Interface on the Samsung Omnia Lite
Whilst the term ‘lite’ is more usually associated with food or beverages, used as a suffix to indicate the relative dietary merits of a product in contrast with its more fattening brothers and sisters, mobile phone manufacturer Samsung has taken a similar approach to a couple of their most recent releases. The Omnia Lite is a pared down edition of the flagship Omnia smartphone series, but looking at its software specifications it is difficult to see how this phone could really be considered to be any less capable than many other more expensive mobiles.
The Samsung Omnia Lite interface is made possible thanks to a touch screen display. This is a 3 inch screen, so it is not as large as the full size Omnia by nearly an inch. However, this makes the Omnia Lite far easier to carry in a pocket and hold in the palm of your hand. The touch screen is used to operate all of the various applications and functions of the Omnia Lite and since the Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system is installed on this phone together with Samsung’s TouchWiz interface, the Samsung Omnia Lite has got quite a lot going for it.
Oddly, the Samsung Omnia Lite interface is by default set to use the Windows Mobile home screen and applications shortcut layout. This is strange because you can actually go into the menus and activate the proprietary Samsung TouchWiz interface, with its associated widgets and home screen layout. Most people will want to use the TouchWiz’s various capabilities. This includes the option to set up and swap between multiple home screens on the fly, allowing you to create different screens for use in different environments. There are many different widgets to use, including social networking sites such as Facebook and as with other Samsung smartphones sharing this interface style, you can quickly drag and drop your favourite widget from a side bar at any time, making the Omnia Lite a completely customisable smartphone.
The Samsung Omnia Lite interface allows for further efficient modifications within the main menu environment. You can choose your favourite applications to be privileged within the four main categories of productivity, multimedia, office and internet. You can change the menu to an incredible extent to suit your own needs and even the categories themselves are not cast in stone, so you could put the Opera Web Browser into the multimedia menu if you really wanted to. This is just an example of the many ways in which the Samsung Omnia Lite interface allows for personalisation.
You will probably need to spend a little while becoming acquainted with the Samsung Omnia Lite interface and adjusting the menus to your own liking. There is no need to be intimidated by this as the Omnia Lite is already set up out of the box, so it is not as if you will have to start from scratch.
The one problem with the Omnia Lite is that the TouchWiz interface does not extend throughout the entire phone. Since this is a Windows Mobile handset, much of the Microsoft software is used for various functions and this is widely regarded as difficult to implement well on a touch screen phone. This means that you will occasionally encounter a frustrating menu or an archaic application that falls below the high standard you have come to expect from the rest of the interface. On the other hand, there is a lot of support for the Windows Mobile platform out there and the vast array of applications and enhancements should make the Omnia Lite an unexpectedly adaptable smartphone with a low price point to boot.
Tags: samsung, samsung omnia lite