Kinpo preps second-gen iDo smart phones
Eastern promise
Taiwanese gadget maker Kinpo launched its iDo smart-phone brand in July 2005 and is preparing a trio of new devices to supersede its launch product, the S600. One, dubbed Saturn, features a landscape-oriented QWERTY keyboard not unlike the one on the T-Mobile Sidekick III or the HTC TyTN.
Saturn - aka the SP90 - incorporates a 350MHz Freescale i.MX21 processor, which itself includes an embedded MPEG 4 decoder. The smart phone runs Windows Mobile 5.0 and contains 64MB of RAM. It's got tri-band GSM/GPRS connectivity, augmented with Bluetooth 2.0 - with stereo audio support - and 802.11b/g Wi-Fi. On the back is a two megapixel camera with 8x digital zoom feeding through to the 2.8in, 240 x 320, 262,144-colour display. There's a MiniSD slot.
Kinpo's 'Neon' offers the same spec in a more traditional, tablet-style form-factor. It's the same shell as the iDo S600, but with more up-to-date internals - the older model has a 1.3 megapixel camera, no Wi-Fi and runs Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition.
Finally, 'Tin' differs from its stablemates with a brushed metal faceplate. Like Neon, it's a PDA-style phone, and it has the same internal specifications as Saturn.
Kingpo's 'Neon' SP70 (left) and 'Tin' SP70R (right)
Kingpo showed the three handsets off in Bangkok late last month at the Taitronics show. There's no word yet when the trio will ship. ®
