While we’re still lusting over the Omnia PRO with its AMOLED touchscreen and slide-out QWERTY in landscape mode, its little brother, the touch-only Omnia II got the hands-on treatment over at GSM Arena. The Omnia II should also be coming to US carrier Verizon Wireless in CDMA flavor, an apt choice considering the device is replacing the CDMA Omnia on the carrier (we also reviewed the GSM version of the original Omnia).

There is much to like about the device. The sheer specs show an impressive device (referenced link is for the Omnia PRO, though specs for the Omnia II will be similar). This is not to be taken lightly as we were pretty impressed with the HTC Diamond2, a device seen as a direct competitor to the Omnia II.

In fact, even with this early beta unit, the folks at GSM Arena were still pretty impressed with the fast response, a solid device, and great customizations on top of Windows Mobile:

“All of you know that Windows Mobile devices are not everyone’s cup of tea but somehow Samsung managed to change the way we used to look at WinMo powered handsets with only one model. A beta unit, by the way. The UI is very responsive and easy to get on well with. And all standard WinMo applications have been not just redesigned. More accurate is to say “recreated”. They are much more touch-friendly now and feel so not WinMo.”

Read on to learn more!

Specs:

-GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS 900/2100 MHz, HSDPA 7.2 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps

-Dimensions: 107 x 59 x 12.9 mm

-Display: 3.7-inch 64K-color WVGA AMOLED touchscreen, 480 x 800 pixels, Advanced R touch (Resistive Touch)

-Memory: 8/16GB storage memory, hot-swappable microSD card slot (up to 32GB)

-OS: Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional with custom TouchWiz 2.0 UI with 3D effects

-CPU: 800 MHz

-Camera: 5 megapixel auto focus camera with dual LED flash, geo-tagging, face and smile -detection, image stabilization, Wide Dynamic Range (WDR) and D1 video recording at 15 fps

-Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth with A2DP, standard microUSB port, standard 3.5mm audio jack, GPS receiver with A-GPS

-Misc: Accelerometer for screen auto rotate, FM radio with RDS, DivX/XviD video support, DNSe

-Battery: 1500 mAh battery

Samsung UI

Samsung made a lot of improvements in concealing the underlying Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional operating system, much in the same way that HTC has used TouchFLO 3D to hide Windows Mobile on their devices. Here are some nice highlights from the review:

-Photo Album: Samsung did a nice job with the photo album, bringing it to an “iPhoto” experience on the iPhone or on a Mac. Pictures taken with the camera are automatically categorized by dates. Photo

-Photo Navigation: You get a nice Cover Flow experience. Photo

-Camera: The camera application is awesome with a lot of features and options. Photo

-User interface: You navigate around a block with a lot of animations. Very slick. Photo

-Four Customizable Home Screens: You get four customizable home screens to play with–add as many widgets and tools that you would need! One home screen for work, one for play, one for entertainment, and the other for vacation maybe. Photo

-Task Manager: There is a nice task manager that arranges opened applications into a nice grid or tile, kind of like the tiles on the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1. Photo

-Calendar Screen Saver: When docked or sitting on your desk, you can play your photos in a slideshow as a background with a nice calendar overlay. Nice! Photo

-App Store: Samsung isn’t waiting for Microsoft’s app store Marketplace for Mobile. Instead, the firm has implemented its own version of the app store. Photo

(via: GSM Arena)