When it was launched back in 2009, it was the most feature packed handset money could buy. We are talking about the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD which back in 2009 boasted of mind boggling specs. It had an 8 megapixel camera, HD Video recording (which was unheard of in phones then) and had a 600 Mhz processor with a dedicated graphics chip. There was one problem though – it ran Symbian.
While many blamed Samsung for using an outdated OS on a phone with superb hardware, there were some others (like yours truly) who had always wanted to see how Symbian would perform when paired with great hardware. Samsung had delivered exactly what I had been looking for.
Once I got hold of one, it was clear that while the overall experience with Symbian left a lot to be desired, it was much snappier and usable than it was ever before. I have managed to run over 45 applications on the Omnia HD – simultaneously – without any lag. I had to stop at 45 because I had run out of apps! Thats extreme multitasking for you.
But we humans have this tendency to take things a bit further. With phones with 1Ghz processors fairly common now, The Omnia HD is no doubt a bit too old. But it sure is not gonna go down without a fight. Thats when we come to Hyper X, the guy who has been continuously releasing custom firmware for the Omnia Hd for the past year. In the latest update, he and one of his partners in crime have managed to do what no one has done yet on a Symbian device. He actually managed to over clock the ARM Cortex A8 CPU on the phone from a stable 600 MHz to a dizzying 900 MHz. The over clocking solution is yet to be released to the public –, but he has some trustworthy screenshots to prove that this indeed has happened. At the moment, he is also working on a mod to for Nokia phones which could be out soon.
That said, the guys did actually manage to go up to 950 MHz – but chose to take screen shots of the much stabler 900 MHz avatar. Post over clocking, the phone feels considerable snappier and the 720p video recording too sees an improvement.
Good we say!
[Via HX Custom ROMS]
I thought HyperX had released it long back. Anyhow, good that at least someone is paying attention to this fab device.