BenQ-Siemens E52 and C31
Expected June/July 2007 13th
June 2007
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.
BenQ-Siemens
E52
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"
176x220 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.
BenQ-Siemens
C31
Physically identical to the BenQ-Siemens
E81, the C31 is an attractive lightweight GSM phone
with a built-in MP3 player, and FM radio and microSD
expandable memory (supporting up to 4GB).
There's no Bluetooth and the C31 only
has a 1.8" 176x220 pixel display and a 1.3 megapixel
camera, but as we think that the handset will be less
than €130 before tax and subsidy it still offers pretty
good value for money.
Although it looks like the E81 on the
surface, underneath this is purely a BenQ device. It
appears that the Siemens legacy only lives on when it
comes to styling.
As with the E52, we understand that
this will be available in Eastern Europe from June 2007
onwards. We don't know about other markets yet, but
the C31 certainly seems attractive enough to sell well
for prepay customers in other parts of Europe too.
BenQ-Siemens
E52 at a glance
|
Available:
|
Q3
2007
|
Network:
|
GSM
900/1800/1900
|
Data:
|
GPRS
|
Screen:
|
176x220
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
|
|
BenQ-Siemens
C31 at a glance
|
Available:
|
Q3
2007
|
Network:
|
GSM
900/1800/1900
|
Data:
|
GPRS
|
Screen:
|
176x220
pixels, 262k colours
|
Camera:
|
1.3
megapixels
|
Size:
|
Lightweight monoblock 100
x 47 x 17mm / 122 grams
|
Bluetooth:
|
No
|
Memory
card:
|
microSD
|
Infra-red:
|
No
|
Polyphonic:
|
Yes
|
Java:
|
Yes
|
Battery
life:
|
3 hours talk / 7 days standby
|
|
|