Amung' Omnia Mobile Phone - Coursework Example

Mobile Report Mobile Report amung' phone are a widepread and popular a Nokia thee day and that ucce ha come a a reult of conitently producing leek, good-looking handet with ma appeal. But amung alo want a lice of the iPhone action, it would eem, and ha made a big effort to produce one of it very own. The Omnia, like the HTC Touch Diamond, i baed on Window Mobile Profeional 6.1 and like the Diamond it replace large part of Microoft' ugly and fiddly martphone uer interface with one of amung' deign in an attempt to provide an iPhone-tyle touch creen experience. (Ahonen and Melkko, 2008, 44-99) Phyically, it' very imilar to the iPhone 3G, much more o than the Diamond, complete with lim, candybar form factor, a large creen dominating the front panel and minimalit control. Compare the phone ide by ide and you'll find that dimenion are remarkably imilar too, though the Omnia i a little limmer, narrower and horter than the iPhone 3G, at 12.5 x 112 x 56.9mm compared to 12.3 x 115.5 x 62mm. o how exactly doe it tack up elewhere Well, a you'd expect from a modern Window martphone, there' a pile of feature and many of thee appear to match or outtrip the iPhone 3G equivalent. It ha a five-megapixel camera on the rear with an LED flah and a VGA video call camera on the front - the iPhone' i three megapixel le and it ha no video call feature. It alo ha HDPA of up to 7.2Mb/ec, a 624MHz proceor, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, a GP receiver and an FM radio. Plu it come with a decent helping of torage - either 8GB or 16GB with microD expanion a well. It creen, however, at 3.2 inche in't quite a luxuriouly paciou a the iPhone' and it 400 x 280 reolution i alo inferior. There' alo no 3.5mm headphone ocket and though a converion dongle i included in the box, we'd ooner not have to carry an adapter around jut to liten to muic and it eem a needle overight given the capaciou torage on offer. (Ahonen and Melkko, 2008, 44-99) The camera, however, i the main highlight here. It reolution i the main headline: five megapixel i the highet reolution I've een in a Window Mobile device, but it alo ha image tabiliation, which mean you don't have to rely on the le-than-ideal LED 'flah' in difficult lighting. The reult are impreive. Inevitably given the pinhole len hot are a little noiy in low light and focu a touch oft, but they're more than acceptable. You can ue the Omnia for proper nap - not jut contact profile picture. urpriingly for a Window Mobile device, the Omnia alo boat iPhone-like peed and reponivene and it' a darned ite nippier than the HTC Touch Diamond - even with the Diamond' latet firmware applied. Application launch peedily, browing the web on the phone' uperb Opera Mobile 9.5 web brower i zippy and the accelerometer, which rotate the orientation of the creen from portrait to landcape a you flip the phone around in your hand, work jut a you would expect it to, complete with fancy animation. amung' touch-driven uer interface i a valiant effort at dealing with the inadequacie of Window Mobile' UI, too. Interetingly, amung provide no tylu towage on the Omnia - the tylu attache to the phone' lanyard loop intead. Thi wouldn't be an iue, of coure, but unfortunately the one key area where the Omnia can't compete i with the iPhone' beautifully elegant operating ytem. It tart well. When you firt fire the phone up you're confronted with a blank creen and a crolling toolbar arranged down the left hand ide. Thi contain a number of attractive, graphical widget that you can drag into to the blank pace to diplay tuff like recent email, the time, currently playing muic track, phone profile, calendar, analogue and digital clock and o on. (Ahonen and Melkko, 2008, 44-99) Thee don't jut diplay information, though, they provide baic control too, o not only can you ee who your mot recent email i from, you can alo click it to read it in full, or croll back to ee who the previou mail wa from. Muic track can be paued and kipped and favourite contact can be added or removed a well. (Kelly , 2008, 04-22) It' an intereting approach and allow you to completely cutomie the front end of the phone. It' eay to get a little over enthuiatic and clutter the creen to uch an extent that it become unuable, but fortunately towing away widget you're not uing i imple - you imply drag them back over to the toolbar. There' alo a more tandard grid-baed launcher application, acceed via one of the oft key at the bottom of the creen. From here you can acce all the phone' main application via finger-friendly touch-creen button.Many of Window Mobile' mot commonly ued tool have had a proper touch-creen makeover, too. The alarm clock - a feature I ue all of the time - no longer require prodding with a tylu; the phone book ha overized entrie and the muic player i much eaier to get on with. Even the phone' web brower - Opera Mobile 9.5 - ha been tweaked a little to make it eaier to ue: lide your finger up and down the right of the creen and a zoom control appear, adding the ability to make fine adjutment to the tandard quick zoom and overview mode. Every tap of the creen i accompanied by a haptic feedback buzz - a luxuriou extra that iPhone owner can't boat of - and the mall quare elect button at the bottom of the creen, between the tart and end call key, i alo touch enitive and can act a a tiny trackpad, moving a curor around the creen, or a four-way directional control. Unfortunately, Window Mobile, depite amung' bet effort, jut refue to go away. Many of the Omnia' advanced etting creen are till fiddly and trewn with check boxe. It can be confuing at time, too, with everal etting creen available in amung or Microoft mode, depending on where you launch them from. But the Omnia ha a more eriou Achille heel: it text entry method. Like the iPhone, typing i carried out on a touchcreen keyboard but the amung', I'm afraid, jut doen't work very well. The hardware itelf i partly to blame - the creen in't quite a reponive a the iPhone' and it maller ize doen't help either - but the deign of the keyboard i the main iue. It jut doen't provide enough viual feedback and the key aren't eparated from each other by enough dead pace to be uable. It' far too eay to hit a neighbouring key by accident and in landcape mode I preed the end oft key while writing an email more than once. It' frutrating, fiddly and not conducive to typing email, note or making edit to office document quickly and though one could replace it with omething le frutrating, it doen't change the fact the creen in't a reponive a it could be. Lat, but by no mean leat, battery life i far from wonderful. With the phone hooked up to an Exchange erver I managed to extract jut a day and a half of light to medium ue from the phone. You can extend thi to two or poibly even three day by uing POP3 or IMAP email and downloading mail manually, of coure, but in doing thi you'd be miing out on one of the phone' key elling point - intantly delivered e-mail. Along with RIM' BlackBerry Bold and the ony Ericon Xperia X1, the amung Omnia i one of the mot requeted and ought-after martphone of 2008. Why all the buzz It' not o much the Omnia' touch-creen that' drawing attention (after all, we've een it in the amung Intinct), but rather amung' TouchWiz interface. It bring drag-and-drop widget for the Today creen and provide an extra level of device cutomiation. Truthfully, it' not a lick a the Apple iPhone, but it doe wonder to make the notoriouly unintuitive Window Mobile eaier to ue. Plu, the martphone i loaded with productivity and multimedia feature that truly make it an all-in-one device that will atify both conumer and mobile profeional. The Omnia i currently not available in Autralia, although we have heard the local releae date i November 1. Autralian pricing i currently unknown, although it retail for 440 pound in the UK while the U pay around $700 in their currency. We expect it to cot roughly AU$1000 when releaed locally. Deign The amung Omnia i an eye-catching martphone, but in an undertated way. It' imultaneouly imple and elegant, with an attractive black-and-late ilver chai and lim candy bar deign that meaure 112mm tall by 56.9mm wide by 12.5mm deep and weigh 125g. Although light and compact, it ha a nice olid contruction and feel comfortable to hold and ue a a phone. The handet in't adorned with many external control: rather, like it ibling, the amung Intinct, and the Apple iPhone, the Omnia i all about the touch-creen. The Omnia feature a 3.2in. TFT creen that deliver a 240-by-400-pixel image in 16-bit colour (65,536 colour). The diplay in't a large a the iPhone' (3.5in.), nor i it a harp. ure, we could ue more colour and more creen pace, epecially for viewing web page and video, but it' ufficient for mot tak, and it i eay to read and vibrant. A for text entry, there are everal method you can ue in both portrait and landcape mode, including a full QWERTY keyboard, Block Recognizer and Trancriber. The full QWERTY in portrait mode i pretty cramped, o we made a number of mitake when compoing text meage and email. Alo, like the HTC Touch Diamond, when opened, the keyboard take up half the creen, o if you need to enter text in any field below the top half, you have to croll down to acce that portion of the page, which i annoying. Like the HTC Touch Diamond (right), the amung Omnia feature a unique touch-creen uer interface on top of Window Mobile 6.1. The touch-creen i motly reponive and offer haptic tactile feedback that let you know that your touch ha regitered with vibration. You can adjut the intenity of the feedback a well a chooe from variou vibration rhythm under the VibeTonz folder in the etting menu. In addition, the Omnia' diplay ha a built-in accelerometer o the creen will rotate from portrait to landcape mode when you turn the phone. Again, there are option for you to adjut the enitivity of the motion enor under etting. Here, you'll alo find omething called Etiquette mode, which will ilence any tone when the Omnia i placed diplay-ide down. What make the Omnia unique, however, i amung' TouchWiz uer interface. TouchWiz allow for an extra level of peronalization on your Home creen. There i a tray located on the left ide with variou application, uch a the clock, muic player, photo gallery, game and notepad. You can then drag and drop thee 'widget' to the main creen o they're eaily acceible to you every time you fire up your phone. Once you've cutomied the phone to your liking, you can collape and hide the tray by tapping the arrow button. Beyond the Home creen, there' alo the Main Menu page that organie the major application in a nice uer-friendly view &mdah; very non-Window Mobile. All that aid, we had a couple of complaint about the touch creen and TouchWiz uer interface. Firt, the Omnia didn't regiter our touch when we tried to ue the croll bar (to the right of the creen) when trying to navigate longer page, o we had to ue the directional pad or virtual moue. Alo, you can't add application to the TouchWiz interface. You're limited to the preloaded widget, which i a big downfall, in our opinion. A of now, you get widget for photo, the media player, FM radio, calendar, profile, game, everal clock, new notification and the notepad. It' a decent lit, but at the very leat we'd like the addition of a web widget. If you find you're not a fan of TouchWiz, or a you're a traditionalit, you can witch back to the tandard Window Today creen back or chooe the 'amung Theme 2', which preent a more implified home creen, imilar to that on HTC' Touch Diamond. The Omnia i largely about the touch-creen, but you do get a couple of phyical button. Below the diplay, there are Talk and End key, and a four-way directional pad. The latter can be turned into a virtual moue; jut go to etting > ytem > Finger Moue and enable the functionality. We appreciate the incluion of thi feature but didn't ue it that often and tuck with the directional keypad. The Omnia' four-way directional pad can alo be ued a a virtual moue. On the right ide, you'll find a hortcut to the main menu page, a volume rocker and a camera activation key, while the left ide hold the headphone/power connector port. Unfortunately, amung ue a proprietary port for the latter, o be ure to keep track of the included cable and acceorie. Alo, there' no built-in tylu. One i provided in the box, but you have to attach it with the included lanyard, o it dangle off the left ide; we definitely would have preferred it built into the device. Finally, the camera len and flah are located on the back, and there' a microD lot - but you have to remove the back cover and battery to properly inert the card, which i a bit of a pain. The amung Omnia come packaged with two power adapter, a UB cable, a wired headet with extra eartip, a 3.5mm headphone audio adapter, a tylu, a oftware CD and reference material. Feature Although it doen't look like a traditional Window Mobile device, the amung Omnia doe run Window Mobile 6.1 with all the uual trimming, including the Microoft Office Mobile uite and upport for Microoft' Direct Puh Technology for real-time meage delivery and automatic ynchroniation with your Outlook calendar, tak and contact via Exchange erver. The Omnia can alo be configured to acce your POP3 and IMAP email account; we imply entered our Yahoo Mail login ID and paword and were able to receive and end meage within a couple of minute. There are plenty of other PIM tool to keep you on tak and organied, including a tak lit, a tak manager and witcher, a mart converter, a calculator and a PDF reader, among other thing. For web browing, you could ue Internet Explorer Mobile, but the Omnia alo hip with Opera Mobile, which many find to be a uperior brower. There' alo Window Live integration and a Google Launcher that give you quick acce to earch, Google Mail, and Google Map. Unfortunately, there' no Flah upport out of the box. A far a connecting to the web, you can ue Wi-Fi or your network operator' mobile ignal - the Omnia upport 3G/HDPA and GPR/EDGE. Performance We teted the quad-band amung Omnia in an Francico on T-Mobile' network and call quality wa OK. In general, audio wa good but there were everal occaion where there wa ome crackling in the background, and it got to be a little ditracting. We didn't experience any dropped call, though, and we had no problem uing an airline' voice-automated repone ytem. Our friend alo reported fairly good reult with jut one complaint of light ditortion. The peakerphone wa pretty clear, but the audio can ound blown out when you jack the volume to hear the call in louder environment. We were able to pair the Omnia with the Logitech Mobile Traveller Bluetooth headet and the Motorola 9 Bluetooth Active Headphone. Verdict Though not perfect, it negative point don't make amung' Omnia a bad handet. It ha a very good camera, i very reponive, ha an excellent web brower and all the uual advantage of Window Mobile device like lick Outlook yncroniation, Office document compatibility and a raft of free downloadable application. Unfortunately, thee key trength are le conumer orientated and thi i largely a handet meant for them, not buinemen or women. Thi mean that depite ome clear promie, it till truggle to compete with the iPhone a a conumer handet. Reference Kelly Olen (2008-04-22). "amung chairman reign over candal", Aociated Pre via Google New. Retrieved on 22 April 2008. - Levinon, Paul, Cellphone: The tory of the World' Mot Mobile Medium, and How It Ha Tranformed Everything!, 2004 IBN 1-4039-6041-0 Ling, Rich, The Mobile Connection: the Cell Phone' Impact on ociety, 2008IBN 1558609369 Ling, Rich and Pederen, Per, ed. Mobile Communication: Re-negotiation of the ocial phere, 2008IBN 1852339314 Nyri, Kritf, ed. Mobile Communication: Eay on Cognition and Community, 2008 Ahonen, Tomi, m-Profit: Making Money with 3G ervice, 2008, IBN 0-470-84775-1 Ahonen, Kaper and Melkko, 3G Marketing 2008, IBN 0-470-85100-7 Read More