Competitive Intelligence

BenQ's Treo Killer

One big product announcement from the Consumer Electronics Show was from BenQ, in the form of its GSM Pocket PC P50, which CNet thinks could just be enough to make otherwise erstwhile Treo 650 buyers reconsider their purchase, because of the integrated Wi-Fi and bigger memory:

The product: BenQ may not be well known for its cell phones or its smart phones, but we're betting that that's about to change with the introduction of its P50 series. This Windows Pocket PC smart phone features an integrated keyboard, a 2.8-inch vibrant color screen (262,000 hues), and a 1.3-megapixel camera in a compact, candy bar style. But wait, there's more: It has 64MB of memory, integrated Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, and audio playback (WAV, MP3, WMA, and more). Other goodies include:

- Quad-band GSM 850/900/1800/1900; GPRS; world phone
- SDIO/MMC expansion slot
- Video recording (MPEG-4, WMV, .3GP)
- E-mail, text, and multimedia messaging
- Speakerphone and conference calling
- 64-chord polyphonic ring tones
- Rated talk time of 3 to 5 hours and standby time of 120 hours

The prospects: Can we say Treo killer? Yes, it's been noted before, but we think the BenQ P50 series has what it takes to battle the current smart phone king. The memory and Wi-Fi alone give this puppy an edge over the Treo 650, but we'll have to wait and see how this mobile actually performs in our tests. The P50 series will be available in late Q2 2005, but pricing and carrier have not yet been determined.

I'm still holding out to see how Cingular executes on the Treo 650 - if they fumble the adaptation to the GSM network, it could be enough to make me change my purchase plans.

- Arik