TheWindowsPhone

If you’re a Verizon customer rocking a Samsung Omnia, you might be interested to know that Samsung has released a little update just for you folks! Not 100% sure what’s inside, besides “numerous software additions/enhancements/corrections”. Software corrections – nice euphemism!

If you’re one of the lucky, you can download the Verizon Samsung Omnia update here.

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Bell Canada announced last week that the new Samsung Omnia II will be exclusively available on Bell Canada’s brand-new HSPA network and that the Omnia II will be the “Official Mobile Device of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games”.

Aside from fancy wallpaper and some coolness factor, Omnia II buyers will also be able to download Samsung’s Wireless Olympic Works (WOW) communications platform, a free app that provides real-time information to users’ phones during the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

Bell’s Omnia 2 specs are pretty nice:

• Bluetooth v2.0 and WiFi connectivity
• HTML web browsing with Opera Mobile 9.5 Browser
• World’s largest (3.7 inch/94mm) WVGA AMOLED touchscreen display with
• accelerometer
• Finger friendly TouchWiz(TM) touch-optimized User Interface
• DVD-quality (480p) video recording/playback
• 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and dual LED flash
• The ability to manage documents with applications such as Power Point,
• Word or Excel
• Memory expandable to 48 gigabytes

Full press release after the jump…

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This video shows a port of HTC’s TouchFlo 3D version 1.3 running on a Samsung Omnia 2. TouchFlo looks quite comfortable on the Omnia 2, but 1.3 is a pretty old version. No word on where you could nab this, but if I find out I’ll post the link.

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This nice long video from ai.rs shows Samsung’s Omnia II running Windows Mobile 6.5. Even though the Omnia II launched on Verizon with Windows Mobile 6.1, the Omnia II is in line for an upgrade. This video shows the Omnia II running Windows Mobile 6.5 and TouchWiz, Samsung’s UI replacement. TouchWiz appears to be quite expansive, with customized Windows UI screens right down to the little settings windows.

Anyone hear whether Verizon is offering an upgrade to Windows Mobile 6.5 for current Samsung Omnia II users?

Extreme? I don’t know. Novel, definitely. Extreme-apps.com has just put up Shake-and-Save on their website. Shake-and-Save lets you simply shake your Windows Phone and it will automatically do a screen capture and save it to in the format of your choice. This can be pretty handy for folks like me who do a lot of on-device screencaps.

And I love the warning on their site: Hold you phone tight. We are NOT responsible in case you drop it.

Extreme Apps says it specifically supports these devices:

• HTC Touch Diamond/Pro
• HTC Touch Diamond2/Pro2
• HTC Touch HD/HD2 (LEO)
• Samsung OMNIA (i900)

I’d be curious to know if it works on any accelerometer-enabled Windows Mobile device – feedback anyone? My Xperia doesn’t have one. Download it from the Extreme-Apps.com website and give it a try!

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This neat little vid shows a screen visibility test between seven pretty hot devices:

• Samsung Omnia
• Omnia 2
• Omnia HD
• Samsung Galaxy
• iPhone 3GS
• HTC Hero
• HTC Touch Pro 2

Basically, it looks like the iPhone screen wins in the sunlight, while the others, especially those with the AMOLED screens, look better in lower light. Judge for yourself…

BGR has posted that the Samsung Omnia II is going to be launching on Bell’s new HSDPA network… soon. Apparently we’re looking at $349 on a 3-year contract or $549 without. While that really doesn’t seem like much of a discount for 3 years of your life, cheer up: soon the dollar will be past par with the greenback and we’ll be able to cherry-pick from US retailers ;)

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I just wrote up a post about the Samsung Intrepid launching on Sprint, and I noticed in the specs that it had Microsoft’s TellMe service right on-board. For those of you not in-the-know, Microsoft TellMe is a voice app that lets you interact with your Windows Phone entirely by talking and being spoken to by your phone. As you can see in this video, it mimics other services that are available on other platforms (see MyCaption and vLingo on the BlackBerry), but it does a pretty good job on the Samsung Omnia in this video.

When you throw that app onto a Snapdragon-1GHz-enabled device, it might speed up considerably, although it’s hard to tell how much of the lag time is data connection and how much is processor power. Looks cool, though.

Microsoft officially launched Windows Mobile 6.5 today along with a flurry of services and brands that should keep us spinning until Windows 7 finally rolls off the shelves this time next year. Along with the new version of Windows Mobile, Microsoft has officially begun using their new “Windows Phone” moniker, much to our pleasure here at thewindowsphone.com ;)

To kick things off, carriers around the world are launching new Windows Phones today. A list of the beauties hitting the markets are follows the jump, but as usual we’re short-shifted here in North America. Europe and Asia have more than dozen new Windows Mobile devices available through carriers and off-plan, NA gets 4.

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Verizon has announced they’re launching the new Samsung Omnia II today, the big Windows Mobile 6.5 launch date… with Windows Mobile 6.1! An update to 6.5 is coming in mid-October, and the Samsung has their own proprietary UI on top of Windows Mobile anyway, so I guess it’s no big deal.

Anyone going to pick this up?