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 »

As some of you may be aware, Samsung were running a competition back in early March, where it was looking for 50 ‘ambassadors’ to promote the Omnia HD smartphone. On 1st May we were informed that we were one of the winners. The winners would be lucky enough to be sent an Omnia HD smartphone courtesy of Samsung and then would be tasked with the responsibility of telling the world all about the phone, whether by text, pictures or video.

Since then however, the communication channels have been very quiet. We received an email around a month back but had heard nothing since. Obviously, with the Omnia HD’s release in the UK (through Orange) as well as the sim-free release in parts of mainland Europe, it’s been a bit frustrating watching all of the action from the sidelines.

Wondering whether the program was still on, I decided to give the PR Company, who is handling the promotion, a call today. Much to my relief, it looks like there’s no change on Samsung’s part. The delay in ambassador’s receiving the phone has been caused by the wait for the sim-free handsets to appear from Korea. Apparently all of the documentation relating to the program is all ready and they are just waiting on the handsets before sending everything out together.

Samsung will also be ring-fencing the first handsets to arrive in the UK for the Ambassador program, so fingers crossed we should be getting our hands on the sim-free handset reasonably quickly. Unfortunately, no timeline was given as to when these handsets are expected to arrive, but I’m hoping it’s no longer than a matter of weeks now. A number of ‘missions’ for the ambassadors is also planned, but what that entails is a mystery right now.

I just wanted to give you all an update, I’ve had many emails and PM’s from the forum asking me the same question – have you got it yet? I was beginning to worry that Samsung had abandoned the competition, but that’s not the case and I’m hoping to be able to share my experiences of the phone with you all very soon.

We got some great news today and wanted to share it with you guys. We were contacted by Samsung to learn that we have been chosen as one of the winners to become an official i8910 Omnia HD Ambassador.

What does this mean you may ask? Well, it means we will be getting our hands on the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD smartphone at some point soon, courtesy of Samsung. It also means that we will be able to share our experiences with you, answer any questions you have and show you what the phone is capable of. I have no idea when we’ll be receiving it, but be sure that we’ll be keeping you fully updated!