Samsung Omnia 2 i8000. Tasty touchy

Written By: Martin on July 2, 2009 4 Comments

Touchscreens have been knocking around for a while now, but it’s not often that anyone other than Apple gets them right.

We’ve seen handset after handset now that, while promising to be “full touch!” or “super responsive touchscreen!” are little more than gimicky conversions of button-pressing phones. Sometimes, in fact, it seems like all that’s happened is someone’s imported all the software and interfaces from a non-touchscreen phone and slapped a basic touchscreen on top of it.

Not so with the latest range of Samsung phone’s, most impressive of which is the Samsung Omnia 2. This thing now only has a massive (huge, monstrous, biggest-ever, make-your-eyes-bleed) screen, but the thing actually works. In fact, it doesn’t just work, it hums, it sings, it positively screams slickness when you use it. This is thanks not only to the rather big screen (with its resistive response technology, super bright and crisp AMOLED display, 800×480 pixels) but to the UI that’s onboard. TouchWiz 2.0, designed from the finger up, as it were, is an absolute pleasure to use on the Samsung Omnia 2. Using is, you realise how shoddy some other companies attempts at ‘interactivity’ really are. Using a collection of completely customisable widgets, you’ll soon find you’re completely in synch with your handset, bouncing around between all its many and various functions quicker than you could imagine. The whole thing is based around a 3D cube navigation that not everyone will find attractive straight away, but with a little patience it turns out to be nifty enough for everything you’ll want to do with your Samsung Omnia 2 .

Available sometime in the Autumn. So watch this space for a future confirmation, and read this Samsung Omnia 2 review in the meantime. Or, have a gander at the video below.