Samsung Omnia i910 Cell Phone

Cons: HORRIBLE Qwerty keyboard that is impossible to use in portrait mode and single digit possible in landscape mode. Stylus needs to have integrated storage instead of the lanyard. Non-responsive touch screen in certain modes.

Summary: I had the Samsung Omnia i910 from Verizon for 30 days as a business test user. First reaction was that it was a very nice alternative to the Blackberry Storm and the Apple iPod. Clean and stylish looking, nice Samsung Widget or Today interface and some nice extra features like the 5.0 Mega-Pix camera and video camera with built-in flash, touch screen, and business card scanner. HOWEVER, the main purpose for most business users with a Windows Mobile Smartphone is the ability to keep connected with the office via your e-mail. I quickly found that I missed the physical Qwerty keyboard that I had with my Moto Q and Blackberry World Phone. The virtual touch screen Qwerty keyboard on the Omnia made typing simple e-mails and text messages a very slow and painful task. No point in trying to use the portrait mode keyboard (unless you use the stylus) and the landscape mode Qwerty keyboard is not designed for two-thumb typing. I found that you had to use either your index finger or my little pinky finger ONLY! (Or, use the stylus).

Other poor design ideas where the location of the "SEND" button/key on the Qwerty keyboard in relationship to the "SHIFT" button/key. Many times when composing a message I accidentally sent the message incomplete because I was trying to hit the shift key to cap a letter! UGH!

Also, you can tell they added the stylus to the design of this phone as an after-thought because of the quality of this touch screen Qwerty keyboard. Its apparent because they would have built an internal storage slot for the pencil-like stylus instead of the silly lanyard string loop cord.

Summary: If you are a power e-mail user, then I do not recomend the Samsung Omnia until they improve the design of the Qwerty keyboard. I would stick with the new Samsung Saga (review to come soon as I just got this in replacement to test from the Verizon business rep), the Blackberry devices, the Moto Q9c or the bigger slide-bar devices like the HTC Touch Pro.