company.
(Click here for a larger view of Asus' P552w)Over the past year, it has become a rite of passage for mobile phone manufacturers to tweak the standard Windows Mobile UI (user interface), adding software that modifies the standard Today screen and makes the operating system more "finger friendly." HTC started the phenomenon off with its successful
Touch, which has now
sold more than two million units, and other prominent examples include Sony Ericsson's
Xperia X1 and Samsung's
SGH-i900 Omnia.
Asus now joins in with a UI called "Glide," touted as "cutting-edge gesture technology that enables users to perform a variety of navigational actions, such as selecting, zooming, scrolling and flipping, easily through simple flicks of their fingers." The company says its new P552w phone also includes custom applications dubbed Multi-Home, Anytime Launcher, EziMusic, and EziPhoto.
The Asus P552w includes the "Glide" interface and Multi-Home, Anytime Launcher, EziMusic, and EziPhoto applications (clockwise from top left)In addition, the device -- which includes a GPS receiver based on SiRF's
starIII chipset -- comes with Google Maps plus an "exclusive" Asus SMS Location Link feature. The phone automatically embeds URLs referencing a user's location in every SMS message it sends, explains Asus. If they have a compatible device, recipients can then click on the URL to map the sender's location, the company says.
Software add-ons aside, the P552w is apparently one of the fastest Windows Mobile devices yet released. According to Asus, the phone uses a 624MHz Marvell "Tavor" processor. This CPU has not yet been formally announced by Marvell, though the chipmaker described it as "sampling" in a conference call it staged for investors last week.
Tavor reportedly features in RIM's recently released
BlackBerry Bold and will apparently be known as the PXA930. Tavor is said to include an XScale-compatible applications processor, plus a communications processor that provides the P552w (and the Bold) with quad-band (850/900/1800/1900MHz) GSM and 2100MHz UMTS connectivity.
Asus says the P552w downloads data at up to 3.6Mbps via HSDPA. In addition to the GPS capabilities already mentioned, the phone's other wireless interfaces include WiFi and Bluetooth 2.0, according to the company.
The P552w has a 2.8-inch touchscreen display with standard QVGA (320 x 240 pixel) resolution. It has a two-megapixel camera, 128MB of RAM, 256MB of flash storage, and a microSD expansion slot, the company adds.
Features and specifications listed by Asus for the P552w include:
- Processor -- Marvell "Tavor" clocked at 624MHz
- Memory -- 128MB of RAM and 256MB of flash storage
- Display -- 2.8-inch QVGA display
- Camera -- 2 megapixel, fixed focus
- Wireless interfaces:
- WAN -- Quad-band (850/900/1800/1900MHz) GSM and 2100MHz UMTS
- WLAN -- 802.11b/g
- PAN -- Bluetooth 2.0
- GPS
- Other I/O -- USB 1.1
- Battery type/life:
- 1100mAh lithium-ion battery
- Standby time -- 250 hours with 2G, 300 hours 3G
- Talk time -- 3 hours with 3G, 5 hours with 2G
- Dimensions -- 4.1 x 2.4 x 0.57 inches (102 x 60.5 x 14.5 mm)
- Weight -- 3.7 ounces (105g)
Asus did not provide any pricing or availability information for the P552w.
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