N900 Competition – Samsung Omnia Pro

October 2009 is going to be hot month for new qwerty smartphones or should I say mobile computers. There are several devices that are coming in that time frame which have very similar external look and feel – N900 style big touch screen and slide-out qwerty keyboard.

One of these is Samsung Omnia Pro (here especially the B7610 model) which is rumored to launch in October in Finland and if rumor holds true I’m sure at least in many other European countries. This is not hard to believe as Microsoft has stated they are launching Windows Mobile 6.5 October 6th 2009 with simultaneous device launches.

Samsung Omnia Pro B7610 Specification

• Landscape slide-out qwerty + touch screen phone
• Dimensions: 112.6 * 57.8 * 16.2 mm
• Weight is 159 grams
• Screen size 3.5 inches
• Resolution 800*480 pixels, supports 16 million colors
• Screen is AMOLED – something I miss on N900
• 800 MHz processor (not fully confirmed), OMAP 3440?
• Connectivity: HSDPA 3.6 mbps, Quad-band GSM, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth v2.0 + EDR
• A-GPS with 2 year navigation included on Route 66 software
• Operating System: Windows Mobile 6.5, UI skin by Samsung – TouchWiz 2
• 5 megapixel camera with auto focus, also front facing camera for video calls, photo geo-tagging, video light, smile detection, panorama creation, image stabilization
• 1 Gigabyte internal storage
• Support for MicroSD cards, up to 32 GBs
• TV-Out capability
• DLNA support for media sharing
• Battery is 1500 mAh
• MicroUSB v2
• 3.5 mm headset connector
• FM Radio with RDS

With that spec list it sure looks familiar for those that know Nokia N900 specs. N900 has upper hand on these specs:

• HSDPA is 10 mbps flavor, quite suprising if Samsung Omnia Pro really has in Q4 2009 3.6 mbps HSDPA
• FM transmitter
• Carl Zeiss lens, but Samsung seems to have feature rich camera software
• Comes with 32 GB on-board memory

However there are also specs where Samsung Omnia Pro beats N900:

• It has AMOLED screen which is brighter and consumes less power
• Seems to have higher CPU speed MHz wise, N900 has 600 Mhz
• Has larger battery with 1500 mAh, N900 has 1320 mAh
• Has also 4 row keyboard, better in my books as 3 row keyboard
• Is thinner about 2 mm, N900 has thickness of 18 mm
• Weighs 160 grams were N900 has definitely on the heavy side with 181 grams
• Has FM Radio with RDS
• 2 year navigation license included

I think lot of decision which device to buy will also hinge on the operating system as Samsung Omnia Pro has the Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.5 and N900 has the Maemo 5 release. These are very different OSes in many aspects. Note that N900 comes with Microsoft Exchange synchronization built-in.

Based on 600 euros device+tax price for N900 in Finland these devices also seem to have same price range. It could be that Samsung Omnia Pro is a bit more expensive – say 699 euros but we will see latest in October.

Definitely a strong competitor on the specification level with N900 but as said, Windows Mobile 6.5 might pull this device down. If we could combine these Samsung specs with Maemo 5, I would likely take that over N900.

Recent Samsung Omnia Pro video from IFA Sep 2009, length 0:53.