VGA display on compact handheld

John Chan | May 10, 2007

VGA displays on PDA-phones have mostly been reserved for those who don't mind huge devices. Handhelds like the Dopod U1000 tip the scales at 375g, hardly something you'd want to put into a pants pocket.

E-Ten has just announced the glofiish X500+, an update of its X500 PDA-phone. Like the older model, the improved X500+ is a quadband GSM phone device with built-in GPS. The big difference is that its 2.8-inch display has a resolution of 640 x 480, up from the current 320 x 240 on the X500. Its 15.5mm thickness and weight of 146g will make it one of the smallest and lightest PDA-phones to sport a VGA display.

Both the X500+ and X500 will come with Windows Mobile 6 Professional. The X500+ will have it out of the box, while X500 users will receive an upgrade to the newer OS from E-Ten.

Also new in the X500+ is the macro-capable 2-megapixel camera. This will be useful for its bundled Namecard Manager application which will save contacts onto the handheld based on just photos taken of name cards.

E-Ten had earlier announced another VGA device, the glofiish X800, which features 3.5G technology and also a GPS chip. Even then, the X500+ is expected to be available earlier than the X800, which will be launched in Q3 for the Asia-Pacific region. Unfortunately, at press time, E-Ten's representative was not able to give more specific information regarding the release date and pricing of the X500+.

Filed under: Handhelds
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