Mobile phone maker Alcatel is reported to come to the market with a new device, the OT-S988W, which, surprisingly, is not a low-end mobile phone; it turns out to be a smartphone. Moreover, it seems that the latest release from Alcatel will be running under Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional operating system.

The new Alcatel OT-S988W handset is also reported to include a sliding QWERTY keyboard, just as other high-end Windows Mobile-based devices such as the HTC Touch Pro2 do. In addition, it is also expected to feature quad-band GSM connectivity, as well as support for UMTS 2100MHz.

According to the latest news on the web, the handset will become available for purchase in China in the near future, and it will be launched with China Unicom, on the carrier's recently unveiled 3G brand called WO. For what it's worth, the handset seems to come with nice looks, at least this is what images with it available in the wild show.

The specifications list of the new Alcatel OT-S988W includes a 3.2-inch touchscreen display that can provide a 240 x 400 pixel resolution, along with Wi-Fi connectivity, A-GPS capabilities, a 3.5mm headset jack and Bluetooth 2.1. At the same time, the new smartphone is powered by a 528 MHz Qualcomm CPU and sports 256MB of RAM and 256MB of ROM.

The Windows Mobile-powered Alcatel OT-S988W measures 110 x 55 x 15.1 mm and weighs 124 grams. It seems that there are no exact details on when the phone will actually hit the Chinese market, nor on the price tag it is expected to feature when available. One more thing that should be mentioned is that the handset has been suggested to see a possible European launch as well, though the exact info on this matter lacks as well, but stay tuned to learn more details as soon as they become available.