Samsung Sweden has confirmed a free firmware update for Omnia II users. The update will be available in the latter half of May and the biggest change will be the touchscreen performance. Samsung says in addition to the revamped UI, the touch response will be much faster and intuitive. Samsung also confirmed to launch a white Omnia II and will ship all Omnia II devices pre-installed with WM 6.5.3 OS after late May.

As promised, Samsung has now initiated to expand its Apps Store to other countries. Beginning this month, the Samsung Apps Store will be available to Omnia II (I8000) and OmniaLITE (B7300, I329) users in Singapore, Germany, Brazil & China. Users with respective devices can download the apps client on the phone and can download various apps over GPRS/EDGE, 3G or Wi-Fi connections.

Additionally, from mid-February Samsung will preload the Samsung Apps client in phones sold in Singapore and Germany or users can download Kies, a software suite to download apps on PC and install them whenever the phone is synced.

The Samsung Apps Store was previously available UK, France, Italy and South Korea.

Samsung Apps

Samsung today announced its flagship device from the Omnia range. The Omnia II (I8000) equipped with a solid hardware set is one of the most sought devices but the decision to go with Windows Mobile 6.1 seems to be an absurd move, since WinMo 6.5 is already released.

Anyways, if you’re aware of the latest Omnia specs, this one’s no different. The OS is laden by Samsung’s proprietary UI overlay, TouchWiz UI 2.0 with widgets support, a 3.7-inch AMOLED touchscreen display (800×480), HSDPA, A-GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 5MP auto focus camera with dual LED flash, DivX/Xvid playback, TV-out, FM Radio, 8GB internal memory and microSD slot for expanding more.

Omnia II will sell for Rs. 28,990.

Samsung is ready to launch the Omnia 2 (I8000) in Russia. Samsung’s Russian site has listed the I900 successor (aka WiTu in Russia) as WiTu AMOLED.

However, despite of the name change, rest of the specs are the same – quadband GSM, tri-band HSPA, ARM11 SC36410 CPU clocked at 800MHz, Windows Mobile 6.5, Opera 9.5, 3.7-inch AMOLED (480×800) touchscreen, 5MP camera with dual LED flash, DivX playback, FM Radio, Wi-Fi, A-GPS and microSD card slot.

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After giving us a brief hands-on on Omnia II I8000’s retail unit, Phone Arena has reviewed the unit in great detail. They were highly impressed by Samsung’s effort to integrate TouchWiz UI deeper in Windows Mobile menus but were marred by UI lags. The lag was so frequent that they reckon could “ruin the entire user experience.” Read their whole review here.

Here’s the scenario of the Taiwanese touchscreen mobile market. LG Electronics is the leader with a 17 percent market share while Samsung holds 12 percent. Now to turn things around, Samsung is planning to launch at least 10 touchscreen devices in Taiwan in the remainder of this year as compared to LG who is planning to launch at least 7.

In fact, if we see it’s not really surprising for Samsung to bring more touchscreen phones because their roadmap is already filled with them ranging from entry level to high end.

Taiwan will see touchscreen devices like Jet S8000, Beat DJ M7600, Omnia II I8000, Galaxy I7500, S5600 and more.

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From the Omnia range, it’s the previously leaked Omnia II (I8000) that gets the official treatment. It has a vivid 3.7-inch AMOLED WVGA display that is equipped with Advanced R(esistive) Touch to initiate a faster and an accurate touch response. It runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro OS with TouchWiz 2.0 UI overlay and Media Gate, a six sided Cubic UI, pretty much like the Jet. Other features include DVD-like playback and recording, Wi-Fi, HSDPA/HSUPA (7.2/5.76Mbps), 32GB internal memory and microSD slot supporting up to 16GB.

Next up is OmniaLITE (B7300) that goes a bit light in features and presumably, the price tag. It has a TouchWiz 2.0 UI, push-email support, pre-installed MS Office Suite, Wi-Fi, Opera browser, HSDPA, multi-codec support, A-GPS and 3MP camera.

We already know about the OmniaPRO range but this time it is supported with few more specs. The OmniaPRO B7610 includes 3.5-inch AMOLED screen, MS Office Suite, Opera 9.5 browser, HSDPA, Wi-Fi, 5MP camera and A-GPS.

Finally it’s the OmniaPRO B7320 that comes with push-email support, quick access to IM services and social networking sites, FM Radio with RDS, Wi-Fi and 3MP camera.

All the phones will receive an upgrade to Windows Mobile 6.5, when it is available.

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Before we begin, let me tell you this rumor is still unconfirmed so don’t get your hopes high. Apparently, someone with the knowledge of the release dates claim Samsung’s M8920 Monaco will start shipping in late Q3 2009. M8920 was caught in the wild recently showing off its 12MP sensor along with a 3X optical zoom.

The source also spewed Omnia 2’s release timeframe which he said will be in October. However, this contradicts with the retailer’s expected release that claimed a Q3 release.

Source|Via

Just when we thought Samsung had only a couple of Cubic button phones under its sleeve, one more slips through suggesting that the Cubic range is bigger than we expected. Thanks to a Lithuanian retailer, I8000 or Omnia 2 has shown its face along with the full specifications.

As with the Omnia, Omnia 2 will also be Windows Mobile powered, v6.1 to be precise but a free upgrade to 6.5 is plausible. It supports quad-band GSM and has a 3.7-inch WVGA AMOLED touchscreen, 3G, TouchWiz UI, Wi-Fi, DLNA certified, Bluetooth, GPS, 150MB internal memory and microSD slot (up to 32GB), 8.1MP camera sensor with dual LED flash and a Qualcomm MSM6290 HSUPA chipset and Samsung’s S3C6410 mobile processor.

The phone is expected to launch in Q3 2009 and makes us ask the same question again, is this the Unpacked phone to be announced on June 15?

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PS: Samsung’s S8000, another Cubic phone got a preview this weekend. Video below.

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