14 DAY TRIAL // Asus M930, the smartphone with a full QWERTY keyboard announced last year to be a tough competitor for Nokia's N90 Communicator, is now officially unveiled and should be commercially available in March 2008.
Leaked specs about the smartphone appeared for the first time back in November 2007, and the official ones that now surfaced are pretty much the same. What doesn't coincide is the nature and power of its processor: while rumors said it's going to be a Marvel PXA27x 520 MHz one, the real processor is a Texas Instruments TI2431 one at 450 MHz, so we have less power than expected. Anyway, Nokia E90 runs with a processor at only 330 MHz, so the M930 is clearly a winner from this point of view.
Another worthy feature that Asus M930 comes with is its unusual design that allows you to open it at both 90 and 180 degrees to reveal the QWERTY keypad. However, the rest of M930's features are pushing it away from the high peak Nokia E90 stands on. First of all because of its screens, an external 2 inch QVGA one and an internal 2.6 inch WQVGA one that offers a 400 x 240 pixel resolution. When compared to E90's 4 inch (800 x 352 pixels) internal display, the Asus one doesn't stand a chance.
An unpleasant surprise is that the new Asus smartphone works on Windows Mobile 6 Standard, hence it has no touchscreen capabilities. Also, the built-in camera that the phone packs is not as good as rumored (a 3.2 one was expected), bringing only 2 Megapixels and Auto focus. Other specs include 3G / HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 113 x 54 x 18.7 millimeters and 158 grams. Good features, nevertheless, but the Taiwanese producer could have done much more.
Asus M930's retail price is unknown for the moment and we don't have info about the markets the handset will be available for. But it will probably be presented at the CeBIT in March and by then all the details should be known.
