Samsung Omnia i900 – Precursor To The Galaxy Series of Phones

by admin on April 23, 2012

In today’s look at the Hall of Fame, we’re going to be considering the old Samsung Omnia i900 mobile phone. Quite outdated by today’s standards but more a symptom of how fast technology at the upper end of the market has moved, rather than the phone itself. Taken in isolation and for the time, the phone certainly was a good one.

The Omnia series was designed to be the higher-end of mobile phones. With mobile technology now able to support bigger screens, higher resolution cameras and large capacity (thanks to expandable SD cards), phones needed to keep up. Unfortunately, mobile OS were not able to keep up with this pace of acceleration and hence used Windows Mobile OS, the operating system of choice for the higher end phone:

The phone was notable at the time for the following:

Touch Screen: Featuring a touch screen with few physical buttons, this was a new concept at the time. However, the phone was not capacitative like the Apple iPhone but resistive. This method, now associated with cheaper, lower end phones, required a stylus to work effectively. Unfortunately on the Omnia, there was not room on board for the stylus, making this a part easily lost.

Highly Customisable: Windows probably gave the user more options on customisability than any other phone so far, with proprietary OS from manufacturers either restricted by software or the technological limits of the phone. Now, new custom ROMS were able to alter the whole workings of the phone and ‘skin’ on top of the default Windows OS. Whilst this could hide most of the ugly parts, it couldn’t hide them all. However, the greater flexibility of Windows gave users a greater freedom than ever before over their content.

microSD Card Slot: With a whopping 8GB onboard and another 8GB microSD card bundled with the phone, this was a huge amount of space for users to play with. For the first time, it was certainly possible for people to have entire movie connections on-board their handset.

5MP Camera: With the resolution in the camera market ‘topping out’ (in that there had been 5MP cameras available for a while, the handset went one better and integrated a high-power LED flash on it. This allowed good quality photos to be taken with just the handset.

What happened to it: The phone was a good success for Samsung, becoming one of the top phones in the business range and arguably became their inspiration for the highly successful Galaxy S series. However, that wasn’t to be it for the Omnia series as an even more powerful version was to be designed, codenamed the i8000 which not only featured a bigger screen, but a better camera too. This represented the end of the line for the Omnia series as much of the efforts were put into the new Galaxy brand.

Can I get one? There are a lot of older versions kicking around and prices are not too high for this phone, given the outdated technology in use. It may require some steps back to get used to the stylus again, but it’s a worthwhile education in the history of handsets. There are some digitizer issues (touchscreen alignment) which should be investigated before purchase, although replacement is fairly straightforward.

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Sony Ericsson T610 – Maturity of a new age of phone

by admin on April 18, 2012

In today’s classic lookback, we’ll be reminiscing about the Sony Ericsson T610 mobile phone. Released in 2003, this probably was one of the defining handsets of the ‘candybar’ type, with a 10cm x 4.5cm x 2cm giving the phone a ergonomic shape which was pleasant to look at and easy to hold. The shape was quite a big departure from the company’s previous best-selling model – the Sony Ericsson T68, and probably was an amalgamation of two further models in the family – the Sony Ericsson T300 and the Sony Ericsson T600. Both were perhaps niche products at their very best – the T300 was not advanced enough and was a budget phone, and the T600 was a higher-end phone which charged a premium on the very small size. The T610 was designed with elements of both in mind:

The phone went all metal, which featured on many of the best-selling Nokia handsets of the era and so offered a degree of differentiation. It was available in three colours, although the housings were not easily interchanged, requiring a Torx T6. The phone featured:

Central Navigation Joystick: As featured in many of the Sony Ericsson handsets before, but able to be really used with the larger LCD screen able to take more icons in an improved resolution, with the Sony Ericsson OS being developed much in line with Nokia’s series 60. Unlike many other phones of the period, it was decided not to  use an on-board memory slot.

On-board camera: The model was one of the first to actually use an on-board camera, with models such as the Sony Ericsson T300 using a separate camera attachment which plugged into the bottom of the handset. With the camera only taking half-VGA resolution photos, it lagged behind the standards at the time.

Bluetooth/IRDA: In what was also another standard, Bluetooth was also introduced into the handset to allow fast data transfer. A much other little known fact was that the phone also had infrared but the later technology was fast surpassing any use of IRDA which required the devices to be aligned.

Built in GPRS Modem: Fast developing from the ashes of WAP technology, a built-in GPRS modem allowed devices to access the internet in a fast speed. With phone screen resolutions fast increasing, it allows websites to display more and more information on phones, although at around this era, the mobile web was still very much in its infancy.

What Happened to it: The phone was a real hit across Europe and the World, becoming one of the most common handsets of the time. There was one later handset (the Sony Ericsson T630) which simply gave an update to all the elements in the handset as well as a more obscure Sony Ericsson T700. It was widely acknowledge that the development shifted in Sony’s W series of phones. With the increasing multimedia capability of phones, it was time to co-brand the phones with the Walkman insignia.

If you’re looking to pick up one of these second hand, they are available very cheaply due to the large numbers available. Find one here!

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