Viewing pictures is all done via finger control with easy zoom and edit options plus the ability to set up slideshows. Viewing video is at least better than shooting it, and unusually, it'll show both DivX and Xvid formats.

Easy browsing

Browsing is a mostly sweet experience. The onboard accelerometer automatically flips between portrait and landscape (and you can adjust the sensitivity of this too, which is a nice touch). You can drag the pages around á la the iPhone and you can zoom by running your finger up or down the right-hand side of the screen, or double tap for a quick zoom in or out.

It supports RSS feeds and streaming video too via HSDPA fast 3G connection. And speaking of 3G, there's a pinhole camera on the front for video conferencing.

The onscreen keyboard is a bit too similar to the iPhone's cramped version for our taste, but flipping the phone into landscape mode offers bigger buttons, which is what we found ourselves doing even for text messages.

Generous memory

The music player is decent if not outstanding, with a wide range of formats supported. There's no 3.5mm jack plug, but it comes with an adaptor, so no problem if you want to upgrade the supplied headphones (which aren't bad by supplied ear bud standards).

There's a meaty 8GB of memory on board, which isn't bad at all, though you can also augment this via microSD card.

Battery-wise it seemed to hold up pretty well, delivering around three days of average use (a dozen or so calls a day, plus a half-hour's web browsing and a little bit of music). But with haptic feedback and accelerometer switched on constantly, this depreciated markedly to around two days.

Feature-packed

Samsung's touch screen phones are improving all the time and this latest version manages to pack an awful lot into a modestly sized handset, including a very decent camera, fine web browser and music player, plus the rich third party apps available for Windows Mobile.

The iPhone 3G may beat it on looks and nudge ahead on screen, but in almost every other area, the Samsung i900 Omnia can equal or better it.

Network availability: Vodafone, O2, Orange, T-Mobile

Looks: 4/5
Ease of use: 3.5/5
Features: 4.5/5
Call quality: 4/5
Value for money: 3.5/5