VERIZON SMARTPHONE BATTLE: MOTOROLA DROID VS SAMSUNG OMNIA II

Verizon finally started selling the Samsung Omnia II last December 2, much to the relief of the users who were waiting for the WinMo smartphone's release. However, the Omnia II joined a smartphone line-up populated by high-end devices such as the Motorola DROID. Can the Omnia II compete with Verizon's flagship device? Let's compare these smartphones to find out.

Form Factor/Design

The Samsung Omnia II features a candy-bar design with a touchscreen display while the Motorola DROID offers a QWERTY slider form factor with a physical QWERTY keypad and a large touch-sensitive display. In terms of size and weight, the DROID is heavier (169 g) and larger(116 x 60 x 14 mm) than the second generation Omnia (118 x 60 x 12 mm and 123 g).

Touchscreen

The DROID sports a high-end 3.7-inch high-resolution touchscreen with 854x480 pixels and 16 million colors. The Omnia 2's AMOLED WVGA touchscreen also measures at 3.7-inch but it has less resolution at 800x480 pixels.

User Interface

Verizon's 2009 flagship phone comes with the stock Android UI with a few enhancements including integration with Facebook and Twitter, for status updates and profile images through calls, messages and address book. On the other hand, the Samsung Omnia II comes with the TouchWiz 2.0 user interface which provides great customization options, 3D effects, multi-tasking convenience and R Touch (Resistive Touch) for faster, more accurate touch response.

Camera

Both of these Verizon Wireless smartphones come with high-end shooters. The Omnia II carries a built-in 5.0-megapixel CMOS camera with auto-focus, face and smile detection and DVD-like (480p) video recording and playback while the DROID is equipped with a 5.0-megapixel camera with DVD-quality recording (up to 24 fps; D1 720 x 480 px resolution).

Price

These top smartphones are both sold at the competitive price of $199.99 after rebates and a two-year contract.

Text Entry

The DROID has a big edge in this category since it offers a physical full QWERTY keyboard as well as a software keyboard. The Omnia II is only limited to a software QWERTY keypad.

Processor

The Samsung Omnia II runs on an impressive S3C6410 660MHz processor with HW Graphic Accelerator. The Motorola DROID runs on a speedy a 550 mHz Arm Cortex A8 processor.

Battery Capacity and Performance

The DROID is powered by a 1400 mAh Li-Ion battery with an estimated capacity of 6.42 hours of talk time and 270 hours at standby. The Samsung Omnia II is equipped with a slightly more powerful 1500 mAh Li-Ion battery with estimated capacity of 6 hours of talk time and 375 hours at standby.

 Memory/Expansion

The Omnia II comes with 8GB of memory out of the box and can be expanded up to 16GB via microSD card slot. The DROID comes with 16GB of memory out of the box and can be expanded up to 32GB via microSD/microSDHC memory slot card slot.