While they may have invested more time in marketing and producing the now successful Eee PC line, Asus is sort of shifting gears for the moment and has announced its latest mobile phone.
The Asus P552w may not look as sleek and sophisticated as the iPhone, but whatever it lacks in aesthetics, it tries to make up for with features and performance. The P552w will feature a 624MHz CPU, 128MB DDR, 240x320 QVGA display, HSDPA/UMTS, WiFi b/g, GPS, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, 256MB flash memory, support for microSD/SDHC cards, and runs on Windows Mobile. It's pretty much loaded with the specs you would expect from a smartphone, but what will probably set this baby apart from the rest is its touchscreen UI.
It's based on a technology they call Gester and works similar to HTC's TouchFlo which basically recognizes the slides, pinches and flicks of your finger. Word going around is that Asus is also prepping up some proprietary software called EziPhoto and EziMusic which will likewise take advantage of the new UI. Seamless Google integration is also one of the key points to look out for in the P552w. So far, it does look quite promising, but sad to say, neither a price nor release date is available to get us really excited about it.
Will this little touchscreen-equipped Asus smartphone make a Eee PC-like run in the mobile phone industry? If priced just right, it might just be a worthy alternative to the current stock of expensive touchscreen-enabled devices that are out now.
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