Treo Killer? BenQ P50

With a form factor strongly resembling our Treo 600 - size and weight within 10% of each other and similar battery performance, built-in WiFi and Bluetooth, a 1.3 megapixel camera, a high resolution 240x320 screen, no antenna!, a full Qwerty keyboard, USB connectivity and GSM QuadBand - one could state that the BenQ P50 is the device that most closely matches the capabilities of either the Treo 600 or 650.  Nevertheless, BenQ are being extremely slow in releasing this device as the company first announced in March of this year and many figure that it will not be released commercially until Q2 2005.

Now to be honest with you if BenQ had opted to license the PalmOS instead of Windows Mobile this could really have been considered a Treo 600 and 650 Killer.  Unfortunately for us and luckily for palmOne the company didn't.  However, as David Nagel, CEO of PalmSource, recently mentioned we should expect about a dozen new Palm Powered smart phones (including one or two more by palmOne?) coming out in 2005 and I'm curious to see what these will look like...

In the meantime, I'm glad to report that the Treo 600 and forthcoming Treo 650 are (will) still be the very best smart phones that your money can buy!

[Via Mobile01 - Godmode.org and Engadget]