Y? – Samsung Omnia ICON i8000

On a day to day basis I have used a lot of different Windows Phones (as they are now called) and each and everyone has had its pros and cons.

The popular trend is for every device to be a ‘me too’, to the iPhone which is starting to get a little old. In some instances you have to wonder why OEM’s like Samsung are even still using Windows Mobile as a platform – given the extraordinary lengths they’ve gone to, to hide it.

I’m not going to ask why Samsung have done this, its obvious – they’re trying to steal market share from iPhone….good luck. I actually think in doing as much they’ve succeeded far better than HTC with their TouchFlo 3D. I generally find TouchFlo 3d to be awkward and cumbersome and much preferred the original TouchFlo system with the rotating cube.

Many of  the reviews for the original Omnia i900 lauded its ‘finger-friendly’ nature but then whinged and moaned when faced with a ‘normal’ windows mobile screen. The i8000 has taken care of that with pretty much every single menu, sub menu and options dialogue re-created by Samsung in a ‘finger-friendly’ way. Unless you know what you’re looking for you’d be hard pressed to even disable the Samsung TouchWiz UI which masterfully conceals Windows Mobile.

Overall I think Samsung have actually done a remarkable job in re-skinning Windows Mobile. I am big fan of stock WinMo 6.1 (with touch scrolling of course) and often my first port of call on devices such as the HTCs is to disable their ’special magic’ and let me see behind the curtain. Not so with TouchWiz UI, I actually mostly like it. This is the first Windows Phone released this year that has actually gotten me excited again.

The screen is beautiful and responsive, the haptic feedback on the touch-keyboard far from being obtrusive enhances the experience. The widget based home screen is customisable and actually useful (especially when compared to the F480). There is a whole bevvy of pre-installed apps to make your device useful out of the box (take that Apple) some of greater use (Qik) than others (Dice). Everything is so easy to tap away at sans-stylus - the menus, the calendar, the excellent media player….but….

And here is the why. Why did they ruin it with such a rubbish Messaging application? Why is messaging locked into being a ‘high-contrast’ white on black colour theme? Why can’t I smart search lookup contacts when writing a message? Why is messaging the only place (and only when in the message body) I can access the beautiful landscape keyboard mode? Did nobody learn that mistake from Apple? Why have you deprived me of threaded messaging? Why, why, why!?

The keyboard thing is a bit of a recurring bug bear I have. It was a primary complaint of the early iPhone software that landscape keyboard was only available in Safari – Apple actually got it right and allowed usage of the landscape keyboard almost everywhere. For some reason Samsung, HTC, LG etc. don’t seem to think they need to pay attention to this. Why can’t I get a full-touch windows mobile with auto-rotation throughout – why limit my experience?

I continue to hope one day an OEM will put it all together, until then I will continue to ask – why?