Quietly, amidst the multiple HTC Touch Pro 2 releases, Samsung refreshed its Omnia line with a slew of new Windows Mobile devices. The Samsung Omnia II is a black-slab, touchscreen device hone that sports a 5-megapixel camera and a hefty 8 gigabytes of storage memory. Verizon picked it up late last year.

Our initial impression has been positive. Our main concern was the customization that Samsung has installed on the Omnia II. Not only does the Omnia II have Samsung's TouchWiz user interface, Samsung also also tweaked the interior Windows Mobile screens and menus.

Follow the break to see if this customization makes or breaks the Omnia II.

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Well, it's not a mighty re-flash of the whole ROM, nor does it bring any new features to the table and in fact, it actually looks kind of dangerous to apply (see below), but Samsung has released a radio firmware update to help with dropped calls on the Verizon Omnia II (see hands on video).

Yeah, not exactly thrilling, though we suppose if you have been experiencing poor call performance, you may want to look into this lil' patch.

Now the caveat: its a finicky update, meaning it official doesn't work on Windows 7, only XP. Going further, a few users have reported problems with "bricking" their phone during the update.  We don't want to be alarmist, but make sure you follow the directions exactly as described.  Oh, and if you run the update in compatibility mode in Win7, evidently that can work too.

Get the patch right here...if you dare!

[via CareAce.net]

Lost amongst the flood of HTC releases, Samsung quietly released the Omnia II last year in the United States with Verizon Wireless. (See Phil's hands-on at CES with the European version.) The Omnia II sports a 3.7inch, 480x800 AMOLED screen, 800MHz processor, 5-megapixel auto-focus camera, Windows Mobile 6.5, and 8 gigabytes of on-board storage (plus a MicroSD expansion slot).

Samsung has done a good bit of customization with the Omnia II, including adding its TouchWiz user interface, customizing the Start Menu, as well as a few design features you don't see every day.

The Omnia II feels solidly built and slightly wider than the HTC Touch Diamond II.  My first impressions of the Omnia II are good.  The screen has a bit of "pop" to it, and the 800MHz processor moves along nicely. But, like Phil, I have my reservations many of the software customizations.

We'll put the Omnia II through the ropes over the next few days..

Swung by the Samsung booth at CES (follow all of our coverage here). Once you're able to navigate the dizzying maze of television screens -- and we're talking hundreds here -- you can finally find some Windows phones. Tucked in the back and a little to the left.

And it was there that we found the European version of the Omnia II, the Omnia Pro, with its Touchwiz interface. While it's hardly fair to judge the quickness of any phone after it's been handled at the likes of CES, the Omnia II seemed a bit sluggish considering it has an 800MHz processor. And I'm still not crazy about the user interface, though it does look gorgeous on that 3.7-inch AMOLED touchscreen. Anyhoo, find pics of the Omnia II at CES after the break.

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In the ultimate comparison of apples, oranges and kiwi; PCWorld has released its list of Top 10 Cell Phones. Not coincidentally, all of its selections are smartphones of some flavor. One thing that is interesting is that the top two devices on the list are probably the two most heavily marketed mobile devices in recent years, but Apple’s iPhone was ranked second, not first. The Motorola Droid came in at the top of the list, which is void of any explanation on what the rating criteria was.

The only Windows Phone that garnered a top 10 ranking was the Samsung Omnia II. Without knowing the criteria for this rating it is hard to determine why solid devices like HTC’s HD2 and Touch Pro2 were left off of the list.

Google’s Android platform placed the most entries on the list, taking 5 of the available slots (1 - Motorola Droid, 3 - Motorola Cliq, 5 – T-Mobile myTouch 3G, 7 – Samsung Behold, 10 – HTC Droid Eris). Research In Motion has 2 BlackBerrys (Bold 9700 and Tour 9630) in the top 10 as well. Palm came in at number 6 with the Pre.

From a hardware standpoint, Windows Phone heavyweights HTC, Motorola, and Samsung each placed 2 devices; though the majority of these feature Android.

Ever care to see how an expensive smartphone is made less valuable?  Well, look no further as this video from TechBlog shows how it's done on the popular and feature-packed Samsung Omnia II.

To what end?  We're not sure, but dang, them there phone guts are sure getting teeny, aren't they?

Oh and if at work, we suggest turning down the volumne before you play the video. ;-)

[via Engadget Mobile]

Here is a real strange but evidently real issue for Omnia II users: if you  have Exchange + McAfee Anti-Spam E-mail Toolbar working in tandem, it appears that some of your emails won't come through when using the Omnia II with WM6.5.

User UpHillBattle (indeed) writes

I'm experiencing a strange problem with my new Samsung Omnia II (WM 6.5). I have set up ActiveSync (on the cell phone) to sync e-mail, contacts, calendar and tasks with an Exchange Server. I used the same setup on my older HTC Touch Cruise (WM 6.1) and had no problems then.

The sync appears to be successful after setup, but later some e-mails are synced to the Omnia II while others are not. I have reset the device to factory settings and set up the connection again, only to experience the same thing: Success at first, then later some e-mails are received, while others are not.

Upon some diligent testing he later responds

...it's the McAfee Anti-Spam E-mail Toolbar. For those of you that don't know McAfee, it has an optional toolbar that can be enabled in various e-mail clients (Outlook 2007 in my case) and that lets you manually mark (or unmark) e-mail messages as spam. When I disable the toolbar, everything is fine - when I enable it, I get the problems described above.

Both Samsung and McAfee have been made aware of the problem and a fix of some sort is expected in the future (vague, eh?).  Until then, if you have this gruesome-twosome setup, best to follow UpHillBattle's advice.

[via Windows phone Connection forum]

You almost have to feel sorry for the companies that dare place their proprietary software onto a Windows phone these days.  For if it is good software, the hounds are let loose to rip it out and .cab it for all others to use within moments.

The latest victim would be Swype, the new fangled keyboard app that is featured on the Verizon Omnia II.

The app is available in .cab form and acts just like another optional input system on your device, so there is no need to only use it while learning its funky moves.  It is suppose to work on Touch Pro 2, Diamond 2 (Pure) and other VGA+ devices, though mileage may vary (reports of ROM variation having an effect have been reported).

[via 1800 PocketPC]

The Samsung Omnia II is a more-than solid piece of hardware. It's the UI that drives us batty. But that's no matter to the folks at MoDaCo, who are hard at work loading HTC's Sense UI onto that gorgeous AMOLED screen. It's still a work in progress, but work that we're glad is being done. [MoDaCo via pocketnow]

A reminder, folks, that as of today the Samsung Omnia II is available online and stores. Plunking down $199.99 and another two years of your wireless life get you that 3.7-inch AMOLED touchscreen (at 480x800), a 5MP camera, a zippy 800MHz processor, and Sammy's custom TouchWiz interface. [Verizon]