I happend to be amongst the unfortunate few who mistakenly entered the Phones 4u outlet in Victoria Street, London. Had broken my Nokia N95 the previous day and I for some reason thought it’s better to talk to the idiots at Phones 4u rather than o2.

Anyway, the following happened at PHONES 4U:

1. They offered me the Samsung i900 Omnia on a 45 pounds per month, 18 month contract for free.

2. After sitting there for an hour, the gentleman found that it wasn’t free on a 45 per month contract, and I’ll have to go with the £75 per month contract. Had no option and desperately needed a phone, so I agreed.

3. The guy at the till said the contract has a 14 day “peace of mind” guarantee and if you’re not happy, we’ll change your contract or phone or both. I was pretty impressed at that stage to be honest.

4. The worst phone on earth as I call it – The Samsung i900 Omnia hung with a blank screen for 13 times in the first two days of using it. I checked a few forums and message boards online and found that to be a pretty common problem.

5. Went back to Phones4u and asked for a change of handset. i wanted the Blackberry Bold or Nokia E71 this time. For me, the most important thing is email, and having read some very good reviews about Samsung Omnia’s email connectivity on Windows mobile 6.1, I thought it might be ok, but it’s really a piece of crap.

6. Anway, people at Phones 4u then tell me that because mine was an existing contract on O2, they cannot change my plan, which was by now £75 plus £10 insurance plus £7.50 an internet usage bolt on = £92.50 per month.

7. With no option left, the gentleman at the till this time (surprisingly, not a single person from last time was present) offered the Blackberry Bold and I agreed. Another 45 mins to do some stupid paperwork and I was told that Blackberry Bold wasn’t available on existing contracts!! WHAT?? I said.. but then having no other option left at all in stead of the Nokia N95 or N96, i returned home with a new Samsung Omnia i900.

Samsung Omnia - Worst of all

8. Here’s why you don’t need a Samsung Omnia:

• Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system: Contrary to my expectations, the Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 really sucks. You can’t get most windows mobile applications on it, almost everything that you get on IPhone, you don’t get here. Not even Youtube, Google talk or any decent games.
• The unbelievably bad touch screen system: If you’ve happened to lay your hands on the Apple iPhone, you’d have seen screen gliding past on your touch, or photos enlarging on taking two fingers away from each other etc. Forget all that, 99% when you’re trying to get past the scroller on the Samsung i900 Omnia, you’ll end up mis-cliking a few links and spend the next 5 mins closing those windows. Of all the touch screen phones I’ve used including the LGs, I rate the Samsung Omnia – WORST!
• No Good Battery life: Despite all claims that it has a good battery life, I have to charge the phone 2 times a day when all i do is take 3 incoming calls.
• Unbelievable unlocking mechanism and lack of hundreds of options: If you don’t want to make hundreds of calls while the phone’s in your pocket, the only option you have is to lock it with a 4 digit pin, which is a pain to unlock with this touch phone 50 times in one hour. Plus you’d expect some basic options like auto-connect to your wireless network etc, which don’t exist and that’s when I haven’t veen explored the phone properly.
• Samsung – please stick to TVs or something: With this level of competition and this quality of a phone, I don’t see why Samsung bother at all anyway.
• Oh did I mention connectivity? 2 out of 5 times people reach my voicemail despite my phone being on. ha ha.. I’m adopting laughter therepy – You know when you are really mad at something but can’t do anything about it? Just laugh it off and pay all your money to these suckers!

Final word: Go for iPhone (it doesn’t have video recording or MMS texting or text forwarding or Bluetooth file transfer but a super set of applications and compatibility), any of the Nokias or one of the Blackberry models, but never never never go for the Samsung Omnia and NEVER go to Phones 4u.