AT&T announce the Samsung BlackJack II

AT&T describe the new Blackjack II as “A pocket sized Personal Computer,” which is not a million miles from the truth. Full QWERTY keyboard, QVGA color display screen and a front jog wheel mean fast, full access to your data. The full, updated specs include AT&T Video Share, enabling you to share live video over the wireless phones while on a voice call; Built-in GPS with support for location-based applications such as TeleNav GPS Navigator; Global phone capabilities - Tri-band 3G UMTS/HSDPA and Quad-band EDGE/GPRS, an RSS Reader Client; a 2.0-megapixel camera with video-capture capabilities; and increased standard memory.

And that’s just the extras. The Blackjack II is chock-a-block full of software, including Windows Mobile 6 and Mobile Device Manager 2008. MDM2008 allows companies to secure and manage multiple mobile devices remotely. We’re not sure exactly how popular this particular feature is going to be with the ground troops – the idea that head office can snoop in and take a look at your downloads might not appeal to everyone. In fact, along with the Palm Treo 500v, if my company gave me one of these, it would be inline for a little “accident,” on the way out the door. Let’s face it, who wants the bosses secretary being able to pinpoint your exact location via GPS 24 hours a day?

Apart from the MDM, I like the look of this, it’s small enough to carry around and big enough to be usable on a daily basis. Along with the blackberries, this one’s squarely aimed at the business user, but at less than 150 bucks, it might attract a few private sales.

Press release here.