Archive for July, 2009
Vodafone NL, Vodafone DE and Bol availability.
Posted by chippy in Availability on July 29th, 2009
For some reason Google have pushed MyOmniapro.com way into a hidden corner in a search for ‘Omnia Pro’ so visibility of my information is quite restricted and there aren’t many of you reading this blog yet. It’s strange considering that this blog contains more Omnia Pro information than most but I’m not too worried about numbers. As long as a few people get some value from this info it’s ok. At the very least it’s making me think about my choice every time I write something about it!
One of the readers here is someone by the name of Carl and he needs a personal ‘thanks’ for me because he’s been doing a lot of pricing and availability tracking. Who needs loads of readers when there’s someone like Carl about!
Here’s what he has found.
Vodafone
The Dutch and German Vodafone operations will be carrying the Omnia Pro. In Holland, availability is stated as mid-August. [Link] In Germany, the Omnia Pro is showing up in the ‘coming soon’ section [Link] but there’s no date.
Bol.com
Bol.com are one of the first suppliers to show a date that’s more specific than ’soon’ or ‘August.’ In their Dutch shop they’ve listed the Omnia Pro as being available for 439 Euros (good price) in 5-10 work days. That’s 1-2 weeks which brings us into the early weeks of August. Maybe Holland is going to be one of the first countries to get it. If so, I might have to take a little drive up to Holland and check it out! Anyone in Holland ordered the Omnia Pro yet?
GSM Arena preview Omnia Pro and Highlight OLED legibility issue.
I have been waiting for this issue to come up. OLED screens can be a problem in bright daylight.
I’ve seen it on an OQO 2+ device (terrible in bright sunlight) and heard from others about OLED screens in daylight. GSMArena have highlighted it as an issue in their recent preview of the Omnia Pro. [Thanks Carl for the tip] The problem is that like LCD screens, it’s a transmissive technology and you need extremely high brightness levels to fight for supremacy with the sun. Once you pump the power up on OLED you lose the power-efficiency advantage too. Especially with a screen filled with light pixels. OLED is great indoors but it’s not really suitable for a mobile device. This is an important issue to note for all potential Omnia Pro owners.
What else does GSM Arena have to say?
- Banding noticeable with the 65K colour screen
- Touchscreen sensitivity nowhere near that of a capacitive touchscreen.
- Smooth, spring-assisted keyboard mechanism.
- Excellent keyboard quality. [I’m very pleased to hear this.]
- Micro-SD card is hot-swappable
- Positive feedback about the battery life. [Again, this is good to hear.]
- Pleased with the TouchWiz UI.
“The Samsung B7610 OmniaPRO is a very good handset overall with capabilities that can easily match the HTC Touch Pro2 class-leader. In fact the faster CPU and the AMOLED screen are quite significant improvements that one can receive by choosing the Samsung over the HTC.”
GSM Arena haven’t written anything about browser speed and completeness (something many potential customers are going to be waiting to hear about before they order) and the review has been done on a pre-release sample. Despite that, it’s worth a read.
No update on Omnia Pro Availability. Options building up.
Posted by chippy in Availability on July 21st, 2009
4 weeks after ordering the Omnia Pro and there’s still no update on availability. I’m getting a little twitchy and it’s highlighting why a long lead-in time from announcement to availability may not be a good thing. The same happened with the N97 and the Palm Pre. It was all spotlights at the initial launch but in just a few short months the market moved on a step and the buzz had subsided somewhat. Could this happen to the Omnia Pro too?
What’s happened in the last 4 weeks?
The Toshiba TG01 is now on sale here in Germany. It’s one of (if not the) most powerful smartphones on the market (AreaMobile.de called it the fastest Windows Mobile Phone of all time) and for just 160 Euros plus 35 per month (which I’m paying anyway) I could be connected and surfing on a 1Ghz snapdragon CPU with a 4.1” 480×800 tomorrow. It’s so tempting, especially as 02 have upgraded their network to HSPA in my area.
On the other hand there’s the iPhone 3GS. Available for 99 Euro and 45 Euro per month locally or without SIMlock and contract for 575 Euro over the border in Belgium. (Thanks for @fieldreports for that tip.)
Finally there’s the Acer M900 for just 450 Euros. (Expansys.de) and the HTC Touch Pro 2.
Right now the Toshiba TG01 is looking pretty darn tempting, especially now that it’s available and people are giving positive feedback. I’ve send an email to 02’s press office to see if I can get hold of one for testing. While I wait I’m going to be checking out reviews and re-assessing my Omnia Pro purchase decision.
Omnia Pro = Armani 2? I Don’t Think So.
Posted by chippy in Specifications on July 16th, 2009
12 years ago I did a stint in London as a ‘city boy.’ Big earnings. Work hard. Play hard. It was a tough year and apart from work, I learned a lot about brands. Actually, I learned to hate them. London is full of brands and among the city boys, the label on the suit was of the utmost importance. I learned to ignore the wide-boys and I learned to ignore brands.
Imagine my shock when I read that the Omnia Pro, a device I’ve chosen for it’s productivity credentials, could be branded as the Armani 2.
MobileWhack wrote up the story after seeing the B7620 on the Bluetooth approval list and matching it up to the Armani brand via a twitter feed. They didn’t match it up to the Omnia Pro specs but others have drawn paralells. ‘Home and Work’ modes appear to give the game away although there’s really nothing much to go on except the model number.
WMExperts take the right approach I think. “The Samsung B7610 is also known as the recently announced Omnia Pro (seen below), so we’d imagine things would fall along that line.” I’m guessing it with be the Omnia Pro but without the keyboard. Armani wouldn’t sacrifice style for practicality, surely.
Brief Omnia Pro Review by Phone Arena
Phone Arena were lucky enough to get some quality time with a prototype Omnia Pro and have written up their thoughts. There’s no information on browsing speed (one of my main questions,) the battery life or the quality of the keyboard but they do talk at length (and extremely positively) about the user interface. They also note that there’s a CPU speed setting. They call it ‘overclocking’ but as they didn’t test it, there’s no confirmation that it is. I suspect its more for underclocking in order to save battery life and keep the device cool!
Omnia Pro Availability and RRP Update.
According to Samsung Belgium (via Unwired View,) the Omnia Pro will be available in Belgium in July at an RRP of 499 Euro.
Of course in Germany it’s been available at under 480 Euros for a few weeks now. When I ordered mine it was 462 Euros. Since then, it’s up to 477 Euros at Amazon Germany. SInce ordering though, a couple more online retailers in Germany have put it on their books. Cyberport, a big online retailer that I’ve used many times before, has it up for 450 Euros. [Via Geizhals price comparison.] I still haven’t seen any availability info for the UK or US.
Unwired View reminds us that the early Omnia’s will ship with Windows Mobile 6.1. There’s no word about when the 6.5 update will come but I wouldn’t expect anything before November.
A July delivery would be nice but I’m not holding my breath!
Where can you buy the Omnia Pro?
Posted by chippy in Availability, price on July 1st, 2009
I must admit I was surprised to see the Omnia Pro in the German Amazon website last Sunday. Since then I can’t find it anywhere other than in Germany. I’ve scoured the UK websites, had a search around Italy and Holland via Google, Amazon USA, Pircegrabber and other common sites. Google searches yield nothing. I can’t even find news relating to it being available in Germany yet!
If anyone has info from their own country I’ll be happy to update the info on this post. Naturally, if I find anything, I’ll also add it to this post. Stay tuned.
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Samsung Omnia Pro Information
I track the Samsung Omnia Pro (and similar devices) over at the UMPCPortal product database. Click through to get the full specifications along with videos, images and links to other Omnia-Pro content on the net.
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