September 11th, 2008
Velocity 103 WM device should be available in September
While at Mobius 2008 in Seattle a few months ago I was a bit surprised to get a bit of hands-on time with a couple new Windows Mobile devices from Velocity Mobile. If you remember, these guys sort of came out of nowhere back at CTIA in April. They showed off the Velocity 103 and 111 and now a new press release states that the 103 should be available by the end of September.
The Velocity 103 has GUI called Odyssey that is built on top of Windows Mobile, like what HTC and Samsung have done with the Touch Diamond/Pro and OMNIA devices. The device is a touch screen device with minimal buttons and no QWERTY keyboard. The 103 also supports Velocity Over the Air updates (VOTA) that will send you the latest updates wirelessly. I have tried this on the Nokia N78 and it is a great experience that actually should prolong the usefulness of the device.
Specifications of the device include:
- Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
- Qualcomm Mobile Station Modem™ (MSM™) MSM7201™ chipset
- GSM/EDGE 850, 900, 1800, 1900
- UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA 850, 1900, 2100
- 640×480 VGA touch screen
- Odyssey Interface
- Velocity Over The Air updates (VOTA)
- 256MB ROM, 128MB RAM
- Bluetooth 2.0, 802.11b/g WiFi, GPS
- 2.0 megapixel camera, 0.3 megapixel videoconferencing camera
- TV/VGA out
- MicroSD expansion slot
This looks like an interesting competitor to the similarly speced HTC Touch Diamond devices. The retail price is listed as UK Pounds 334.99 (approx. US$590) so that actually seems to be a reasonable price for a SIM-unlocked device with these specifications.
I personally am finding I prefer QWERTY keyboards so the Velocity 111 looks like the device I would go for in this case. I heard we won’t see the 111 released until early 2009 though so I’ll have to wait a bit to try this one out.
Matthew Miller is an avid mobile device enthusiast who works during the day as a professional naval architect in Seattle. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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