New Omnia
 

Well I finally got my Omnia, and I have to say, theres already some things I really miss from my old media phone compared to this. Although its features are nice, I'm still riding the fence on keeping it.

My biggest gripe is the touch keyboard, but also the time it takes to do simple tasks that would have normally been one or two button pushes on my old phone. These tasks now involve many more menus and scrolls, and ugh.

That being said I've got some questions for you guys now.

1.- is there any way to customize the widget bar? 90% of the things they've preloaded in there are utterly useless.

2.- my contacts are all last name first name, and I'd prefer them first name last name. I've tried all menus and everything in activesync, but maybe I'm missing something.

3.- I downloaded skyfire and it works just fine, didn't need a fix or anything, but it runs like garbage compared to opera. Yes the loading is faster and yes it supports flash, but the scrolling is godawful, and the pages don't render as crisply as they do in opera, any way this can be tweaked or is this just the pros and cons of being able to play flash on my phone?

Re: New Omnia
 

#2
In outlook go to tools-options-preferences tab-contact options and change "file as" to first last. Tada!!!

Re: New Omnia
 

Welcome aboard!!!

The Omnia "out of the box" needs some help. I think you'll find that most everyone ditches the "widgets" in exchange for some other interface. Most of which have to be added or hacked in....much easier than it sounds.

Go to the "tips/tricks" thread stickied at the top and start doing your homework. Everything you need to know has been posted and discussed before.

As far as Skyfire running like crap... make sure it is installed on your "device"... and not in your "storage". That seems to make a big difference.

Again... weclome aboard and happy modding!

Re: New Omnia
 

#1. If you have the non-US Omnia there have been several ROM updates. The newest one (find on this board) has new widgets that should make your experience more enjoyable. We get no love here in the US. Most people don't use the widgets from what I've read. I don't. Samsung Today 2 is my prefered home screen mixed with several plugins.

#3. Skyfire is a great preview browser. It is a beta. It is not perfected. Navigation sucks, You can't do multiple windows. Pixel rendering is spotty. HOWEVER, having flash capabilities makes up for all of it. You can not compare Opera and Skyfire at this point. Opera is my favorite over Internet Explorer and Skyfire. However don't get frustrated with Skyfire becasue it is not a finished product.

Re: New Omnia
 

Thank you all for the feedback. Unfortunately at this point I am thinking that I am going to swap my omnia back in, reactivate my old phone, and retain my upgrade. It does alot of things well, but there are certain setbacks I just can't get over, touchscreen typing being a major player. If this phone just had a slide qwerty like the htc touch or any similar smartphone, I could overcome the other smaller objects and she would be a surefire winner, but I feel as though this phone just isn't for me.

Also if someone could tell me how to fix the main clock on the omnia that would be great. I've run into the military time issue that seems to be prevelent on these handsets. I've tried going though my sync and my computer is set on the proper time, my phone displays the proper time in its settings, but the display clock is still reading 00:16. Rather frustrating.

Re: New Omnia
 

A preferences tab is not avaliable in my outlook. Perhaps you could be more specific? Sorry, but I'm a little lost.

Re: New Omnia
 

Can you not install touchPal on the omnia? I've heard it works really well, better than a hardware KB from some sources.

Edit: http://www.cootek.com/ < link to touchpal. I don't have an Omnia yet, and I am new to all this, so I'm not sure if it's installable. Someone more advanced have any input on this?

Re: New Omnia
 

I feel ur pain when it comes to the touch keyboard, but it does take time to get used to, the Military time issue I have not run into granted I use a third party user interface so I don't even bother with the widgets, and things you mentioned, I was going to suggest that you try some of those but it seems that you may not have time to try it out... =(

Re: New Omnia
 

well i installed the today 2 screen. much better then what was provided. Although its a damn shame the widgets are not customizable, its actually not abad idea. as far as the today 2 screen, ive seen different shots where the icons were arranged differently, almost iphone-esq, how is this done?

also did the registry edit for making the ringtone oneflat volume, worked excellent.

Re: New Omnia
 

No one tried touchpal?

Re: New Omnia
 

I've never really had an issue with the touchscreen typing, unless your looking to write a novel on your phone, they do what they need to do, and just takes a bit a time to acclimate to it.

Re: New Omnia
 

Well, I did it. Boxed it back up, shipped it back out. I am happily reunited with my Voyager, and sending texts out as quick as they come in.

There were alot of quirks I simply could not live with in the Omnia, and the negatives quickly began to outweigh the positives. Its a good phone, just not for me.

Not always the case my friend. I found when texting at half the speed I would on my qwerty phone, I was watching correct letters being pressed, but wrong letters being displayed, the abc/xt9 button constantly being pressed instead of the "L" key that was clearly depressed, and the main menu popping up when I attemped at the space bar, then accidentally hitting the main menu during its popup lag to be taken out of my message I had just painstakingly typed and back to my inbox, with no message saved. This happened more then once after more then one calibration. Punctuation was a big thing for me -- going through extra menus to find the punctuation needed proved to be an unecessary hassle. Physical keyboards with symbol keys are much more efficient. When you average 60-80 words per min on a qwerty keypad, no touchscreen provides as substitute, ever. Learned that the hard way.



Others things I found obnoxious about this phone were:
-Lack of grouping contacts to be selected in one text message
-Unnecessary keystokes to perform simple tasks
-Lack of drag and drop shortcuts (with the exception of the useless widget bar)
-Godawful battery life
-Tasks not closing when menus/programs were closed resulting in memory degradation
-EVDO connection not disconnecting after browser(s) were closed
-Virtually useless autocorrection for texting, especially when compared to competitor versions such as the iphone
-Certain menus being finger "scrollable" and others not
-Immense lag on keyboard while typing on the internet (forums, myspace, email etc.) no matter the browser used
-Contacts list being non-finger friendly
-The inability to use seperate pictures for portrait and landscape modes, almost always resulting in the tiling of either mode depending on which one was used when picture was initially set as a background.
-Multiple pages received for long text messages from another verizon user. (my voyager is a simple media phone, and it displays unlimited amounts of text from other verizon customers in one message, I would expect an advanced smartphone to do the same)

Theres probably more I can add, but its late and I don't care to think about it now. I'll retain my upgrade and be waiting for the second quarter releases to see if any qwerty smartphones will be released that will be worth it. Personally I've got my eyes on the HTC Touch Pro2. As for pure touchscreens? Never again, not even an iphone. So long Omnia, it was a interesting ride while it lasted.

Re: New Omnia
 

Of those complaints listed, you might want to stay away from any windows mobile based phone. They can all be corrected, if you are willing to tweak.