Jun
26
Here’s a surprise - a couple of handsets bearing the BenQ-Siemens brand.. surprising because the collapse of the BenQ-Siemens business last year would indicate that this particular brand was now defunct.Well, it’s been a long time but after a 10 months gap parent company BenQ Mobile has rolled out two new devices with the promise of some more on the way.The squared off design of the BenQ-Siemens E52 is very reminiscent of Siemens designed handsets - but underneath this is a pure BenQ device with little or no input from the old Siemens Mobile arm of the business.
Priced at around €130 or less, the E52 is a tri-band GSM phone with GPRS and Bluetooth, an MP3 player, FM radio, 1.3 megapixel camera and expandable memory using microSD cards. The display is a 1.8″ 176×220 pixel panel in 262,000 colours.
So far the BenQ-Siemens E52 looks like an inexpensive, smart but fairly dull phone. One interesting twist though is that the E52 has a built-in laser pointer and it can even be used as a mouse in PowerPoint presentations via a suitable Bluetooth link. It’s an unusual twist which shows that the E52 is aimed at business users.
It’s quite a heavy phone at 122 grams, but it’s hard to say where all the weight goes.. the battery life is pretty unremarkable at 4 hours talktime and it’s not as though it’s a 3G phone. At 102 x 45 x 15mm in size, the E52 is a fairly typical size for a business handset.
We understand that the E52 will be available in Russia and Eastern Europe from June 2007 with no word on other markets. It’s certainly an attractive device for the money.
Available: Q3 2007
Network: GSM 900/1800/1900
Data: GPRS
Screen: 176×220 pixels, 262k colours
Camera: 1.3 megapixels
Size: Medium monoblock
102 x 45 x 15mm / 122 grams
Bluetooth: Yes
Memory card: microSD
Infra-red: No
Polyphonic: Yes
Java: Yes
Battery life: 4 hours talk / 10 days standby
