Samsung Omnia 7 review

Does the best screen make this the best Windows Phone 7 handset?

Samsung Omnia 7
The definitive Samsung Omnia 7 review

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Microsoft's heritage in the mobile phone space (and one of the key things than kept Windows Mobile alive for so long) was the ability to work on documents and projects on the go, and that functionality is back with a vengeance on the Samsung Omnia 7.

Be it simply looking at a document from an email without needing to switch between multiple applications, or doing some deep editing of a PowerPoint presentation, it's all on offer through Windows Phone 7.

Samsung omnia 7

The front-facing application is OneNote – this is basically a really advanced note taking application that can be synchronised with the SkyDrive on your Windows account, or on a Microsoft SharePoint if you have one set up for your company.

You can add in text, pictures from the camera, sound you've recorded – basically if you're after a complete way to record a meeting, this is an excellent way to do it.

Samsung omnia 7

Word and Excel support is similarly excellent – for instance, in Word you can look at the whole document in overview, or press a button to simply see the starting phrase of each paragraph, which can make shooting through a 90-page document on your handset that much easier.

You can obviously edit said documents with ease too, by tapping the edit key. You can also track changes on collaborative docs with a specified user name to make it easy to show what you think. Or swear at people in real-time, which is hilarious in all work-based instances.


PowerPoint is also ridiculously good too; simply open it up and you can alter a project, add text, move the slide around with a slick drag and drop principle, basically all the things you can think of in a really nice manner.

You can also subscribe to web-based PowerPoint presentations and follow them real time on your phone – we didn't get the chance to try out this functionality but it sounds ace.

What's hard to describe here is how it works – the foibles, the weaknesses, the things that don't impress you as much – and the reason is there is none.

The Windows Phone 7 platform on the Samsung Omnia 7 is almost perfect in the way it operates the tasks you ask it to, and that's never more apparent than in the intensive Office Suite.

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.