New features are there, but not too many

Jan 9, 2010 10:27 GMT  ·  By

Samsung i8910/Omnia HD is one of the most popular mobile phones that the South Korean handset vendor Samsung has brought to the market lately, and it is a common fact that the device is set to receive a firmware update in the coming weeks. The software has been already announced as being on its way to users, and now a series of more details on what it should include have emerged.

A recent post on anphase.wordpress cites a discussion with a Samsung Technical Manager, in which the issues with Samsung i8910/Omnia HD are brought to light, and the steps the company plans on taking towards resolving them are detailed. There were a lot of things said, yet only some of them are strictly related to the device, so we'll try to focus mainly on them.

However, it should be mentioned that Samsung plans updates for all regions, but that it only delivers the software solution that is needed most in an area. Even if there have been a lot of updates developed for the i8910, the Technical Manager says that, “Updates are region/supplier/carrier specific, even for generic firmware. In order for an update to be pushed in your particular region, Samsung in that particular region has to know that you want an update.”

When it comes to the update itself, Samsung i8910 users should expect to receive new features, such as the Kinetic Scrolling and FM Transmitter. At the same time, there will also be a series of fixes for various aspects of the device, along with a series of improvements, but, from what we've seen, most of the features that were requested will either be skipped or are planned for future updates. However, the Technical Manager says that users might receive new customization options and themes in the future, but not with this release.

At the same time, he also notes that the new firmware solutions for the handset are quite large, which means that carriers are those to decide whether they will be sent over the air or not. The handset comes with user-data preservation for small updates, yet one should back up all data on the phone when it comes to larger updates, so as to make sure that nothing is lost, even if that will take a large amount of time.