According to a report at Brighthand, AT&T will release a kind of SGH-i620 follower on Wednesday this week, AT&T is calling "Samsung Propel Pro", which is expected to be a Windows Phone and therefore an enhanced version of the AT&T and Samsung's propriety Propel, but this time running Windows Mobile. The Samsung Propel, which is available in North America only, is a featurephone with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard that has been available from AT&T for some time. According to Brighthand, there have been rumors in the past that AT&T intends to release an upgraded model with Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard.

According to a blog post at Expansys' staff blog, Samsung is working on two new Windows Mobile Professional smartphones. The so called/code-named "Samsung Louve" is said to look very much like an HTC TyTN II as well as it features a tilting screen, a 3.2 megapixel camera and it's running Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, while the customized UI is said to be similar to the Samsung SGH-i900 Omnia.
The so called/code-named "Samsung Pivot" is said to be Samsung's SGH-i780 follower and, according to Expansys, the Pivot will be one of the first (maybe Samsung's first) Windows Mobile smartphones to feature Microsoft's upcoming Windows Mobile 6.5 OS.

Samsung today launched its new business smartphone brand "BizBee", an aspirational family name for its new range of designer business mobiles. The smartphones will target the busy executive, who requires a business mobile that offers optimum performance, 24/7, from any location. The BizBee name is designed to drive awareness of Samsung's new smartphone range in the business community and ensure consistency in marketing communications. The target market is business people looking for the ultimate solution for their busy, professional lives. In particular, this target segment requires all-in-one connectivity, email and applications, a QWERTY keyboard and increased business productivity. A typical BizBee consumer is passionate about business, a heavy mobile phone user and frequent traveler.

GeoSentric Oyj's, GeoSolutions BV Business Unit (GyPSii), today announced it has entered into a multi-year worldwide agreement with Samsung Electronics Co., LTD. Under the terms of the agreement, GyPSii will provide technology, products, worldwide data center infrastructure, and GyPSii branding rights to Samsung, on a worldwide non-exclusive basis for a range of Samsung products. GyPSii's leading mobility digital lifestyle application will be initially be bundled on Samsung's SGH-i900 Omnia and SGH-i780 Windows Mobile Professional smartphones as an embedded application. Samsung's customers will be able to take full advantage of the location-based social networking digital lifestyle features of the GyPSii suite and create and share user generated content (UGC) with GyPSii's global user community and other interoperable social networks such as Facebook.

The Samsung SGH-i900 Omnia is Samsung's latest Windows Mobile smartphone, featuring a touchscreen. For a Samsung Windows Mobile smartphone, the Omnia is quite unique because so far, Samsung was pretty focused on keyboard-centric Windows Mobile smartphones like the BlackJack/SGH-i600 or SGH-i780 which featured full QWERTY thumb-keyboards; while the i900 Omnia follows the trend to touchscreen centric smartphones. The i900 Omnia runs on Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional platform and features quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE but only singelband UMTS  at 2100 MHz and HSDPA (up to 7.2 Mbps) while HSUPA isn't supported. Furthermore, the SGH-i900 features Bluetooth 2.0+EDR including support of A2DP as well as WiFi b/g, inbuilt GPS and FM radio with RDS support.

Following Samsung's earlier announcement to launch the SGH-i900 Omnia Windows Mobile Professional this summer, Samsung Germany just unveiled the German release date and price for Germany. In Germany, the i900 Omnia will be available from 6th August and without a contract, the 8 GB version will be available for 649 Euro. Furthermore, Samsung confirmed that the i900 Omnia will be available from all four German carriers (T-Mobile, Vodafone, E-Plus and O2); while so far only O2 Germany was confirmed. The SGH-i900 Omnia runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional and features quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE and singleband UMTS/HSDPA up to 7.2 Mbps. Furthermore, WiFi and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR are on board as well as a an FM radio and a GPS receiver.

Not yet released but following our earlier Samsung SGH-i900 Omnia Photoview, I finally had the chance to spend some more time with Samsung's next Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional smartphone, Samsung recently announced and which is to be released soon. In this Videoview I will focus on the hardware and the i900 Omnia definitely offers some highlights including a 5 megapixel autofocus camera with face recognition and photo light as well as an optical joystick as introduced before by the Samsung SGH-i780 and it comes with either 8 or 16 GB of inbuilt memory (which is even expansible with microSD memory cards).

Following the earlier rumors and leaks, Samsung finally made its latest Windows Mobile smartphone, the SGH-i900, official. Running on Windows Mobile 6.1, the i900 supports quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE and UMTS/HSDPA up to 7.2 Mbps. Furthermore, WiFi and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR are on board as well as a an FM radio and a GPS receiver. The Synaptics 3.2" WQVGA (240 x 400 pixel) touch screen features haptics and vibrations give users feedback when the display is touched. Tap, sweep, drag and drop operations let consumers navigate through the TouchWiz UI. An accelerometer auto-rotates the display when tilted on the side.

While the Palm Treo 800w isn't yet official, it seems Palm Infocenter got its hand on the first photo of Palm's next Windows Mobile smartphone. Most likely the Treo 800w will be powered by Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional which makes it a touch screen device and it's expected to feature a 320 x 320 resolution, as used by Samsung for the SGH-i780. Expected to be powered by a 400 MHz CPU and 128 MB RAM and 256 MB ROM it will be Palm's first EVDO REV-A, GPS and WiFi smartphone. Other expected features are Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP and a 2 megapixel camera:

Sling Media today announced the availability of its previously unveiled SlingPlayer Mobile uppdate for Windows Mobile Pocket PCs (aka Professional and Classic), Windows Mobile Smartphone (aka Standard) and Symbian S60 smartphones.
The SlingPlayer Mobile clients are required to watch and control home television programming from anywhere in the world via a Slingbox. These new versions add support for additional handsets (for example the Samsung SGH-i760, the Palm Treo 500/500v and the Nokia N95 8GB), improved video streaming quality on select handsets (like the Sprint HTC Mogul), add support for additional set-top boxes, provide additional channel favorite logos and some few under the hood tweaks.

Following my first contact with Sony Ericsson's Xperia X1 Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional smartphone during the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, recently I had some more quality time with Sony Ericsson's first Windows Mobile device. Nearly everything is said and written about the Xperia X1 but this time, I also had the chance to dive deeper into the device, to record a short video.
The Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 does everything, a state-of-the-art Windows Mobile smartphone is able to provide these days (and even more). It features a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and an ultra fast Qualcomm 7200A CPU at 520 MHz, supports quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE and triband UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA as well as Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, WiFi b/g and GPS.

Engadget Mobile found a new Samsung phone, listed by the FCC which is called the Samsung SGH-i788. Unfortunately not too much is known yet but remember, Samsung uses "SGH" for GSM and UMTS smartphones while "i" is used for its Windows Mobile and Symbian S60 smartphones. And if you compare FCC's drawing of the SGH-i788 with the SGH-i780, it looks quite similar. Furthermore, while Samsung tried to hide details of the drawing, if you scroll the FFC PDF quite fast, you can see a square camera whole, centered on the top with a speaker right to it (on the left the SGH-i780, on the right the unmasked SGH-i788):

Engadget Mobile got the information that Sling Media is currently working on new SlingPlayer Mobile versions for Windows Mobile Standard and Professional devices as well as working on an optimized Nokia N95 8GB client and going to expand their current Symbian S60 clients to include UIQ support as well. While the updated featureset wasn't announced today, Sling Media unveiled that the update will includes a better support for newer handsets.
Most likely, Sling Media will ensure that its SlingPlayer Mobile is Windows Mobile 6.1 compatible right after device availability as well as supporting new screen resolutions like Samsung's unique i780 320 x 320 pixel display.

Silently announced during this month's Mobile World Congress, I've just got my hands on a brand new Samsung SGH-i200 (most likely) Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard smartphone.
After the Samsung SGH-i300, this is Samsung's first standard candy bar 12-keys phone pad smartphone and therefore it might find its own audience since not everybody want to have BlackBerry kind of device these days.
Feature-wise, the SGH-i200 is quite comparable to the SGH-i620/SGH-i640 by featuring triband GSM/GPRS/EDGE, singleband UMTS/HSDPA and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR. WiFi isn't built-in and also GPS is left.

The Windows Mobile Team Blog just asked an interesting question: "Zune + Windows Mobile = Better Together?" and the Windows Mobile team wants to hear your opinion what are some ways the Zune player and a Windows Mobile device can work better together?
They are not referring to an imaginary "Zune phone", and this question isn't hinting or speculating about a converged device but instead, Mel wonders if there are any opportunities for the Windows Mobile team to improve the experience for people who use both devices (a Zune media player and a Windows Mobile smartphone).

During an off-site briefing with Samsung Europe, the Korean mobile phone manufacture confirmed that the anticipated Samsung SGH-i780 Windows Mobile 6 Professional smartphone got its European launch this week.
While carriers like Orange UK and Telefónica Movistar are confirmed to carry Samsung's latest smartphone, other carriers will follow but Samsung didn't disclosed which carriers these are.
Nevertheless, Samsung also confirmed that shipments to the open market has also started which means you should be able to get a localized i780 from carrier independent mobile phone shops in your country soon as well.

As expected, Orange (UK) is indeed carrying the Samsung SGH-i780 Windows Mobile Professional smartphone. So it wasn't coincidence that it featured an Orange home screen when it was first unveiled during the Gitex last year.
The Samsung SGH-i780 (which we have previewed already) is a Windows Mobile 6 Professional smartphone, featuring a touchscreen in addition to the QWERTY keyboard as well as a - what Samsung calls - "optical joystick", which should allow easy navigation. Furthermore, the device sports triband GSM/GPRS/EDGE at 900/1800/1900 MHz and singleband UMTS/HSDPA at 2100 MHz. However, Orange says it's supporting only WiFi b (not g) as well as Bluetooth 2.0+EDR.

Italian website KataWeb claims it received information of a so far unknown Samsung Windows Mobile smartphone expected to be called the Samsung SGH-i900. According to KataWeb, the i900 features Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional and supports GSM/GPRS/EDGE as well as UMTS/HSDPA up to 7.2 Mbps, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR and WiFi.
A real highlight could be the 5 megapixel autofocus camera. While Samsung has some experiences in this field, we haven't seen such a camera in Windows Mobile devices yet. Furthermore the i900 should includes GPS and a FM radio:

Not really new anymore and surprisingly on stage in the U.S., Samsung shows its latest Windows Mobile smartphones at the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show. These handsets made their U.S. debut at the show and exemplify cutting-edge technology and design innovation, including the Samsung SGH-i620 Windows Mobile 6 Standard smartphone and the Samsung SGH-i780 Windows Mobile 6 Professional smartphones.
While both smartphones are great Windows Mobile 6 devices, both features triband GSM/GPRS/EDGE at 900/1800/1900 MHz and singleband UMTS/HSDPA at 2100 MHz only which means it supports one of two U.S. GSM bands only and no UMTS/HSDPA bands.

During the past 14 days I had the chance to test LG's latest Windows Mobile smartphone, the LG KS20, a Windows Mobile 6 Professional smartphone which is currently on sale from Vodafone.
The LG KS20 is a typical rep of a new kind of Windows Mobile Pocket PC Phone Editions, featuring latest state-of-the-art specs but unlike most previous Windows Mobile phones, the LG KS20 looks stylish which definitely also addresses non techies and attracting non-geeks as well as tech-savvies.
While the LG KS20 is designed for the EMEA and APAC markets only. While it's powered by a Qualcomm MSM7200 CPU, the device supports triband GSM/GPRS/EDGE as well as singleband UMTS/HSDPA up to 3.6 Mbps only.

During the past week and over the weekend, I had some time to update the::unwired's Slingdex, which measures the run-time of mobile devices while constantly streaming a Slingbox stream (read more about the::unwired's Slingdex here) and the latest results are quite promising.
The T-Mobile Vario III and the LG KS20 scored both 2:37 hours while the (pre-production) Samsung SGH-i780 was one minute worse only and scored 2:36 hours.

LG's recently introduced Windows Mobile 6 Professional smartphone, the LG KS20, is a typical rep of a new Windows Mobile touchscreen smartphone generation: Stylish and optically reduced to the max, the LG KS20 sports all the latest and greatest features including HSDPA, WiFi b/g, Bluetooth, an FM radio as well as a 2 megapixel autofocus camera with photo light and a front facing video telephony camera.
The housing features a glossy black piano finishing with a sidewise chrome border and only has two call buttons and a 5-way joystick on the front. Left and right, the KS20 has a couple of shortcut keys including the camera shutter.

In this video view I will take a closer look on the Samsung SGH-i780's unique 320 x 320 touch screen. While the i780 looks like an i600/BlackJack, it features a touchscreen because it's based on Windows Mobile 6 Professional. And unlike most of today's Windows Mobile touchscreens, the i780 features a kind of Bio Touch touchscreen as also used by HTC for its TouchFLO enabled line of Windows Mobile 6 smartphones.
This Bio Touch display is a frame-less touch-sensitive screen which features a solid Plexiglas panel on top of the LCD display which has a thin touch-sensitive film on top.

In this video view I will take a closer look on Samsung's Optical Joystick which quite new for Windows Mobile devices from Samsung. Unlike previous Windows Mobile smartphones, the SGH-i780 isn't featuring a traditional D-Pad but this - as Samsung calls it - "Optical Joystick" or "Finger Mouse" which is a kind of 4-way touchpad. In addition to use to it to navigate, it also acts as the action button to start applications. If used in the 4-way navigation mode, it emulates a standard D-Pad while, if used in the mouse mode, it shows a mouse pointer:

As mentioned, one of the features of the Samsung SGH-i780 is its A-GPS receiver and in today's video view I have a closer look on how well it works. Standard GPS receivers must download data from GPS satellites. This is difficult and can take several minutes. A-GPS dramatically improves the performance of GPS receivers by providing them with data that they would ordinarily have to download from the GPS satellites. With A-GPS data, GPS receivers can operate faster and more reliably.
So the i780's A-GPS combination improves the overall performance for example when surrounded by tall buildings or when the satellite signals are weakened by being indoors or under trees and, this is important to know, it doesn't necessarily used a GPRS or UMTS connection but WiFi works fine as well.

In this video view I'm comparing the Samsung SGH-i780 with the Samsung SGH-i600/BlackJack and with the O2 Xda star/HTC Touch Dual. While both, the i780 and the Xda Star are Windows Mobile 6 Professional smartphones, the i600 is a Windows Mobile 6standard smartphone. Nevertheless, the i780 and i600 shares the same design while the i780 features a touchscreen which the i600 doesn't do.
Interesting enough is the flat implementation of the i780 screen which is as flat as the i600 screen. With its frameless implementation it looks quite similar to HTC'S TouchFLO smartphones and it looks like Samsung uses a similar "Bio Touch" display technology as HTC uses for its TouchFLO Pocket PC Phone Editions:

The first Samsung SGH-i780 video view features the device itself. On the front you can see, on the bottom the QWERTY keyboard and unfortunately, Samsung didn't group the number keys anymore, as Samsung did with the i600/BlackJack keyboard layout but now each number is one key only.
Above you have the typical smartphones keys including the call/end, Start menu/OK and two softkeys as well as the virtual joystick pad in the middle. Above the 320 x 320 pixel touchscreen you have the front facing video telephony camera and a LED. On the back, the device holds the 2 megapixel camera as well as the loudspeaker and in the upper right corner you get the telescope stylus:

We've seen the Samsung SGH-i780 the first time back in September when Samsung previewed its latest Windows Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition during the Gitex in Dubai. Today, I've received a test sample, thanks to Samsung and no, even if it looks like a BlackJack, it's not a Windows Mobile Standard smartphone but features a touchscreen.
The Samsung SGH-i780, a QWERTY smartphone based on Windows Mobile 6 Professional, features a Marvell PXA310 CPU at 400 MHz and supports triband GSM at 900/1800/1900 MHz as well as singleband UMTS/HSDPA at 2100 MHz with 3.6 Mbps. Furthermore, the i780 features WiFi b/g, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR and an integrated A-GPS receiver.

During a yesterday's global launch event in London, Samsung officially announced the Samsung SGH-i780 Windows Mobile 6 Professional smartphone, we've seen unveiled during the Gitex last month already. Featuring a touchscreen in addition to the QWERTY keyboard, the i780 also features a - what Samsung calls - "optical joystick", which should allow easy navigation. Furthermore, the device sports triband GSM/GPRS/EDGE at 900/1800/1900 MHz and singleband UMTS/HSDPA at 2100 MHz as well as WiFi b/g and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR. Another highlight is the inbuilt A-GPS receiver and the 2.6" 320 x 320 touchscreen which is a quite unique screen resolution for today's Windows Mobile smartphones:

Samsung's recently unveiled Windows Mobile smartphone is indeed the Samsung SGH-i780 as it is now confirmed by a document of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group. It seems to be even brand new (it just received its Bluetooth approval beginning this month). So what's known so far?
The SGH-i780 is sporting Windows Mobile 6 Professional and features triband GSM/GPRS/EDGE at 900/1800/1900 MHz as well as singleband UMTS/HSDPA at 2100 MHz. Furthermore it features Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, WiFi b/g and is expected to even include GPS (type unknown)!