News - Korea-only T*Omnia is Omnia on steroids

Korea-only T*Omnia is Omnia on steroids

The Samsung Omnia has been sold in Asia and Europe for a couple of months now, but hasn't seen the light of day in its home country, Korea. Well, in case you thought that the chaebol forgot about its fellow countrymen, think again--it was merely taking its time to prepare an enhanced version. Today, Samsung launched the T*Omnia in Korea, and if you are a current Omnia user, prepare to go green with jealousy.

Like the Omnia SGH-i900, the T*Omnia SCH-M495 is also an HSDPA device with 16GB internal storage and runs Windows Mobile 6.1. The big difference is this: It comes with a 3.3-inch WVGA (800 x 480) display--four times the resolution of the original's 400 x 240 screen. Aside from that, the T*Omnia is also equipped with satellite DMB for viewing digital TV in Korea. Even with those additions, the T*Omnia weighs 131g, just 9g heavier than the original, and is only marginally larger. This makes it a prime alternative to HTC's upcoming Touch HD which also has a WVGA display and a no-keypad form factor.

Given its UMTS and GSM capabilities, our immediate thought was that it should have no problems working outside of Korea. Unfortunately, Samsung told us that this is a Korea-only product and that there are no current plans to launch it elsewhere. Perhaps the screams of a million Omnia fans on message boards will change that--but for now, we can only look and drool.