Isaiah's Tech

Yeah, yeah, I know the Samsung Omnia II is on the way, the original Omnia is still the only one that is available on Verizon. Since the Omnia II is launching soon, Verizon has now cut the price of the original Omnia to $29.99 on a 2-year contract. Check it out on their website here.

[WMPowerUser]

Update: According to Unwired View, I believe the i900 may get a WinMo 6.5 upgrade, but I'm not sure. If anyone knows, please comment.

[Engadget Mobile]

According to an e-mail, the original Samsung i900 Omnia could be upgradeable to WinMo 6.5 in the future. This is unconfirmed at the time, but this would definitely be great news to those users. Check out what the e-mail said below.

[WMPowerUser]

The world's second phone maker - in terms of market share - have just released their new App Store in France, Italy, and in the UK. Right now there are 300 apps available for a user to download, but Samsung has mentioned that they are planning to have 2,000 apps on the store by the end of this year. Unfortunately, the App Store is only available on the Samsung i900 Omnia right now.

[Samsung Hub, WMPowerUSer]

Verizon has just slashed the price of their original Samsung Omnia to just $49.99 on a 2-year contract. This is because the I8000 Omnia II should be on the way soon, so it'll be a good way to clear out the inventory that they have left. Check it out on Verizon's official website here.

[WMPowerUser]

Looks like Samsung's app store is on the way. "The imaginatively named Samsung Application Store launches on September 14 for British, French, and Italian Omnia and I8910 HD handsets, later coming to the Omnia II and OmniaLITE as well as users in various other nations." Samsung has mentioned that "over 300" apps will be available at launch, "while partners like Electronic Arts, Capcom, Gameloft, and TAITO have signed on for the fun." Let's just hope it won't flop like the Nokia Ovi Store. Check out this website for what you see above.

[Engadget]

According to the latest news, the Samsung I8000 aka Omnia II and the B7610 OmniaPRO are expected to be available earlier than expected - and are also cheaper than expected. The I8000 Omnia II is expected to be available this August for €549 ($769 USD) and the B7610 OmniaPRO is expected to be available this July for €499 ($699 USD). They will still be running Windows Mobile 6.1, but they'll receive a free upgrade to WinMo 6.5 when it gets released. The source didn't identify exactly where these 2 handsets will be available, but we should know in the near future.

[GSM Arena]

It looks that Windows Mobile 6.5 upgrade everyone has been waiting for will come no later than this September. Microsoft has just mentioned that the Samsung Omnia II will be running Windows Mobile 6.5 out-of-the-box and will be available this late September in Austria, thanks to Mobilkom Austria. The Omnia II has the largest OLED (3.7-inches) display ever on a mobile device, so it'll be sure to picture everything quite nicely for you. The Omnia II also has: an 800MHz CPU, a 5MP AF camera with D1 video recording, 7.2Mbps HSDPA / 5.76 HSUPA support, 16GB of internal storage, support for up to 32GB microSD cards, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and WiFi. The price has not been mentioned, but hopefully we'll find that out soon.

[GSM Arena]

According to the latest rumour, Verizon have scooped up the CDMA version of the Samsung Omnia II and will be selling it this July. A bunch of Omnia's were announced last week and this was one of them. It has a 3.7-inch AMOLED WVGA display, which makes it the largest OLED display on a phone. The Omnia II also has a Qualcomm CPU, and will have the TouchWiz 2.0 UI alongside the new "Advanced R Touch" which will hopefully improve the resistive touchscreen. This handset will run WinMo 6.1 and will be upgradeable to WinMo 6.5 later this year. It's expected to his Verizon in July, but the exact date has not been specified.

[Slash Gear]

Samsung has already had a busy day, announcing the 2 Omnia Pro's and the Jet this morning. Well, they have just announced 2 more Omnia's, the Omnia II aka I8000 and the Omnia LITE (the B7300).

The Omnia II aka I8000 has already been unveiled, but this time it's official. The Omnia II has: a 3.7-inch WVGA AMOLED touchscreen display (world's largest for a phone, I believe), 480p video recording and playback, HSUPA 5.76Mbps / HSDPA 7.2Mbps, WiFi, up to 48GB of storage, the new TouchWiz 2.0 UI, "Advanced R Touch (Resistive Touch) that 'enables faster, more accurate touch response'", and will run on WinMo 6.1, but it will be upgradeable to WinMo 6.5 when it gets released. This looks like an awesome phone and it would be even better if it was upgradeable to WinMo 7.0. If the rumoured specs are true, we could also see an 8.1MP camera with dual-LED flash, a Qualcomm CPU, a microSD card slot, Bluetooth, and GPS.

The Omnia LITE is the B7300 that we saw last month. It has: a 3MP camera, TouchWiz 2.0 UI, Push e-mail support, Microsoft Office, Opera web browser, HSDPA connectivity, WiFi, aGPS, and is another touchscreen handset. If the rumoured specs are true, we could also see: a 3-inch WQVGA touchscreen display, Bluetooth 2.0, a microSD card slot, FM radio, and autofocus on the 3MP camera.

The pricing and availability for both handsets has not been mentioned yet, but the Omnia II will be hitting Verizon sometime this year.

[Boy Genius]

"Mary Jo Foley's saying that we'll see Windows Mobile 6.5 devices in September of this year, and confirms that Windows Mobile 7 will be seen on devices in 2010." So, looks like Motorola's Sanjay Jha was correct about his estimation (here). This picture could be what WinMo 7 will look like, but it is not confirmed yet. Apparently, we will see the first Windows Mobile 7 phone in April of next year. It is also said that Windows Mobile 7 will be released earlier than the typical schedule. I think this could be due to the fact that more and more companies are starting to drift away from WinMo (as a whole) like Motorola is doing. Motorola did mention that they will go back to using WinMo when it upgrades to 6.5 or 7.

Another leak from Samsung. On the left side, you will see a picture of the Samsung i8910 or the 'Acme.' Engadget points out that it looks "a bit like the Omnia." This could be that 12MP phone that we heard about recently (here). The specs of this phone are also similar to the Omnia, including: "GPS, HDMI output, WiFi, plenty of media features, and availability in 8 and 16GB flavors." Since the OS is also unknown, this could also run on the same OS as the Omnia, which is the terrible WinMo 6.1. It might even run on WinMo 6.5, so we'll just have to see at MWC.

The Nokia E75 has resurfaced from the water. Like the Samsung i8910 Acme, we'll probably see it at MWC, since this phone has been leaking its photos for a while now. Along with the slide-out QWERTY keyboard and the 2.4 inch screen, you will also get: a 3.2MP camera with an LED flash, Wi-Fi and HSDPA capabilities. It will run on Symbian S60 of course. Thankfully, no Windows Mobile 6.1 here.

Do you have an iPod Video? Do you also get tired of trying to cram in all of your videos on whatever gigabytes of storage you have? If you said yes to both questions, this could be the solution for you. For $295 USD you can send your iPod Video to Rapid Repair so that you can have 240GB of storage. By doing this operation, they will use a Toshiba 240GB hard drive. Rapid Repair also mentions that they want to do this same operation to the iPod Classic and the Zune 2G.

Windows 7 Mobile Pictures (and picture): http://i.gizmodo.com/5146724/future-windows-mobile-roadmap
Windows 7 Release Date: http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/02/05/win.mo.7.phones.april.2010/
Samsung Acme i8910 (and picture): http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/05/samsungs-acme-i8910-caught-on-film-by-wile-e-coyote/
Nokia E75 (and picture): http://www.gsmarena.com/unreleased_nokia_e75_shows_its_sliding_dual_face_again-news-775.php
iPod 240GB Upgrade (and picture): http://i.gizmodo.com/5146916/ipod-240-gb-upgrade-official-price-and-warranty
iPod 240GB Upgrade (a different post): http://i.gizmodo.com/5146324/upgrade-your-ipod-video-to-240-gigabytes