Bluetooth is one of those features that can be a pretty important factor in mobile handsets. It allows you to transfer media (including pictures and music) to and from your laptop/desktop or even stream stereo music to a headset using A2DP (Advance Audio Distribution Profile). Many users now tether their cell phones to netbooks/laptops using Bluetooth, cementing just how important it can be.

However, Bluetooth doesn’t appear in every netbook/laptop/desktop. Using a USB Bluetooth dongle is one of the ways of getting Bluetooth onto your netbook and it’s a relatively inexpensive option. MobileFun, a specialist retailer of mobile accessories, kindly sent over the Atomic Pico Bluetooth USB dongle for review. This particular dongle is the smallest in the world according to its manufacturers and costs £8.95. MobileFun applies a small delivery charge on top of this depending on whether shipping is to the UK or mainland Europe. Read the rest of this entry »

Kinetic scrolling remains atop of most wish lists in terms of how one would improve the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD. Seeing how well it is implemented in the Gravity twitter application makes me yearn for this functionality even more.

Good news though, for those willing to upgrade to the latest Chinese firmware (I8910UZCII1), you will be treated to kinetic scrolling in the browser. This is because it uses the newest version of the Nokia WebKit browser (7.1.13841). Check out a video of this in action after the jump and also note that the browser also offers an auto-fullscreen mode. Let’s hope this makes it to other regional updates as soon as possible. Read the rest of this entry »

Nearly a week after Samsung released the Russian XEII1 firmware update, the company has released a new XXII1 update for Italian handsets. The similarities between both code names is not a coincidence – from what I can tell this new update (dated 7th September) is near enough identical to the Russian firmware.

I upgraded to this new firmware from IG2 yesterday and am enjoying it so far. You end up with a new 3D Task Switcher (a carousel showing opening apps) – it’s certainly not needed, but it sure looks fancy. There is also a Grid View of open apps if you prefer it to remain simple.

Other changes include a new zoom icon for the browser. You can also now zoom in/out of pictures in MediaBrowser. It’s good to know that the frustrating stop bug in the browser has also been fixed. The dial pad also sports ‘abc’, ‘def’ lettering on numbers now too.

From what I can tell, the update has made no change to the frame rate of HD video recording (you still get AAC audio though). There is also no App Store icon, despite the store launching shortly (Monday 14th September). A quick video tour of the new firmware is attached after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

There are a number of manufacturers that provide screen protectors for various handsets and portable gadgets. One of the most well-known & trusted brands in this area is Martin Fields. The guys over at MobileFun.co.uk were kind enough to send the screen protector for us to review.

Martin Fields range of Overlay Plus screen protectors are known for the fact that it gives 99 percent UV light protection. The protectors are also washable and reusable, they use only a mild adhesive that means if you apply it wrong the first time, all is not doomed. Read the rest of this entry »

A new Samsung i8910 HD firmware update is now out for Hong Kong & Russian models. The XEII1 has some quite interesting additions including a new 3D TaskSwitcher. We’ve attached a video of this in action after the break and appears to work very smoothly.

Other additions include an improved keyboard with increased spacing between keys. The browser stop bug has also been fixed. We have attached a changelog after the break that includes a number of other changes. Sounds like some worthwhile additions and we look forward to this being rolled in other regions soon. Read the rest of this entry »

We already knew that a Samsung Application store would launch in September, now we know the exact date. According to a press release it will launch on September 14th. The storefront will first cater for users of the Omnia and i8910 HD handsets (thankfully!)

Initially the app store will hit the UK, France and Italy with a further 30 countries expected to be supported in due course. Downloads will be available over-the-air via credit card or phone bill payments.

You can find the store over at SamsungApps.com, which at the moment has a “Samsung Application Store is coming up! Please visit us again” sign. Three hundred apps are expected on launch day with a further 2,000 by the year-end, certainly sounds impressive. Gameloft, Electronic Arts, Handmark, TAITO, Paragon SW, Capcom, Com2us, Prompt, Pearson Longman, Bokan Tech and Diotek are among the providers of applications to the Samsung Application Store.

The Samsung i8910 Omnia HD smartphone has won the ‘European Camera Phone 2009-2010’ award from EISA (European Imaging and Sound Association). Apart from the camera, EISA also has awards for best music phone, business phone, smartphone and Personal Media Player.

As one of the first mobile handsets to offer HD video recording, it’s perhaps no surprise to see the i8910 winning. Especially when combined with its 8MP camera that offers a number of scene modes (including the fantastic panoramic option). However, given its capabilities as a multimedia device, you could give a sound argument for the i8910 HD winning PMP of the year too!

Steve Litchfield of All About Symbian has listed his top twenty freeware applications for the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD smartphone handset. It’s quite a broad list of freeware apps and well worth checking out.

We haven’t tried all of them so far, the main apps we have used regularly are Google Maps, YouTube, Gmail, Fring and TweetS60. However, we quickly replaced TweetS60 with the paid-for app Gravity, which is a superb twitter application. So, which free apps are you using on your i8910 HD?

Finding a decent case for the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD can be a tough task. As one of the tallest phones around, the last thing you need is extra bulk. There are a number of very good cases around, but I was looking for something that provided solid protection if the handset fell, in a minimalist design.

The guys over at MobileFun sent over the ToughGuard Shell case to review, which seemed to answer that criteria. The case is well designed, it hardly weighs anything but provides durable protection against knocks & scrapes. It comes in two parts (front & back) with a matte finish so you don’t need to worry about fingerprint marks. It is made out of tough polycarbonate, so it should last a long time.

Once fitted onto your phone, you have access to all of the camera features and all of the ports. There was no problem in gaining access to ports with flaps either. The manufacturers have provided enough room for easy access to all parts of your phone. It can be a bit tricky to remove once on, but that shows how strong it is.

Overall it’s thoroughly recommended. You can purchase it from MobileFun for £9.95 + p&p. Mobile Fun is one of the largest UK retailers dedicated to mobile phone accessories. They deliver across Europe too. Check out our hands-on video after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

Rumours are currently circulating that the i8910 HD is now being sold with a 1GHz processor. This follows the phone’s launch in India, with a placeholder clearly highlighting the apparently upgraded processor. Whilst you could attribute this to just human error, the same 1GHZ CPU has been listed on the official Samsung India website.

The i8910 Omnia HD currently has a Texas Instruments OMAP3430 ARM chip with 600MHz clock speed. I would be surprised if this was upped to an TI OMAP3640 ARM chip that has a 1GHz clock speed. Apart from the cost considerations, the move would alienate its existing customers i.e. why not include this from the start?

Whilst some may question whether this multimedia workhorse even needs more power, I’d argue that it does. Not for most of the tasks you’ll use it for, but it would certainly come in handy for one of the phones key selling points, HD video recording. The whole debacle surrounding the AMR/AAC audio issue when recording video, stems from the high CPU stress of the current chip.

Indeed, for one of the phone’s most marketable features, you can tell that the 720p HD video recording just isn’t quite there yet. Apart from the audio issue, HD videos often drop frames, especially when panning fast objects. By sticking in a faster processor, this would hopefully eradicate these issues and enable much better audio quality with a higher sampling rate.

I’m still dubious if this will really come true, but if it does, what do current owners think of this news? The Omnia HD will be available in India for 33,990 INR ($705). We’ve included a few screenshots of the evidence after the jump.

Update: GSMArena has confirmed that the 1GHz Samsung i8910 HD was indeed a misprint on both the website & placeholder. Samsung India added the 420 MHz DSP (the sound processing chip) speed to the 600 MHz ARM Cortex-A8 CPU to get to 1GHz. Read the rest of this entry »

We only recently upgraded our i8910 Omnia HD to the newer IG2 firmware. We didn’t upgrade as soon as we got the handset as we wanted to find out about the limitations of the current firmware before moving on. One of these limitations was AMR audio when recording video. The newer IG2 firmware upgrades this to AAC audio with a higher sampling rate.

To determine what the real-world difference might be, we shot a couple of videos using near-enough identical shooting conditions. We used one of my child’s toys, the singing lobster, to try and show off any improvements using IG2. You can check out both 30-second videos below , to hear the difference. Read the rest of this entry »

As an Omnia HD Ambassador, we have been tasked with a couple of missions to showcase various aspects of the handset. The first mission was entitled “A kaleidoscope of colours”. As you can probably guess, this particular task involved creating a video that contrasts the “colours in ordinary life and looks at the significance of colour”.

The criteria was quite open, which left me a bit stumped as to what idea to choose. I ruled out parks/beaches early on as I felt that most people would be thinking along the same lines. As a father of two young kids, my inspiration hit me pretty quickly.

I decided to use some of my kids toys. Most of them have quite bright and bold colours, which I thought would be perfect for a short video. I also submitted another video that simply follows a bright, colourful parrot wondering around its cage. You can see both of these attempts after the break. It’s by no means perfect, but hopefully gets the message across.

We should highlight that the videos were recorded in high-definition (1280 x 720) using I8910XXIF7 firmware. This is the firmware that shipped with the handset and uses AMR audio. As you can probably tell it doesn’t sound great at all. We will be upgrading to the newer ‘IG2’ shortly, but wanted to find out the limitations of the older firmware first! You’ll also probably notice dropped frames in the video, most noticeable when panning. Hopefully, this is something Samsung will be able to iron out in future firmware releases. Read the rest of this entry »

Fring has released version 3.40 of its application, which now includes support for Samsung Symbian handsets. The changelog for this version includes unification hints, user profiles and big fixes. You can download fring for your i8910 here.

fring is a peer-to-peer Mobile VoIP based telephony network. It enables users to talk and chat using Skype, ICQ, Google Talk, MSN Messenger / Windows Live Messenger, AIM, Yahoo Messenger and SIP providers.

Digia recently launched its @Web browser for S60 5th Edition mobile handsets. This (obviously) includes the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD along with other devices such as the Nokia 5800 and Nokia N97.

The i8910 HD is a wonderful handset but the browsing experience is one area that hasn’t been up to par in my opinion. The standard browser feels sluggish with pages taking a long time to render. Also, my normal mobile browser of choice, Opera, crashes often due to Java issues.

Digia’s @Web browser is said to be “fully finger touch controllable”, including full finger touch UI. It also includes direct page control with finger, multiple browser windows, url auto-complete and automatic full screen browsing.

It’s worth noting though that it uses the WebKit engine built into the S60 handset. What this means is that it uses the same rendering engine as the standard browser but simply adds an UI layer on top. Therefore, you still won’t get kinetic scrolling on your i8910. The S60 5th Edition version is currently in beta. For those wanting to give it a try, it is available to download here.

I haven’t tested it myself yet, but have heard that it can be buggy. Also, as it relies on the standard browser, some reports say that is slower. Have you tried it? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

For anyone that has looked to generate a certificate key for their Samsung i8910 Omnia HD, the main method up until now has been to submit a request to the Chinese OPDA website. This can be quite problematic to navigate, especially for most westerners.

We therefore thought we’d highlight a new website recently launched called S60Certkey that promises to do the same but in a much more user friendly way and in English! You can check out the site here. It’s already seen quite significant growth since its 1st August launch with 2,850 members and counting.