ASUS P565

The ASUS P565 was first spotted by our sister site, CNET Taiwan, in September. Not much was known about it at that time aside from the fact that it used an 800MHz processor, a first and fastest for a Windows Mobile (WM) PDA-phone. This week, ASUS made this product official and currently, it's still the only WM6.1 handheld to have a chip of that speed. Upside Without a doubt, the main draw of the P565 is its Marvell 800MHz processor. Handhelds these days typically max out at 624MHz. Even then, many current models come with Marvell 400MHz or Qualcomm 528MHz chips. Granted, clock speed is not the only consideration when choosing a handheld, but unless it has outrageous power requirements, faster is always better. The advantage is usually felt when running a single, system-intensive application like a game or a huge spreadsheet. With dimensions of 102 x 60.5 x 16mm and a weight of 120g, the P565 is just a touch thicker and slightly heavier than its P552w sibling. There's a big leap in terms of features though (compared to the P552w) as, aside from the new 800MHz processor, it is also equipped with a VGA display. That's four times the resolution of QVGA (320 x 240) which makes a big difference when viewing text and images, especially on a browser. Found on the back of the P565 is a 3-megapixel camera with autofocus. ASUS has also included a secondary camera above the screen for making video calls. Downside While the screen resolution is much higher than the more common QVGA, it would have been great if the size of the display was physically larger. Like the , it has a 2.8 inch LCD, but larger ones are found on other devices including the Samsung Omnia (3.2 inches) and HTC Touch HD (3.8 inches). Outlook Those who want a little bit more than a midrange WM6.1 PDA-phone should find the P565 an attractive proposition. ASUS expects the P565 to be available in mid-December in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. Stay tuned for details about its release.