BenQ-Siemens Grooves with the EF51 Music Handset

BenQ Siemens EF51

BenQ Siemens EF51

BenQ Siemens EF51

The newly formed BenQ-Siemens has decided to try its hand at catching the wave of music handsets, announcing the EF51 from the 3GSM World Congress this week. It has an innovative form factor, but seems to be a bit of a mixed bag overall.

The BenQ-Siemens EF51 is obviously designed more for music than to be a phone. The designers seem to have taken queues from Nokia, with its N91 music phone, though the EF51 uses a flip instead of a slide to conceal the numeric keypad. For a music handset, the EF51 seems to be quite underpowered - featuring only a 128x128 pixel resolution display and 20MB of on board memory. This paltry amount of memory can be expanded with miniSD cards, though none will be included in the box, making the EF51 nearly useless out of the box until you outlay more cash for a memory card.

The BenQ-Siemens EF51 does have some good points though, such as support for WMA/MP3/AAC/AAC+ format music files, a six-band equalizer, and the ability to record the audio from the device's FM radio. A 1.3 megapixel camera and Bluetooth 1.2, rather than Bluetooth 2.0, round out the overall disappointing feature set.

The BenQ-Siemens EF51 should be available in Q2 this year, and a version for the US should come around the same time.

Live shots of the BenQ-Siemens EF51 are available on the following page.

Specifications for the BenQ-Siemens EF51
Band	GSM 900/1800/1900MHz or GSM 850/1800/1900MHz
Data	GPRS
Size	89mm x 49mm x 18mm (3.50" x 1.93" x 0.71")
Weight	95g (3.35oz)
Battery Life	Unknown
Main Display	1.6" 262k color TFT LCD, 128x128 pixel resolution
Sub-Display	N/A
Camera	Yes, 1.3 megapixel resolution
Video	Video capture/playback
Messaging	MMS/EMS/SMS
Email	Unknown
Bluetooth	Yes
Infrared	No
Java	Yes
Polyphonics	Yes (64 voice)
Memory	20MB on board memory, miniSD expansion
Availability	Q2 2006

 

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