Watch out HTC, Here Comes Velocity Mobile

I stumbled across two good looking smartphones in a magazine this afternoon, made by a company called Velocity Mobile. At first glance, given its design, Windows Mobile platform and feature-rich specification, I thought it may have been an HTC powered, rebranded effort. After a little digging, I am finding out that Velocity is a new company based in Seattle/London that designs smartphones and utilizes the manufacturing prowess of China with a top ODM partner in Taiwan known as Inventec.

The two windows mobile smartphones I am referring to are the Velocity 103 and 111. Available Q2-2008 and Q3-2008 respectively. Both models are remarkbly similar in specs: true worldwide 3G (850,1700,1900,2100), Windows Mobile Professional 6.1, WiFi, GPS, BT, 2MP Cam, etc. Model 103 features an awesome 640x320 touchscreen display using trackball while Model 111 is a basic 320x240 display but it comes with a full QWERTY keyboard. Again the design is leaning towards the HTC Diamond (or Sony Xperia X1) which is why I thought of it as a HTC rebadge but this is genuine new product from a new new player.

Based on what I am seeing so far, I am very impressed by its design and specs. Particularly the Model 103 which has VGA resolution that is highly desirable in today's mobile market. I am in the market for a Windows Mobile device for this blog, I will definitely watch out for this phone in the coming months. If they priced unlocked versions around $300, it would just obliterate competition.