THE MOBILE HORNET … for those who get turned on by mobile devices

Sony Ericsson will be expected to ship the XPERIA X1 between the 6th and 12th of October. The XPERIA X1 will be retailing at US$1,100 (RM3,630).

With the expected arrival of the XPERIA X1 are you holding out for the slim HTC Touch Diamond, 16GB Samsung Omnia, the keyboard HTC Touch Pro, or the XPERIA X1?  Difficult choice, huh?

GSMARENA has come out with some good comparison between the HTC TOUCH DIAMOND and the SAMSUNG i900 OMNIA.  Please note that the comparison is based on a beta unit of the OMNIA and the retail unit of the TOUCH DIAMOND:

• TOUCH DIAMOND OVER OMNIA:
  • VGA display (2.8-inch, 480 x 640 pixels)
  • TouchFLO 3D Home screen (better than Omnia’s Touchwiz UI)
  • Nicer design
  • More compact body
  • Lighter weight
  • Active magnetic stylus (Omnia has no stylus slot)
  • Touch-sensitive scroll wheel (better than Omnia’s optical joystick)
  • Better sunlight legibility (by a small margin)
  • Standard miniUSB slot (as opposed to Samsung’s proprietary custom plus)
  • Dedicated graphics chip with 64MB memory
  • Comes with the amusing Teeter game (uses the accelerometer)
  • Has pre-installed YouTube client and MP3 Trimmer application for ringtones
  • Better video playback performance 
• OMNIA OVER TOUCH DIAMOND:
  • Bigger, though lower-res display (3.2″, 240 x 400 pixels)
  • Has a better, more solid build and finish
  • Almost double battery life
  • Better CPU performance (by a nice margin according to software benchmarks)
  • Quad-band GSM support (Diamond has two versions to cover all the four bands)
  • microSD card slot (Diamond has none)
  • 8 or 16 GB of storage memory (Diamond has 4GB)
  • Much better 5 megapixel camera (better processing, higher resolution, face and smile detection, geotagging)
  • TV-out (Diamond lacks that)
  • Landscape QWERTY keyboard (Diamond has one but only in browser)
  • Auto screen rotation is available in all applications and can be switched off
  • Comes with DivX video support (Diamond has none, but DivX players can be installed)
  • Has pre-installed a custom Alarms app, a Video editor and a unit converter

IS THIS GOING TO BE THE iPHONE 3G KILLER?

Introducing the INCREDIBLE SAMSUNG OMNIA i900 which is set to arrive Asia in June and in European markets by July 2008.

The Omnia i900 brings together high performance business content, top of the range style and a fun, dynamic multi-media experience, to ensure consumers are always connected both at home and at work. OMNIA, meaning ‘everything’ in Latin and ‘wish’ in Arabic, goes beyond the current top-of-the-line features available in today’s mobile phones.

The new Samsung OMNIA allows users to switch seamlessly between Microsoft Outlook email and productivity applications that replicate the look and feel of their PC - with a stroke of their finger.

Based on the most up to date Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional operating system, Samsung OMNIA gives users a mobile extension to their PC experience, with access to MS Office documents such as PowerPoint, Excel and Word. Users can also send and receive email and manage their appointments in Outlook while on the go. The Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional operating system means users can download additional programs as they would on their PC and customize it for their individual needs. For ease of navigation an optical mouse similar to those on laptop computers offers improved usability and one-handed control.

Here are the specs of this incredible device :

Suggested Price : 

• 8GB  @ 600,000 Korean Won (US$574 / RM1,881) and
• 16GB @ 700,000 Korean Won (US$670 / RM2,196)

Samsung’s patented TouchWiz user interface makes entering data and text simple. With unique widgets, users can customise and personalise the way they use their phone. The Samsung OMNIA’s high resolution touch-sensitive screen uses intuitive tap, sweep, drag and drop operations as well as an on-screen qwerty keyboard. It also facilitates easy and convenient calling and texting with a dedicated dome key for controlling communications.

The downside of the Samsung Omnia i900 is that it has non-typical and rather low resolution display of only 240×400 pixels which is 3.2 times less than HTC Touch Diamond). On top of that they use non-standard (not mini-USB) cable for charging and synchronization. Sometimes I do not understand the design department. Don’t they make a survey before they design any device!