WHEN I saw Samsung’s OMNIAPro B7320 my first thought was a brand of designer handbags mainly because of the colour. I was not immediately a fan of the colour. I guess it grew on me but I feel you are either going to love or hate the colour. It would be nice to see a traditional colour like black or silver. I’ve heard from another company that has introduced a similar colour like this that it is a manly colour. Is that so? Maybe I’m not manly enough.

The outlook of the phone is in line with bar shaped Smartphones. It houses a QVGA (320 by 240 pixel) display and a full QWERTY keyboard. To aid on-screen navigation there is a direction pad (d-pad) in the centre with additional support buttons on the left and right. It is interesting to note that the B7320 uses a specific on/off button instead of combining it with the End Call button.

The phone uses a micro USB jack for charging and data transfers. I am so happy to see this with Samsung’s new phones. I guess Samsung is doing its’ part to help save the environment. I don’t know if you realised that the device does not have the typical 2.5mm or 3.5mm headphone jack. The headphone output has been combined into the micro USB jack. Not to worry a special jack is included with your purchase.

If you didn’t look closely, like I did the first time round, the OMNIAPro B7320 appears to be devoid of dedicated function buttoms. On closer inspection I found some buttons are an integral part of the keyboard. I found a dedicated Windows Live button, Internet Explorer, Mail (Messaging) and Camera on the bottom row of the keyboard. These buttons are handy and saves having to jump into the menu screens to launch those applications.

Other dedicated buttons are on the left and right edge. On the left edge (screen facing you) is the Power On/Off and Volume Up/Down. On the face next to the D-Pad are four buttons in the form of a rocker switch. The buttons are most often used for Yes, No, Start and Escape.

The End Call button on the right doubles up as a Key Lock. Once locked you need to perform a two button sequence which was a little unintuitive because of the location of the second button, the asterisk. It isn’t a deal breaker, you’ll eventually get accustomed to the location.

Samsung’s engineering did something interesting with the QWERTY keyboard and that is the inclusion of an alternate character on the keys. This alternate character is activated by holding the key for an extra second. It is an ingenious method of reducing key presses.

Mobile phones are equipped with a variety of operating systems, this is the brains that displays the icons, screens, and how the phone operates. The OMNIAPro B7320 is equipped with Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard edition but a quick check on the web indicated that you can upgrade to WM6.5 at no additional cost. This is good news because WM6.5 will provide a slightly better experience. Here’s the link to Samsung Mobile site in Singapore.

Accessing the battery, SIM card slot and MicroSD Card is a simple matter of sliding the lower rear cover. Both the SIM card and the memory card can only be accessed with the removal of the battery pack.

The OMNIAPro B7320 is not a high-end lifestyle or business phone but it combines a little of each world. So, instead of a high mega-pixel digital camera you find a simple 3.2 mega-pixel camera. It does include a LED flash and a vanity mirror for the narcissistic. I got some decent photos that would be good for web use but you’ll be limited in print sizes because of the lower pixel count. 

Here are some sample photos taken with the camera set to the highest resolution.

If you are not a diehard heavy sms-ing or social networking user capable of jabbing a keypad for the correct letter then the QWERTY equipped OMNIAPro B7320 is the phone for you. You can take your time to hunt and peck at real letters and numbers without getting finger cramps.

The size is also just nice for shirt pockets yet sturdy enough for the back pocket of some tight fitting jeans. My evaluation unit was eventually loaded up with all the usual applications – YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google Maps, Flickr, MSN Messenger and email. It worked as smooth and seamlessly as I’d come to expect from this kind of Smartphone.

| Posted by JamCanSing 05-Feb-2010

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AT FIRST glance you could mistake Samsung’s OMNIAPro B7610 (OMNIAPro) for a multimedia or fun phone because all you see is the large 3.5-inch Wide VGA display which by the way is an AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode). Closer inspection reveals a slideout keyboard that then changes your device into a more business oriented phone. It is kind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

In Mr Hyde mode (keyboard hidden away) I take on the world with the touch screen interface supported by Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional (WM6.5). Now, I’ve used a WM phone before and coincidentally it was a Samsung i600 on WM 5.0. Navigating around WM is pretty intuitive but Samsung put an additional twist to the phone which again is like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Press and hold the W&L key on the left-hand side and you switch modes. The W&L key simply represents the switch from Work to Life, but I prefer Leisure.

Personally, I like the Work interface more than the Life setting because I like the organized look where I can at a glance see snippets of the phone messages, email, and other status details, but that’s just me. The Life mode is more modular whereby you can place your applications on three different panes and flick to the specific pane.

The device itself is pretty boring but a touch of class is present with the nice lacquered look of the rear cover. The gloss and shine makes it feel like a craftsman had put in many hours of lacquer and finishing and then you’ll come back down to earth after you’ve handled it and got all your oily finger prints on it. Yes, it is a fingerprint magnet.

As I’m talking about the rear cover let me fill you in on the stuff on the back. The most obvious is the 5.0-megapixel digital camera with auto-focusing and a LED flash. I must tell you that I like the 5.0-megapixel digital camera in the Samsung mobile phones.

Whenever I’m shooting outdoors I feel the photos come out nice, of course, not 10 or 12-megapixel dSLR (digital Single Lens Reflex) camera nice but certainly lots better than many other camera equipped phones. The low-light capability is pretty good but you’ll need a steady hand because the camera’s built-in sensor and programming will automatically shoot with a slow shutter speed. I had some fun with panorama and macro picture taking. The former is super cool because all you need to do is follow the instructions and live guide box. The unfortunate omission for the panorama mode is the inability to modify the amount of stitches shots. So, I can only get a super-wide panoramic photo and then I lose out on detail.

Take a look at my samples. The macro can get right up into your face and I was surprised the dragonfly kept his cool and allowed me to take a pic.

The high quality video recording capability is great. You’ll blow people away with the outdoor shooting quality when you upload the videos to YouTube. Nothing like the sissy QVGA (Quarter VGA) or even VGA (640 by 480) recorded videos. You will also appreciate the WVGA (800 by 480 pixels) display for watching the videos.

A peek under the cover reveals the location of the MicroSD card (It can handle a card up-to 32GB capacity), the SIM slot and obviously the battery pack. The battery pack is rated at 1500mAh which should be plenty to keep you connected (wireless-ly) for a whole day. That was my experience. With a full charge I was able to use the phone for calls, tweets, surfing, photo-taking and Google maps. If you are using this outdoors a lot you are likely to experience shorter battery life because in bright sunlight you’ll need to bump up the screen brightness and that will take additional battery juice. Note, the rear cover is made of a plastic material.

The external controls is thankfully minimal. You get a volume control rocker (up/down), the special W&L (Work & Life) button on the left hand edge and on the right hand edge you get the lock and shutter button.

At the top edge you get headphone/av jack which is of the 3.5mm variety and the charging plus transfer point which is a MicroUSB port. The jacks on the top is offered some protection from dust, dirt and water by flexible snap in covers. You will need to have a little bit of finger nail to catch and pull them out.

The OMNIAPro B7610 does have some weirdness related to the operation. The issue I have is with the slideout keyboard. For instance, I may want to surf the web while in Landscape mode but the phone does not go into landscape mode unless I slide out the keyboard.

I did not get into the hardware specifics because you can find that already online. In case you need to know here is a link to the specifications page.

Overall, I liked the OMNIAPro B7610 and it was the little tweaks that raised it above being ordinary compared to others in this same category.

| Posted by JamCanSing 04-Feb-2010

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