A big i8910 HD firmware update is expected to land during this month. The new update will offer faster web browsing, an improved graphics engine as well as kinetic scrolling. Anphase, the same person who wrote that 25 page quality control report, recently met with Samsung to talk about his issues and came back impressed with the company’s willingness to talk.

Samsung offered him a test unit with a preview of the new firmware on it. He’s documented his findings in a 10-minute video, which we’ve attached after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

The Nexxus DriveMultiSolar is a well built solar-powered Bluetooth car kit. The advantages that solar power brings are numerous. This includes longer talk and standby time, as well as having no cables trawling over your dashboard. As is hinted by the name, the device also comes with a multi-point connection, allowing you to connect two mobiles.

MobileFun, a specialist retailer of mobile accessories, kindly sent over the DriveMultiSolar for us to review. The device is also known as the Clip and Talk Solar Edition according to the retailer and costs £29.95. 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 »

I’ve been having a good play around with the Opera Mobile 10 Beta, that was released for Symbian handsets earlier this week. I’ve posted my video impressions after the jump and overall it makes a big difference to the overall i8910 experience. Let’s be honest the default browser on the handset isn’t the best, and Opera improves on it in a number of areas.

It adds tabbed browsing, speed dials, Opera Turbo (for low bandwidth use) and generally a full desktop experience on the handset. One nice bonus, is that it also adds kinetic scrolling too. If you want to play around with the settings type ‘Opera:Config’ into the browser and you’ll get a wealth of options.

It’s not all rosy though, there’s no flash support on the browser, no sound/tactile feedback and the keyboard can be a bit tricky to use. However, you can use the default keyboard by changing the settings (see the video for the tip). It’s been reported that it can be a bit of a battery eater but it’s too early for me to judge this. Check out our video after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

The Samsung i8910 Omnia HD is one of the best handsets I’ve used for GPS navigation. We all know how wonderful the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD’s 3.7-inch OLED display is, combine this with a sensitive capacitive touchscreen and fast GPS lock and you have an ideal device for car journeys.

However, there is one caveat and that is battery life. Using Garmin on my i8910 is the quickest way to drain the battery. I’ve been looking for a solution for a while and luckily, help was at hand. MobileFun, a specialist retailer of mobile accessories, kindly sent over the DriveSafe Car Kit for the Samsung i8910 HD. This kit not only includes a holder for the handset, but also a charger too – not bad for only £12.95 + P&P. 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 »

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 »

Okay, so I know that a lot of you have the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD already and I know that many of you have seen quite a few i8910 unboxing videos too, but I couldn’t resist throwing mine into the ring too! We put together a quick video that shows us unboxing the handset and we’ve also included some pictures of the whole thing too.

The i8910 HD we were sent was the Italian version, so the box included a European plug and Italian manuals, but this is not too much of an issue. I was a bit upset not to find the key-ring phone stand in the box, this was included in the Orange UK boxes. Initial impressions of the phone are very positive and it’s certainly not as tall as we’d come to believe. We’re still at the very early stages of playing around with the handset, so expect some more useful updates going forward. In the mean time check out our unboxing video and pictures after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

After a longer than expected wait, the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD handset has finally arrived at SOHD HQ. It has been a frustrating time watching everyone get hands-on with the phone, whilst we have sat patiently on the sidelines rearing to get involved. However, bygones are bygones and we can’t wait to get up to speed with all that the phone can do and give you our impressions.

It’s worth noting that some sites have suggested that the UK sim-free units should now be available. However, our unit, along with all of the other Ambassador’s ones, are the Italian versions. The box is in English but it boots up initially in Italian and also has a European charger. I don’t know whether this means that the proper UK units are still delayed or not, but I thought it was worth mentioning. Read the rest of this entry »

Our UK readers will probably have heard of Tim Lovejoy, who used to present Soccer AM and now is the anchorman for the Channelbee website. He recently went hands-on with the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD and you can watch his humorous tour of the phone here.

Channelbee is also giving you the chance to win the Samsung i8910 HD. All you have to do is create some original video content and upload your video onto the Channelbee website. The best one walks away with an i8910 handset. You’d better get cracking though as the closing date is Monday morning!

When the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD was originally released, it was due to come in two SKUs, one with 8GB of internal storage and another with 16GB. Whilst the phone has seen its sim-free release across parts of Europe and on contract in the UK through Orange, the only version that has appeared is the 8GB. This was starting to beg the question whether the 16GB version was even still on the agenda.

However, it appears that the 16GB SKU is very much of part of Samsung’s plans and has been released across Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, and Denmark). It seems that you will ONLY find the 16GB SKU in these countries, as the 8GB version is not being sold. The cost is 6,695 Norwegian Kroner at Komplett, which is shipping right now and translates to around £635, €750 or $1,050. Click through for an unboxing video of the 16GB i8910 Omnia HD.

Update: The 16GB version has also hit the Netherlands, where the 8GB is already sold. Maybe we will start to see this SKU appear in more regions after all. Thanks Quindor!
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Daniel over at Tech65 has posted quite a detailed (and close up) hands-on video of the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD. He gives a good overview of the phone and its interface including the camera, widgets, the lock to stop moving widgets around and text input, which they weren’t too enamoured with. You can check out the full video after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

The Samsung i8910 Omnia HD is one of the highest performance phones on the market, sporting a 600 MHz ARM Cortex-A8 CPU and 256MB of RAM. That power under the hood is needed to handle HD video, but it also puts it in good stead when it comes to day-to-day tasks. It means that browsing the UI is a snappy experience and hopefully should mean fewer crashes.

This is a theory one user wanted to put to the test. He wanted to see how many applications he could open without the phone slowing down or crashing. Without any apps open the amount of free RAM stood at 140MB, but even when having 12-15 apps open the RAM was still an impressive 58MB. I could see no visible slowdown when having that many applications open. Check out the video after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve already seen a few comparison videos of the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD against the iPhone as well as the original Samsung Omnia. What we have this time round is a great video comparison between the i8910 HD, which runs Symbian 5th Edition, against the HTC Magic that runs on Google Android. Yes, both phones do use different operating systems, but it’s an interesting comparison nonetheless.

The video goes through a number of different features including boot times, display, web rendering and video playback. The display on the i8910 Omnia HD is clearly the winner, being more vibrant and easier to read (in indirect sunlight anyway). The contrast is also excellent on the i8910 with the blacks of the phone destroying the grey hues seen on the HTC Magic. Looking at them side-by-side really shows off just how stunning that i8910 screen really is.

When comparing boot times, the i8910 was the clear winner coming quite a way ahead of the HTC Magic. The HTC Magic seems to be quite responsive to the touch, although not any better than the i8910 from what I could tell. Inputting text, whilst messaging, was also a draw in my eyes.

The browser test showed that the i8910 was clunkier to use than the HTC Magic. Using the browser on Android appeared to much more fluid in terms of both scrolling and zooming. Maybe using Opera Mini on the i8910 HD may make a difference to the browsing experience.

The video also demoed both phones playing the helicopter demo that comes with the i8910 and as expected the HTC Magic struggles whilst the i8910 plays it smoothly. I don’t think there’s any surprises here, given the different hardware used. Check out the video after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »