14 DAY TRIAL // O2 Germany will apparently offer its customers Samsung's latest high-end Pocket PC, the i900 Omnia, starting August 2008.
Although the South Korean company announced its new marvel only yesterday, European carriers are already making plans on how to better market the handset and O2 seems to be the first operator that will release the new Samsung.
Unveiled on the same day as Apple's iPhone 3G, Samsung i900 Omnia will surely be among the devices that can compete with the second generation iPhone. The best features of Samsung's new flagship handset include: a 5 Megapixel camera (with auto focus, flash, face detection, image stabilizer, WDR, video recording and geotagging), a 3.2 inch TFT display with 240 x 400 pixels and handwriting recognition, quad-band GSM and tri-band HSDPA connectivity, Wi-Fi, built-in GPS, 8GB of expandable memory, Windows Mobile 6.1, full HTML browser, Music and Video players with lots of formats supported, TV-out, Bluetooth 2.0 and FM Radio with RDS.
The design of Samsung Omnia is a simple one, but the metallic finish of its case will surely attract lots of mobile users in need of a fashionable device. The i900 measures 112 x 56.9 x 12.5 millimeters and weighs 125 grams, hence it's far from being considered big or bulky.
The release of Sasmung Omnia in Germany, via O2, comes at about the same time as the release of iPhone 3G through T-Mobile.
T-Mobile has more subscribers than O2 (36 million, as opposed to 13 million) and it's the largest mobile operator in Germany. This will allow more German users to buy the iPhone than Samsung's handset, hence Apple's phone will probably be sold in more units than the Omnia. But that's only natural, because Samsung i900 Omnia will be offered by O2 for 179 Euros with a two-year contract agreement. Knowing this, the retail price of Omnia will be well above 200 Euros, hence more expensive than the iPhone 3G, which should have retail prices of 130 Euros for its 8GB version and 190 Euros for the 16GB version.
Anyway, after all, it's good that German users will have more choices when it comes to high-end touchscreen handsets.
