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 Windows Mobile eco-system was built on a rich amount of email options, and that's been continued on Windows Phone 7 on the Samsung Omnia 7.

Firstly, you can interact with any number of accounts, be it Yahoo, Google, Hotmail or others, with only a simple username and password needed to get set up.

Samsung omnia 7

Even more impressively, the same can be said for Outlook setup, with Exchange email taking only an email user name and password to get all the necessary settings, which makes turning on the phone ridiculously easy first time out.

Samsung omnia 7

One of the most impressive things on the Samsung Omnia 7 is the keyboard, which is probably up there with the options on the iPhone 4[LINK] and the HTC Desire in its intuition.

Samsung omnia 7

You can type and type and type from the outset and get about 90% accuracy, with that increasing rapidly as you get used to both portrait and landscape modes.

Samsung omnia 7

Microsoft has managed this by working out the letters you'll be needing when beginning a word and making these more touch sensitive than others, making it easy to get up a good speed.

The word correction is ace too, making it a cinch to get the right word when you accidentally/drunkenly mash your hand at the phone. It's not got the same levels of insight as the Desire, but it's still great.

The messaging interface, specifically in the email section, is great. It's open, easy to read and has a number of options, such as only seeing urgent or unread emails.

Within the emails, there's the option for smart linking, which means the Omnia 7 will search through the mail to see if there are any phone numbers, emails addresses or physical locations present, and will offer them up as a tappable link.

However, for the UK (and that means the Omnia 7) there's no smart linking for addresses, which is sad because this looked like the coolest feature, enabling you to tap the address and see it in Bing Maps.

You can also access multiple email checking (for easy organisation or deleting) by touching to the left of each message and calling up the checkboxes – something we found ourselves using regularly.

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.