O2, the leading European mobile operator, released its new Xda Orbit II, a Pocket PC that combines the functions of a phone, laptop, camera and portable sat-nav.

This new Xda is in fact a HTC Touch Cruise device, branded and restyled by O2, and it brings exactly the same features as the HTC has to offer. Orbit II comes to take the place of Xda Orbit, released more than a year ago and built on the HTC Artemis platform.

Xda Orbit II measures 110 x 58 x 15.5 millimeters, weighs 130 grams and it's a quad-band GMS device with 3G (HSDPA 850 / 1900 / 2100) and EDGE connectivity. As the HTC Touch Cruise, it has an elegant design and packs a 2.8 inch touchscreen display with a 240 x 320 pixel resolution and handwriting recognition. The handset runs on Windows Mobile 6 Professional, bringing a whole suite of business applications: Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, Microsoft Direct Push Email and PDF viewing capability.

As expected, the new Pocket PC includes HTC's renowned TouchFLO interface that allows the device to easily distinguish user's fingers from a stylus, enabling an easy and quick navigation. The handset also comes with fully integrated GPS capabilities, a Qualcomm MSM7200 400 MHz CPU, 128MB of RAM and 256MB of ROM. Moreover, a 3.15 Megapixel camera with Auto focus is capable of providing good-quality photos, while a secondary camera will allow users to make video calls.

Other features of Xda Orbit include 4-way navigation wheel with enter key, TomTom map, Wi-Fi, MP3 player, FM Radio with 6 user presets, Video/audio album, Java MDIP 2.0, built-in handsfree and microSD card support.

Xda Orbit II (or Orbit 2) is available in the European countries where O2 offers mobile services: UK, Ireland, Germany, Czech Republic and Slovakia. The PDA's price starts from 99 Euro ($147) with a contract agreement.