CeBIT BenQ Mobile has launched the follow-up to its long-touted yet only recently shipped P50 QWERTY keypad-equipped smart phone. Due to ship in July, the P51 adds GPS satellite navigation to the package and bumps the built-in WLAN support to 802.11g.

The P51's spec largely matches that of the P50 with minor tweaks - it now has the Benq Siemens brand. Benq didn't reveal the new model's processing power, but the P51 has 128MB of RAM and 128MB of ROM - the latter to house Windows Mobile 5.0 with Microsoft's push email software. As before, it has a quad-band GSM/GPRS radio - again without EDGE support.

The device has a 2.8in touchscreen - a slight improvement on the P50's 2.8in display - but it's still a 240 x 320, 65,536-colour job. The handset's camera resolution is still 1.3 megapixels. The phone measures 12.2 x 6 x 2cm - so it's not as slim as its picture suggests. It weighs 170g and its 1370mAh battery provides up to 150 hours' operation on stand-by and up to 240 minutes' talk time, Benq claimed.

The company said the handset has a surround sound capability, connected to the obligatory MP3 player. The P51 will ship early in Q3 - Benq did not disclose pricing. ®