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As we pointed out last week, with the AT&T Tilt and Verizon XV6800, there's been a flurry of upgrades to Windows Mobile 6.1 released of late. The latest smartphone to get Microsoft's latest and greatest mobile OS is the Samsung BlackJack II, which is available from AT&T in the U.S.

Windows Mobile 6.1 provides new timesaving features, easier phone navigation and management, stronger security safeguards, support for Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008, and an improved Internet Explorer Mobile application, among other enhancements.

If your using a Windows XP machine with your BlackJack II, see here for more information on how to upgrade to Windows Mobile 6.1. Windows Vista PC users check here.

Like its popular predecessor, the BlackJack II is tablet shaped with a non-touch display—it runs on Windows Mobile 6 Standard after all—and a QWERTY thumb-keyboard. The screen measures 2.4 inches diagonally and is of the typical QVGA (240 x320 pixel) variety. There's a jog wheel for navigation.

The tri-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE smartphone supports AT&T's UMTS/HSDPA 3G data network. It includes a 2.0 megapixel camera (up from the original’s 1.3 megapixel shooter) for picture and video and built-in GPS to support location-based applications, such as TeleNav GPS Navigator, which provides turn-by-turn voice and on-screen driving or walking directions, 3-D moving maps and traffic-delay alerts.

For the camera, there's AT&T Video Share, which allows you share live video while on a voice call. It also sports Bluetooth, with stereo headset support, and an RSS news reader.

For e-mail, the BlackJack II provides users with access to multiple accounts, both personal and business, through Microsoft Direct Push technology with Outlook Mobile and AT&T Xpress Mail, which supports most major POP3/IMAP providers. The BlackJack II also offers over-the-air synchronization of contacts, calendar and task lists with Microsoft Exchange Server or AT&T Xpress Mail.

For more on the BlackJack II, see the links below.