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Having fun and having time

My latest gadget is the Samsung Omnia i900, powered by Window Mobile 6.1 operating system. I have replaced my good old Nokia N73 which uses Symbian. The N73 has served me well for the last two years which is able to synchronize with my Outlook calendar, task and notes. It has the cool feature of Nokia Life Blog, which pulls down the messages, photos and videos into the PC. This feature I do miss in the Omnia.

The Omnia acts very much like the HP Jornada 560, which I gave away in the SgFreeCycle (in one of my previous articles); which attracted so many emails. It was a fully functional iPaq with charger, software, manuals and even an external keyboard!

The Omnia's feature which I like is the wi-fi feature, allowing me to log into the internet to synchronize my emails in Outlook, Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo. With the number of hotspots in Singapore growing, it is becoming a very good feature, although the connecting time with logging in period is a great deterrent.

The 5MP camera is not as impressive, as I imagine. The photos taken are not the quality I expect, and I think the N73 gave me better pictures, even at 3.2MP. This is a disappointment. Perhaps I need more practice.

Using the phone is a big plus, as it is easy to find anyone in the phone book, by just pressing the keys with the alphabets and names with them will keep appearing, and all you do is to keep typing in the numbers, until that name appear. For example, if the name is Claudine, I will press 2,5,2,8 where the first 4 alphabets (C L A U) will certainly have Claudine appears. Then I press the "call" button, and it is done. This is a very powerful search feature of phone numbers.

There are several keyboard options in addition to the normal phone panel. So there is no lack of choice on how I want to input the characters.

The phone was purchased at Singtel Shop (online) at S$498 during an offer in late October 2008, as my contract is coming up for renewal. This offer was for a black Omnia with 16G of internal storage! Yes, 16G and it is similar to the Apple iPhone, with a 3.2" screen and touch keypad.

I am having fun and having more time, as it helps me to keep me productive with my time. I have been an early advocate of "time management" starting out with the famous "Day Timer" diary; which I still have today.

I proceeded on with the HP LX-200 palmtop, which was the first handheld computer running on DOS.

This gave way to my HP Jornada 720; which gave me color and a window environment.

I will continue to blog on the Omnia, as a productivity tool, and one must be objective as any tool depends on the user. Like the wise saying goes, "one man's meat is another man's poison." You have to decide on your tools that you feel most comfortable with. For some, a small paper notebook and a pen are all it takes. For me, it is giving me fun, and giving me back some time for myself, my family and my friends. It is simply a good life to live.


Omnia i900 website: http://omnia.samsungmobile.com/
Omnia i900 full review: http://www.pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&t=reviews&id=1089
Window Mobile 6.1: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/6-1/default.mspx
HP Jornada 720: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jornada
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