Samsung Omnia II I8000 Smartphone

The Omnia II Smartphone features Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional and a large 3.7-inch AMOLED display with WVGA resolution. TouchWiz 2.0 User Interface. I purchased this machine in Dubai for use in Saudi Arabia in Jan 2010 based on advertised capability to upgrade to Windows 6.5. The love-hate relationship started from the first opening of the box. The phone had default language set to Arabic and it took 2 hours of BB trolling to find the "click" menu suggestion to get the thing to start in English. (5 levels down in the menus)The advertised upgrade to WM6.5 was a false hope - still one year later after more than 20 attempts to contact Samsung non-existent Customer service it is still running at WM6.1.The AMOLED display falls quickly behind any i-Phone shootout for responsiveness but is adequate for most applications just a little laggy. I did not buy an i-Phone and am not complaining.The Samsung Touchwiz applications quickly look cute but rapidly run out of features and capabilities, turning them off an reverting to Windows default is no simple matter and they keep popping back at in opportune moments.The Touchwiz interface of several home screens and action button for programs is great.The Widget thingy on home screen can get in the way and the few available widgets are of good use for phone functions.
Until I found add-on application S2U2 giving slide to unlock capability I nearly had to dump the product, it would turn on in the pocket and just pulling it out would launch about 4 programs and typically lose the call.The Samsung black background for most applications makes viewing outside extremely difficult.The outer case is cheap and very easily scratched but the unit seems tough and drop resilient.Battery life is OK with daily charging as a cell phone but turn on the WIFI and you need to get out the charger.InBuilt GPS works well with Google Maps after a long time 3-5 minutes of locating satellites, I could not find a map application that would use GPS without cell connection, this limits use when traveling out of cell phone range or in low signal areas. (Googlemaps will not work without constant connection)There is no real or virtual pointing device so some applications like MS-Excel and similar are hard to use as cursor movement is virtually impossible.The less said of the dangly pointer the better- "most" applications work well with just a finger but there are enough times that I reach for the pointer that it has to stay there and annoy me.Where is the "love" - after a year it is still going strong (WM6.1), it seems stable rarely needing reboot. It has taken abuse, looks ugly with case scratches but keeps on working. Call sound quality is good.