Velocity speeds into touchscreen mobile market

Little known UK handset supplier Velocity Mobile has launched its first touchscreen talker, a little later than planned.

Velocity 103: Velocity's first touchscreen mobile

The Velocity 103 provides tri-band GPRS/GSM/Edge connectivity in addition to HSDPA 3G support for fast mobile web browsing. Web surfing over Wi-Fi 802.11b/g is possible too and short-range data transfers can be made over Bluetooth 2.0.

The phone’s based around Windows Mobile 6.1 but uses Velocity’s own Odyssey interface on top, which the firm said enables software updates to be delivered directly onto the phone through a service called Velocity Over The Air.

Get you kicks over HSDPA 3G

Only equipping the 103 with a two-megapixel camera is disappointing, but at least there’s also a second user-facing 0.3-megapixel camera for video calls. Images are stored onto Micro SD cards and can be viewed back on the 2.8in, 640 x 480 touchscreen.

The 103 was announced way back in April, and was originally scheduled for a Q2 launch. A quarter later than that, it's finally set to appear later this month from online retailer Expansys, priced at around £335 ($590/€420).

Velocity is run by three guys who set the firm up after their previous endeavour, A Living Picture, was acquired by handset supplier i-mate.