The BenQ-Siemens E61 is a fun camera phone which comes in a classic bar styled handset. The colour of the handset really brings the phone to life with its bright orange edging & silver coloured casing. The handset weighs 88 grams & measures 101 x 44 x 17 mm which is a light & manageable weight & size for a camera phone. The user can extend the phones 1 Mbyte of internal memory with the microSD™ memory card facility which can be extended up to 1 Gbyte.The phone comes with a music player which can play MP3, ACC & ACC+ formats of music. The user can access the music feature easily with the use of the dedicated music button which can be located on the top of the handset. The phone can play the users favourite latest music as a ringtone as the phone can play MP3 & polyphonic ringtones. The BenQ-Siemens E61 comes with a voice recorder feature & a handsfree speaker phone feature. The handsfree speaker works by the user using the integrated loud speaker & the internal microphone.

The user can stay in contact with other contacts by using the text messaging, enhanced messaging or multimedia messaging services. The text messaging service allows the user to create, send & receive text input messages which can be either short text or a long messages with several pages with of text input. The multimedia messaging allows the user to add a photo & sound to the text input to provide a fun & effective message. The user can send a multimedia message to any multimedia compatible device.The BenQ-Siemens E61 can connect to other devices including printers, laptops, PCs & PDAs using a USB cable. The user can download & transfer information with ease & enjoy a high speed data transfer with the GPRS. The phone comes complete with tri band technology network which will switch between the three network bands automatically with the user being totally unaware the phone is switching between bands. The user can gain access to the Web using the WAP Web browser.The phone comes with a built in VGA camera which provides a 640 x 480 resolution & comes with a 4 x digital zoom. The user can view, send, edit, delete, store & simply have fun with their photos on the E61. The user can customise their screensavers, wallpapers & change their colourful themed displays so create a different look & feel to their camera phone. The user can view their photos, screensavers & messages on the phones 65k colour TFT type screen. The screen is 1.8 Inches in size & provides a 128 x 160 screen resolution.

The Pocket LOOX T830 is running Windows Mobile 5.0 and it has two major differences from other pocket pc devices we have seen so far. The first difference is that the Pocket LOOX T830 has the richest set of connectivity features you can find on a pocket pc device. First of all it is a pocket pc phone (GSM/GPRS Tri-Band 900/1800/1900 MHz), a PDA, a 3G-enabled phone with built in Wireless LAN (Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g) and Bluetooth  2.0, and it also has an integrated GPS receiver. It has all the connectivity features currently available for pocket pc devices. Other pocket pc devices have some but not all of the features included in Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket LOOX T830. For example the ETEN X500 has built-in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and built-in GPS receiver but does not have support for 3G. The HTC P3600 is 3G enabled but does not have a built-in GPS. For sure the connectivity features of Pocket LOOX T830 are one of the greatest advantages of this phone.

In what appears to be a solid bid to achieve technological nirvana, Fujitsu Siemens has unveiled its Pocket LOOX T800 series comprised of the T810 and T830 models at the ongoing 3GSM World Congress 2006 fair in Barcelona. Launched as the most capable Windows Mobile 5.0 devices to date, the two integrate antenna-less GPS reception, UMTS based 3G, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth 2.0, USB 1.1 with host capabilities and a SDIO capable SD/MMC card expansion slot for an unparallelled connectivity setup.Setting the two devices apart is the omission of a 2.0 Megapixel camera with autofocus in the T810, while both support video calls courtesy of their front-mounted 0.3 Megapixel camera. A touch-sensitive 2.4-inch, 262K colour screen with a resolution of 240 x 240 pixels provides a window to the Pocket PC Edition of Windows Mobile 5.0, propelled by a 416 MHz Intel processor, 64 MB of RAM and 128 MB of non-volatile memory. Lastly, Fujitsu Siemens’ trademark jog dial also remains present in the T800 series.

With Microsoft® Windows Mobile 5.0 software and UMTS functionality, Pocket LOOX T series users always have access to their e-mails, appointment calendar and other familiar Microsoft Office applications. And it’s user-friendly, with a standard QWERTY keyboard and brilliant TFT display. Incorporating these devices into the corporate network is straightforward, ensuring secure and reliable data transfer, while the integrated GPS makes sure you never get lost. The new high-end handhelds will arrive at shops in July for prices of approximately €700.

The BenQ-Siemens C81 comes in a classic bar shaped design & has a piano black coloured casing. The handset measures 104 x 46.5 x 17.7 mm which is a slim & easy to manage sized handset. The phone has a large 1.8 Inch 262k colour display which provides a screen resolution of 132 x 176 pixels. The keypad & navigation controls are extremely user friendly & the user will find dialling numbers & inputting text very easy. The phone offers the user up to 5 hours of talk time & up to 300 hours of standby time. The phone takes approximately 2 hours to charge to reach full charge. The C81 comes with 23 Mbytes of internal memory & included with the phone is a 128 Mbytes of RS MultiMediaCard™ memory card for memory expansion.The integrated music player raises the pleasure factor in daily life. You can listen to music in the background even while accessing emails or writing an MMS on the move. In fact, the sound of the best-in-class real audio loudspeaker is so good that you will put the BenQ-Siemens C81 on the table to let your friends listen in too. alternatively, you can get the same superb sound through the stereo headset supplied with the phone. Experience wireless music on the move and remote control of all music functions with the Headset Bluetooth?Stereo HHB-750. The latest hits are even downloaded directly onto the mobile in any format, whether MP3, AAC, AAC+ or AAC++, at ultra-high speed via EDGE networks technology (where available) and are automatically sorted according to artist, title, album and music category ?a convenient feature only MP3 players offer. Thus you can always keep track of even a large music collection. A 128 MB RS multimedia card comes with the BenQ-Siemens C81 for storing up to 10 hours of music enjoyment. Pure fun with no interruption for charging is guaranteed thanks to the powerful battery performance.
You can also rely on the C81 to help you capture life’s best moments for sharing and reminiscing. Its built-in 1.3-megapixel camera includes 5x digital zoom, while a brilliant TFT LCD for previews makes it easy to get it all down the way it really happened. Once you’ve got the shots, you can print them directly to a PictBridge printer without going through a PC. You can go beyond still photos with video recording too—and even use the video you shoot for video ring tones.A large selection of headsets as well as various Bluetooth Car Kits give further wireless mobile convenience. The Car Kit Bluetooth Easy HKW-100 offers efficient plug&play use with an external controller pad for safe communication. Its jet black coloring and mirror-finish surface show off the high-quality design of the BenQ-Siemens C81 to particular advantage.
The user can access all the phones features easily from the main menu which includes everyday features such as a phone book, calendar, notes, calculator & alarm clock. The C81 comes with embedded Java™ games & more games can be downloaded if desired. The BenQ-Siemens C81 comes with screensavers & wallpapers which can be changed to suit the users style & taste. The phone keeps a log of missed calls, incoming calls & outgoing calls. The C81 has call features which include call forwarding, call waiting & call timer.

We still don’t get the appeal of wooden cellphones, but we’ve got to at least give Siemens some cred for trying to make their woody a little more interesting than the standard sleek polished luxury phone. The upcoming Limited Edition SK65 Burlwood phone is encased in what the company says is wood from the thuya tree, and each phone is unique — some may even have marks from animal bites. The phone will also have all the standard SK65 features, including swiveling keyboard and built-in Blackberry software. This isn’t Siemens’ first wooden phone; there was an SL55 woody released last year. We do believe, however, that this is the first phone on the market with animal bites being promoted as a selling point (take note: if this sells, you may be able to flog that phone your dog chewed up after all).

Although Research In Motion (RIM) has partnered with other companies to allow access to its over-the-air Web-based email delivery services, the SK65 from Siemens is the only third-party smartphone to have the full Blackberry software and support for RIM’s Blackberry Enterprise Services built in.

The advantage is that enterprises can push data to the SK65, providing better mobile access to calendar and email resources plus automatic synchronisation with office systems.

Our first look at the SK65 was in the controlled environment of the product’s launch, and we were not able to check the data sharing and synchronisation facilities first-hand. However, we did give the handset an initial once-over for features and usability.

The device is small and light, measuring 47mm wide by 120mm deep by 22mm high and weighing 144g. Not too bad for a feature-packed smartphone that includes a relatively spacious QWERTY keyboard.

Think of a handset as being made up of two ‘wedges’, one sitting above the other, hinged at the central point. Swivel the two wedges around the hinge, and they part, locking again when they’re at right angles to each other. The rearmost wedge reveals the ‘QWERT’ side of a keyboard to the left and ‘YUIOP’ side to the right. In the centre sits the numberpad from the front wedge.

Two-thumbed typing is possible — indeed, we found this to be a more ergonomic experience than on Handspring’s Treo 600. We doubt your average executive will be writing lengthy reports on his or her SK65, but composing the odd email using what Siemens calls its ‘cross-to-type’ system is distinctly possible.

There is no camera — apparently to discourage use of the phone for personal activities and to attract enterprises wary of industrial espionage. However, most of the other expected specifications are present and correct.

The SK65 is a tri-band GSM/GPRS phone. There is 30MB of user memory but no storage card support. The display delivers 16-bit colour, Bluetooth is integrated, and email support covers SMTP, IMAP4 and POP3. You get calendar, to-do and notes applications built in, along with Java and support for MIDI ringtones (the latter two features sit oddly with the camera’s absence — clearly this is not an entirely pin-striped, buttoned-down device).

Battery life is expected to run to around 300 minutes’ talk time, and up to 250 hours on standby.

One omission interests us: the lack of Wi-Fi. If the SK65 is to become an all-purpose communication device, as Siemens suggest will be necessary for future handsets, shouldn’t the SK65 cater for Voice over IP (VoIP)? But without Wi-Fi it can’t join local wireless networks — an omission that might become an issue before long. However, Siemens plans a range of high-end smart phones, so maybe Wi-Fi will show up soon.

The SK65 will come in three variants: a top-of-the-range version supporting Blackberry Enterprise Services; a ‘prosumer’ Web client-based version; and a standard ISP email variant with no RIM services on board.

Siemens would not give pricing for any of the three SK65 variants but expects the phone to become available in November in Europe, Middle East and Latin America with other regions to follow shortly afterwards (a local release date could not be given at time of publishing). Handsets are expected to be sold through network operators and retail, as well as direct to enterprises.