BenQ-Siemens E81

General release cancelled
31st July 2006

The BenQ-Siemens E81 is a very compact, lightweight 3G phone. At present, the exact weight of the E81 is not known, except that it's less than 90 grams - which is impressive for a UMTS handset. It's around the same size as a GSM phone at 100x47x17mm.

In technical terms though, the BenQ-Siemens E81 is a little dull. The screen is a 1.8" 176x220 pixel display, there's a 1.3 megapixel camera, microSD expandable memory, Bluetooth, an MP3 player, a web browser and email client.

There's a particularly daft bit of marketing fluff though - the E81 features what BenQ-Siemens call "See-What-I-See Video Telephony". What this actually means is that the E81 doesn't come with a secondary camera for video calling, so you can only use the main camera which makes the E81 impractical for face-to-face video calls (there is a small mirror on the bacl though). Although, in real life not many 3G users make video calls anyway, so it's probably not a great loss.

Remember though, the main selling point of the BenQ-Siemens E81 is its size and weight, so the technical features are less important. If you want more gadgets.. then get a bigger phone.

It's an understated phone in design terms, although it has many typical Siemens styling cues. The BenQ-Siemens E81 isn't really a looker, but it is neat enough and not overly showy.

BenQ-Siemens say that the maximum talktime is 6 hours with up to 12 days standby time. Presumably, this is referring to the E81's performance when set to use GSM, rather than UMTS/3G.

The E81 is scheduled to be released in Europe in September 2006 and Asia in October 2006.

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