been writing about my dream ‘Carrypad’ devices, the Full Internet Experience and a whole bunch of other things in the mobile computing and mobile internet arena. I’m a big fan of mobile blogging and internet photography too so I know exactly what I want. The Omnia Pro isnt it but it’s as close as I’ve ever seen and it’s time to jump in and start getting my hands dirty. I want to see how close it performs to Intel-based MIDs and the UMPCs I write about for a living. I want to see if the camera can hold it’s own against my existing Nokia N82. I want to see if 3.5″ is big enough for a WVGA screen and I want to see how Windows Mobile has developed since I last had a relationship with it back in the days when I owned an iPaq. I also want to see how long the battery lasts when I start pushing it hard with mobile internet activities.

It’s going to be quite some time before I get the Omnia Pro but I thought it would be a great idea to open this blog up and start to write down my thoughts and link out to other Omnia Pro content on the internet. Maybe it will help you to decide if the Omnia Pro is for you too.

I won’t be starting a forum here but as a test across a number of my mobile internet and mobile computing blogs and in association with Meet:Mobility, I’ve linked in a social networking feature called buddypress. It’s like a next-gen forum which allows you to ‘friend’ other users, form groups and write blog and post entries. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t but either way, feel free to ‘friend’ me on the system and ask questions if you need to. You can sign up from the top bar.