Samsung Omnia Pro (B7320L) smartphone

The Samsung Omnia Pro is a Windows Mobile smartphone with a full QWERTY keypad and a 3.2-megapixel camera but no touch screen. Excited? Don't worry, neither are we. However, the Samsung Omnia Pro remains a capable if unexciting business phone, but look elsewhere for multimedia.

The Samsung Omnia Pro has a conventional design for a non-touch-screen smartphone with a QWERTY keyboard. The phone has a glossy, metallic finish and chrome highlights are the only real hints of style. With rounded, sloped edges and a raised keyboard, the Omnia Pro looks rather like some older Palm Treo devices. The 2.4in display is a little small when compared with the latest touch-screen smartphones, but it's bright, clear and possesses reasonable viewing angles.

The Samsung Omnia Pro's keyboard is comfortable and easy to type on. The keys emit a reassuring click when pressed, though the travel is a little lengthy — they are raised to ensure better tactility. Navigation is standard fare, with a five-way navigational pad, two selection buttons, answer and end call keys and home and back keys.

The phone features Samsung's exclusive Wiz Pro home screen layout, consisting of row of icons on the left side of the screen for quick access to commonly used functions. Eliminating the need to constantly enter the Windows Start menu, the Samsung Omnia Pro smartphone allows quick access to favourite contacts, the full suite of Telstra BigPond services and applications, music, photos, and a customisable shortcut menu. The shortcut menu has eight boxes that you can edit to feature any application.

Though Samsung's Wiz Pro home screen is more intuitive than the standard Windows mobile interface, it’s a little sluggish. You can't quickly scroll through the shortcut icons and you need to press the home key to move back to the icons on the left side of the screen. This slight sluggishness also rears its head when opening and closing applications and scrolling through other menu items — it's not enough of an issue to cause huge problems, but it is noteworthy nonetheless.

The Samsung Omnia Pro smartphone runs the Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system, so it includes the Office Mobile suite of Excel, PowerPoint, Word and OneNote applications, a PDF reader and an RSS reader. Like all Windows phones, the Omnia Pro is easy to configure for use with Microsoft Exchange, and you can also use standard POP3 and IMAP e-mail accounts. A suite of Windows Live applications includes Windows Live Messenger and Hotmail. You can also access new Windows services includes the Marketplace to download third-party applications, and Microsoft's MyPhone backup and customisation service.

The Samsung Omnia Pro smartphone is exclusive to Telstra's Next G network. It has built-in GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth with the A2DP profile, meaning you can wirelessly stream your music to a compatible set of headphones. For mobile Internet, the standard Internet Explorer browser isn't the most intuitive to use (especially in the absence of a touch screen) but pages load quite quickly. You can easily download a more user-friendly browser, such as Opera Mini.

The Samsung Omnia Pro has a 3.2-megapixel camera that doubles as a video recorder, but the lack of flash hinders night-time photography. A streaming media player lets you subscribe to and watch Telstra's Mobile Foxtel service and there is also an FM radio. Unfortunately, a standard 3.5mm headphone jack is inexcusably absent. Instead, Samsung has used a mini-USB headphone jack. The Samsung Omnia Pro includes expandable memory thanks to a microSD card slot located behind the battery cover.

The Samsung Omnia Pro is available through Tlife stores, Telstra Shops and dealers for $0 upfront on a $30 plan over 24 months. Telstra also sells the Omnia Pro outright for $529.

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