8 megapixel cameras that give you professional photographic quality and are gaining immense popularity on the back of mobile phones. The Samsung i8910 Omnia HD is one such phone, and adding that HD in their name isn't just a promotion publicity stunt.
First look
It truly is a magnificence to look at with its liberal widescreen display and speaker-grille dotted side panels. The i8910 HD isn't a tiny phone, in fact it's as long as the iPhone, but thicker and heavier. At the same time, however, it fits in the pocket with no difficulty. The i8910 has random buttons placed within the body of the side panels so there are no protrusions, except for one button, the 'trigger' of the camera.
Technical consideration:
The i8910 HD is a touch phone with the buttons popping up on the screen as you move through the easy-to-navigate menus. The three buttons seen at the bottom of the screen (when the screen is in vertical orientation) are shortcuts to the menu, last dialled numbers and controlling the phone when on call like answering, disconnecting etc. The screen is 3.7", one of the biggest in the market today, with a resolution of 360 x 640 pixels. Couple that with the AMOLED technology of the panel and you get a crystal clear picture, just so long as the source files are up to the compression mark of the phone.
At the same time, when we talk HD in home-entertainment, we're talking Blu-ray 1080p, which of course this phone doesn't have the capability of reading. A mobile phone's HD usually means that it can capture HD footage through Its camera lens, In this case the 8 mega-pixel camera fitted with an LED rather than a Xenon flash. The phone does hit HD-Ready resolution of 1280 x 720 at 24 FPS and it can playback video formats like DIvX, XviD. H.263. H.264. WMV. MPEG4 and RV, taking care of pretty much all your downloaded movies that you might have in your computer's hard-disk.
This phone comes equipped with a pair of stereo speakers positioned on both sides of the screen when in horizontal orientation. The i8910 HD also has a Virtual 5.1 channel Dolby surround which only works on Samsung's hands-free sets that can be hooked up to the 3.5mm audio jack at the top of the phone.
Performance
The video quality on this cell phone is perfect, with brilliant black levels and exquisite color saturation even in the dullest of videos The sound can "get very loud when pushed to the maximum, however, it is extremely treble rich. Samsung did give it their trademark DNSe 2.0 (Digital Natural Sound Engine). If there are a couple of you huddled on a sofa set, the video screen is adequately large to house everyone and the sound is loud enough to get everyone in the experience.
The camera is truly nice, capturing vivid images in-doors and an even better hold on light levels when outdoors. The video quality of it, when shooting in camcorder mode, Is also exquisite, not just when watched on the screen but on a regular computer monitor as well.
Bottom Line
The i8910 HD's screen size and quality are more than you'll ever need. You can quite easily watch movies on the plane, in your car or at home without too much of the movie's experience being chopped off due to screen-size. As for the sound, like I said, it's very powerful in the mid and high ranges and if you want bass, you'll need to listen to it on earphones. However, on earphones, the virtual surround sound feature doesn't have much of true 'surround'; just certain sounds are delayed to emulate the effect Overall, the i8910 HD is a terrific video companion to have in your pocket.
