Review compliments of Shaun at PDA247

Samsung produces a wide array of feature phones and smartphones and seems to have little loyalty to any one platform. It has stuck with Windows Mobile for quite some time though and shown that it is capable of producing devices to suit different sectors of the mobile buying public. The Omnia Lite screams classic Samsung feature phone to me, but includes the Windows Mobile 6.5 OS and all of the other smartphone goodness you would expect. Wi-Fi, HSDPS, GPS, 3.15 Mega Pixel camera and an accelerometer sum up where this phone is heading, and like the Sony Ericsson Aino I reviewed last week it seems to want to hide its smartphone credentials.

The form factor is small and it does not feel like you are holding a smartphone, but this is most definitely an advantage; with slightly curved edges and minimal buttons on the front it is pleasing to the eye and even more positive in the hand. This is the first Windows Mobile smartphone I have used which manages to cross the divide properly between what a power user will need and what a 17 year-old will be happy to be seen with.

The lack of buttons on the front may feel strange to you at first because you merely get a selection key and call end/start keys, but there is a menu key on the left hand side and a lock key on the right above the camera button. Personally I think Samsung has done a good job of retaining a mobile phone form factor and allowing enough physical access to the smartphone side, but some adjustment will be needed for hardened Windows Mobile users. Now, let’s clear up the one major negative I have about this device, and it does concern how you interact with the phone on a daily basis. The screen is 3 inches and 240×400 pixels so you will have need to use a stylus from time to time to select certain options. Some also like the Windows Mobile handwriting recognition which makes a stylus a required tool, but Samsung has failed to find space to fit a stylus housing in the phone itself. We saw this with the previous Omnia and it is disappointing to see this approach happen again. You get a lanyard contraption which looks like a small lipstick and which will dangle by the side of the phone should you choose to have the stylus with the phone at all times. This is obviously not practical and so you are left with the option of carrying it around separately. Besides the fact that it could get lost easily, it still looks like a lipstick and will not be craved by some users. The other point of contention is the location of the charging port which is on the top. Great for headphones, but slightly inconvenient for everything else such as syncing and charging…

The Samsung TouchWiz 2.0 interface feels a little cluttered at first, but once you get used to it things start to fall in place. I really do like this way of working and it is one of the more fun Windows Mobile layers used in this industry. With huge nods to the consumer market, it does bring most of the daily tasks into the ‘Wiz’ interface and some of the standard Windows Mobile apps have also been enhanced / replaced by Samsung software. The media player is excellent and much easier to navigate than the standard WM setup, a video editor is included which actually works, there is a business card / document reader and a whole host of other goodies included which you may not expect at this price. I have to say that the overall quality and quantity of included software is excellent and even the system settings have been replaced with a pleasing tab based interface.

The camera is only 3.1 Mega Pixels, but does include a Xenon flash and extras such as smile detection. It is not too shabby and will work well for quick snaps when you need them. The VGA video is also better than I expected and this is quickly building into a sensitively packaged device which is ticking many boxes.

The battery is also very good and at 1500mAh is expected to do well. I have had the phone on standby with occasional use for 2 days and it is still on over 90%. His bodes very well for practical daily use and is yet another aspect which is drawing me to this phone more than ever expected. On the practical side, the screen is viewable outdoors, but does get a little washed out in bright sunlight. It is not unusable and not worse than many other units in the Windows Mobile range.

You may expect a consumer orientated Windows Mobile smartphone to be low on connectivity features, but with Wi-Fi, HSDPA and GPS even this is how you would like it. Throw in TV-out and a few other niceties and it truly does become much more than you would expect at first glance.

I discounted the Omnia Lite at first because of its silly stylus mechanism and still rate that as its Achilles heel, but almost everything else is much better than I could have reasonably expected. For £280 you get a high specified smartphone which Samsung has tweaked to make a lot more usable than Windows Mobile is in normal use, and I believe that the TouchWiz interface is better than TouchFLO. It adds a bit more fun to the process and brings Windows Mobile more in line with the likes of Android.

The Omnia Lite is a breath of fresh air in an industry dominated by Windows Mobile clones which vary only by design and some software add-ons. This phone takes the process much further and succeeds almost everywhere- a great battery, pleasing design, top specifications and a low price make it one of the very best Windows Mobile phones I have used to date. Would I use this over the HTC Touch2? Definitely.