Being an ex-Microsoft employe there is no pun intended, but working in a DoD-building most of my colleagues (HP614, ect. ) suffer the same bad reception.

Actually, I work in a DoD building, too, and I can make calls and talk in the elevator even. If anything, reception seems more controlled by the carrier (and tower placement) — several people here with AT&T can't make calls unless they're near the window.

I can say only the Nokias and Blackberries stand out, some more than other models.

The difference is that Nokia and RIM make their phones, so they can control the radios, power, etc. Microsoft doesn't make WM phones, so those are controlled by the OEM, and I would expect to see some variation in call quality among different OEMs.

Maybe I'm just more tolerant of bad reception, though (or maybe other people are pickier than I am). I can't say that I've ever had a bad phone and I've had phones by Nokia, Motorola (StarTac), LG (V6000), Motorola (V710), Motorola (Q), Motorola (Q9m) and now Samsung (Omnia). The common denominator is that I've always used Verizon (or its predecessor, GTE).

Steve

Being an ex-Microsoft employe there is no pun intended, but working in a DoD-building most of my colleagues (HP614, ect. ) suffer the same bad reception.
I can say only the Nokias and Blackberries stand out, some more than other models.
Not that I want to trade in any of my WinMo devices for that !

Also the weaker reception; my Qtek 8500 (StarTrek) has the same problem, must be a WinMo feature.

I'll assume that was meant as a joke. In a handset, reception is mostly a hardware issue governed by the radio used, antenna size and placement and (maybe) power tuning/profiles. Of those, only the last could possibly be controlled by Windows Mobile, and even that would likely be set by the OEM.

Steve

Stylus I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't figured out how to open the #*(%!@ thing. That's just ridiculous.

Performance The performance is pretty good, but I have noticed some lag. I've also had quite a few lockups. Whether those are due to third-party software I've installed is hard to say, though.

Battery life I haven't had the good luck you've had. I have my main POP3 E-mail configured to check every 30 minutes and my other acconts (all POP3) configured to check probably every two hours. I often need to recharge during the day or in the evening. Part of that could be that I use the Redfly a lot as a terminal over Bluetooth.

Phone The phone has been fine. I haven't noticed any worse reception with the Omnia compared to my Motorola Q and Q9m (which supposedly had excellent reception).

The one thing I don't like about the phone is the dialer. After a few seconds of inactivity, it takes you to a “sleep” screen and you have to move the optical mouse to press keys again. This is very annoying when you have to enter codes in a customer support system. It would be nice if the dialer made use of the gravity and light sensors and only did this when the phone was upright and near your face.

Fortunately, due to a Redfly glitch, I reverted back to the standard Microsoft dialer which doesn't lock the keypad out. (I can't get back to the Samsung dialer, at least not without some hacking.)

GPS Yeah, locking the GPS sucks. Verizon said they were going to provide patches to unlock the GPS, but I haven't heard whether they've done that for any of their phones. Fortunately, I have Garmin Mobile XT, which came with a Bluetooth GPS receiver, and that works fine.

Widgets They're cool, but I've switched back to the standard Today screen. Neither the widget plug-in nor the Samsung Today plug-in allow other plug-ins, and I run several (like the Resco status/launcher plug-in).

The one issue that I had with widgets is that there didn't seem to be a way to lock them in place. I'd always find them out of place after storing my phone in its case. They should have an Edit mode that allows adding/deleting/moving widgets, but normal mode shouldn't allow any changes.

Software Samsung did a great job including other software. Compaq/HP used to do that, but lately HP seems to skimp on extras. Samsung has included several useful programs (RSS Reader, Podcast player, business card scanner, alarm program, etc.), plus touch-friendly versions of other apps (media player, task switcher, Program list, etc.).

Usability Missing a keyboard is a problem (compared to the Motorola Q9m I loved), but I partially get around that using the Celio Redfly. And remember, the only physical kebyoards on all of the original Pocket PCs (until the iPAQ 4350) were add-on external ones, so the Omnia could be called retro. :D

I think an arguably bigger issue is the lack of the normal physical buttons for softkeys (although those are usually easy to touch) and the OK button. (You can get home by pressing the End key or to the Program launcher using the button at the upper right.)

For gaming, the lack of buttons will also be a negative, I suspect, and I think the optical mouse will be inferior to a d-pad because you can't use your thumbs the same way.

Finally, flick scrolling has been hit-or-miss for me. Sometimes it works very well, scrolling at a reasonable speed, while others the scrolling is much too fast. I haven't found a reliable way to initiate flick scrolling at the speed that I want.

Overall Overall, I like the Omnia. It's got a lot of the cool factor that the iPhone has, but it's not perfect. Like most Windows Mobile devices, it can lock up occasionally. However, I've long since learned to put up with the downside of Windows Mobile because it's so powerful and works so well with Outlook.

Steve

Sent from my HTC Touch Pro2

I'd echo the pros… Great camera, incredible amount of onboard memory, larger screen, and good battery life.

I'd also echo some of your cons… Stylus, odd screen resolution, screen not really readible in the sun.

I can give or take the keyboard, but it's probably something of a con for me as well.

But nevertheless, for me, it's a keeper.