bSQUARE Power Handheld reaches UK marketplace

Tuesday December 16, 2003

A new kind of "Power Handheld" that integrates a full VGA screen, retractable QWERTY thumb-operated keyboard and wireless data acces via GPRS networks has been released on the UK market after a deal between smart device specialists bSQUARE and Vodafone. Codenamed "Maui" since it appeared at the CES in Las Vegas earlier this year, the device uses a 400MHz Intel XScale processor running on the Microsoft Windows CE .NET platform and promises to deliver mobile productivity without the need for additional development in order to fit a small screen.

The 640 x 480 VGA screen has a viewing size of 4.0' and the 140mm x 87 mm x 19.5 mm landscape design (which shares some similarities with the recent Nokia N-Gage game-phone) enables more efficient use of the screen when viewing documents.

The bSQUARE Power Handheld also features an in-built GSM phone and GPRS wireless radio with the full keyboard supplemented by touch screen stylus input, 5-Way Joypad and Hot Keys for e-mail, web browsing and the on-screen 2X Zoom function.

Two memory configurations are available with either 64 MB or 128MB, 10MB or 32MB internal storage and an SD memory slot for up to 1GB of removable storage. The integrated GPRS (2.5G) wireless functionality achieves speeds comparable to using a 56k dial-up modem but notably, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are not featured.

No news as yet on the availablity of the bSQUARE CE .NET handheld outside the UK. Stay tuned to www.Gizmo.com..au for updates or follow the links below to learn more.