ASUS P525 (PPC Phone. Official MPC Club)

[Terrasmark]

ASUS P525 (PPC PHONE. OFFICIAL MPC CLUB)

The Official MPC's ASUS P525 Club starts in Post #233, Page 16.


ATTENTION! For those who're ready to whip out their wallets, cheque books / credit cards to purchase a Pocket PC (PPC) phone, namely the Dopod 818 Pro (HTC Prophet), O2 Xda Atom, HP iPAQ rw6828, etc., I suggest you think twice coz' HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER!

Introducing...


ASUS P525


Photo courtesy of ASUSTeK Computer Inc.

ASUSTeK Computer Inc., the Taiwan-based co. which specializes in motherboards, graphic cards, notebooks, etc., has unveiled it's latest PPC phone to the world recently at CeBIT 2006, Hannover, Germany.

The P525 has come a long was from its predecessor, the P505 (MPC review). Here're the official specs from the user manual:-

1) Processor: Intel® XScale™ 416MHz application processor
2) Operating system: Microsoft® Windows Mobile™ 5.0 Pocket PC Phone Edition
3) Memory: 128MB Flash ROM, 64MB SDRAM
4) Display: 2.8", 65,536-colour, 240 x 320-resolution, transreflective TFT touch screen
5) Frequency band: Quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900MHz)
6) GPRS: Class B, Multislot class 10
7) Camera: 2.0M pixel CMOS with flash & Auto-Focus (AF) & built-in flash
8) Connectivity: WLAN (Wi-Fi) (IEEE)802.11b, Bluetooth V2.0, Infrared (SIR), USB Client 1.1 (mini-USB)
9) Battery capacity: 1300mAh Li-ion
10) Expansion slot: miniSD
11) Audio: 2.5mm audio port, built-in microphone & speaker
12) Weight: 160g (with battery)
13) Dimension: 116.8 x 59 x 19mm

Other features:-
14) Standbytime: 150 hours (approx.)
15) Talk time: 5 hours (approx.)
16) Ringtone: 128 polyphonic ringtones (Midi/MP3/WMA/WAV)
17) Java: J2ME (CLDC 1.1 + MIDP 2.0)
18) WAP: WAP 1.2.1 / WAP 2.0
19) Supported video formats: MPEG4, 3GP (recording)
20) Skype, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
21) Voice recognition enabled
22) Alpha-numeric keypad with multifunctional buttons

Sorry, no 2.5G (EDGE), 3.0G (UMTS) / 3.5G (HSDPA).

A very useful feature's the "Xscale underclocking utility" that enables the user to set the P525 to either "Turbo", "Standard", "Power Saving" / "Automatic Accord" mode to fully utilize the P525's processor & battery power.

Interestingly, a "Biz Card Recognition" prog. enables the digitalization of printed text on business cards (with reference to major languages & writing styles) so that contacts can be stored (digitally) in the P525 (sweet... ).

Another useful feature's called "MySecret" which provides information security by enabling saved files such as word documents, spreadsheets, videos, photos, etc., to be saved as MySecret files, thus protecting them from unauthorized views. I believe it's an encryption prog. that further protects private & confidential files in case the P525 gets lost / stolen.

An interesting thing's that the official Taiwanese site mentioned that the P525'll have a built-in English-Chinese / Chinese-English dictionary, but the official Global (English) site didn't mention that the dictionary'll be a feature in the P525. I suspect that the dictionary's only available in Taiwan's / probably in major Chinese-speaking regions' P525.

Although it's not confirmed to be available in M'sia, it's confirmed by CNET Asia to be available in S'pore "within the next few months" (Asus to launch P525 in Singapore) (S'poreans, rejoice! ). M'sians need not lose hope as its availability in S'pore & the P505 here last year could be a sign that the P525'll be available in M'sia as well, maybe a little later than S'pore though (well, better late than never ).

Yet, more updates on CNet Asia (Asus phones coming soon?). It seems that ASUSTek's 1st international overseas HQ in S'pore's officially opened. Looks like there's no stopping the P525 coming to the island country now.

Further research on the P525 has also yield an unconfirmed "alternate version" of the P525 with a silver casing instead of the conventional metallic black. I believe this's the 1st prototype of the P525 & the differences're merely cosmetic only, with the internal specs exactly the same.


Photo courtesy of SlashPhone

OFFICIAL NEWS & PRODUCT SITES'RE UP!!!
The official news & product site of the P525've been spotted on the M'sian, S'porean, Thai & Filipino ASUSTeK website, albeit the spec.s on the websites're still incorrect. But the point here's, if the official product site's on these regional websites, that could mean that the P525'll (almost definitely) be available in those countries soon..., / could it already be there? <insert The X-Files theme here > Keep your eyes open for the P525, fellow forumers.

BTW, for those who would like to know where to contact ASUSTeK M'sia, here're the address & contact no.s:-

ASUS Malaysia
G-2, Ground Floor, IT@SPS
Wisma SPS, Jalan Imbi
55100, Kuala Lumpur
Wilayah Persekutuan
Malaysia
+603-2148-0827
+603-2145-8379

OFFICIAL ENGLISH QUICK START GUIDE & USER MANUAL'RE UP!!!
The English Quick Start Guide & User Manual're available for download on ASUSTeK's support site. So's the French & Chinese ver. Now, everyone (well, everyone who're English, French / Chinese language readers, i.e. ) can get an understanding of the workings of the P525 before it's officially released outside Taiwan & Hong Kong.

COMPREHENSIVE REVIEWS BY 1ST-HAND USERS'RE UP!!!

PIC. OF THE P525 UP ON PHONE STAR COMMUNICATION SDN. BHD.'S WEBSITE!!!
This could only mean 1 thing, my friends: The P525's just 1 step away from its confirmed release in M'sia! YAHOO!!! I said 1 step away coz' the next step's to contact Phone Star to confirm once & for all that the P525'll hit M'sian shores. Head on to their website for more details. BTW, the Product page didn't show the P525 in its list, but its pic. on the main page's sufficient enough to end all doubts.

FYI, Phone Star's the official M'sian distributor for mobile phone brands such as ASUS (Asia) & Sagem (Europe). It's also the distributor of the P525's predecessor, the P505.

BTW, their address & contact no.s're

Phone Star Communication Sdn. Bhd.
30, Jalan 4/146, Amcorp Office Park, Bandar Tasik Selatan,
Jalan Sungai Besi, 57000 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: +603-9057 8668 (Hunting Line)
Fax: +603-9057 1282 (Service & Repair)
+603-9057 4282 (Sales & Marketing)
+603-9057 6282 (Finance & HR)

ASUS P525 (PPC PHONE. OFFICIAL MPC CLUB)

The Official MPC's ASUS P525 Club starts in Post #233, Page 16.

View the links below for the links (like, duh... ).

Other links:-
1) ASUSTeK Computer Inc., Global: News: Always Connected with P525 Quad-Band PDA Phone: 29th May, 19th June
2) ASUSTeK Computer Inc., Global: Home > Products > Mobile Phones > P Series > P525
3) ASUSTeK Computer Inc., Taiwan: Products : Mobile Phones : P Series : P525
4) ASUSTeK Computer Inc., Malaysia: Home > Products > Mobile Phones > P Series > P525
5) ASUSTeK Computer Inc.-Support-: Download > PDA > P525
6) Phone Star Communication Sdn. Bhd.: http://phonestar.net.my/
7) SOGI: http://www.sogi.com.tw/news/content.asp?newsno=3333
8) PhoneDaily: http://www.phonedaily.com/news/?news_id=4159
9) PhoneDaily: http://www.phonedaily.com/news/?news_id=4458
10) Phonedaily: http://www.phonedaily.com/news/?news_id=4550
11) CNET Asia: Product Reviews : Handhelds : Asus P525
12) <NEW!> CNET Australia: Reviews: PDAs & GPS: ASUS P525
13) <NEW!> The Star Online: TechCentral: Home User: Asus goes Windows Mobile
14) Hardware Zone: Articles > Events > ASUS Grand Opening in Singapore
15) VR-Zone: Vrzone.com Article: Interview with Benson Lin, ASUS APAC Business President
16) PDANEWS.de: CeBIT 2006: A first Impression of the ASUS P525

Reviews:-
1) <NEW!> Digit-Life.com: ASUS MyPal P525 GSM Communicator
2) PROPortable: Asus P525 Pocket PC Phone Overview
3) Mobinaute: http://www.mobinaute.com/mobinaute/article.php?id=20060726170716
4) PPCReviews: http://www.ppcreviews.net/content/view/756/7/
5) MXP: http://www.mxp.cn/doc/DocTestView.aspx?ID=0000002469
6) GO3C: http://www.go3c.com.tw/Item_List_0.php?INO=PDASP502
7) gophone.com.tw: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3
8) SOGI: http://www.sogi.com.tw/park/content.asp?a_id=1311
9) PhoneDaily: http://www.phonedaily.com/news/?news_id=4497
10) blog.xuite.net: http://blog.xuite.net/spy.su/stateoftheart/6767107
11) tw.myblog.yahoo.com: http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/jw!CThzcUmGHxqVAMtiw36SJyRf/archive?l=f&id=6
12) Pocket PC Thai: http://www.pocketpcthai.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=488&mode=&order=0&thold=0
13) Pocket PC Thai: http://www.pocketpcthai.com/modules.php?name=Reviews&rop=showcontent&id=56 (A more comprehensive review from the earlier one, a.k.a. Part 2. The translated version's incomplete. So, you'll need to go to the original untranslated ver. to view the complete review.)
14) MrPalm.com: http://www.thai2english.com/trans.html?query_id=161170
15) MrPalm.com: http://www.mrpalm.com/getcontent3.php?tid=391: Page 1, Page 2
16) msnth.com: http://www.msnth.com/msn/mobile/pdareview/article1.asp
17) OverclockZone: http://www.overclockzone.com/spin9/revi ... asus/p525/: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5
18) pocket.com.il: http://www.pocket.co.il/cgi-bin/pocketil/viewnews.pl?id=EEVEEpuZkuJWSDihzK&tmpl=pocket375&style=pocket375 (This's an Israeli site & it's in Hebrew. Couldn't find a Hebrew website translater out there. Anyone out there who knows Hebrew, care to shed some light on this review for us? )
19) Mobilarena: http://mobilarena.hu/c.php?mod=20&id=1181 (This's a Hungarian site & it's in Hungarian. Couldn't find a Hungarian website translater out there. Anyone out there who knows Hungarian, care to shed some light on this review for us? )

Other forums' links:-
1) Mobile-Review.com: Asus P525
2) GeoExpat.Com: Asus P525
3) PPCSG: Official thread for Asus P525
4) NotebookReview.com: OFF TOPIC: However appealing to most... production Asus p525 PPC Phone in my hands.
5) Pocket PC Dubai: Nice Pics of Asus P525
6) discuss.com.hk: http://www8.discuss.com.hk/viewthread.php?tid=1676161&extra=page%3D1
7) HKEPC Hardware: http://www.hkepc.com/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=619104&extra=page%3D2
8) Mobile01: http://www.mobile01.com/topicdetail.php?f=61&t=172763&p=1
9) RingHK: http://board.phonehk.com/viewthread.php?tid=182218&extra=page%3D1

Do check out this post occasionally for future updates.

ASUS P525 (PPC PHONE. OFFICIAL MPC CLUB)

The Official MPC's ASUS P525 Club starts in Post #233, Page 16.

As we wait with bated breath, here're some pic.s of the P525 to whet your appetites.



















Photos courtesy of PhoneDaily






Photos courtesy of SOGI

ASUS P525 (PPC PHONE. OFFICIAL MPC CLUB)

The Official MPC's ASUS P525 Club starts in Post #233, Page 16.

[Alessandro_Wong]

Nokia 6680 copycat

[n20nine]

nice phone, old technology

htc hermes will be out then, so why the p525, no wi-fi, no edge?
at least 3G would be nice...

why are all PPC's lacking the latest technology?

[yeapch]

nice phone, old technology

htc hermes will be out then, so why the p525, no wi-fi, no edge?
at least 3G would be nice...

why are all PPC's lacking the latest technology?

WIFI YES

[n20nine]

nice phone, old technology

htc hermes will be out then, so why the p525, no wi-fi, no edge?
at least 3G would be nice...

why are all PPC's lacking the latest technology?

WIFI YES

oops, sorry my bad. but heard the camera is excellent.

[wooikok]

good the crowd is growing and the competition is getting hotter...better for consumer..

[digitalkl]

wah not bad. if only got 3G and GPS then complete!

Its an excellent idea to use phone keypad instead of qwerty keyboard..

Looks quite good size in your hand too....



Comparing size with Atom-


More pictures over here - http://www.mobinaute.com/mobinaute/arti ... 0314162319

[Terrasmark]

nice phone, old technology Sad

htc hermes will be out then, so why the p525, no wi-fi, no edge?
at least 3G would be nice...

why are all PPC's lacking the latest technology?

n20nine, not everyone can afford 3.0G at the moment, not when it hasn't gain a good footing, especially in this part of Asia. Of course, with 3.0G, you'll expect to be video calling a lot, but it'll only work when the person on the other end of the line has a 3.0G phone as well. You can't clap with only 1 hand, can you? (slapping your tight doesn't count, BTW... )

Unless if you use 3.0G devices primarily for data services (surfing, e-mailing, etc.), that's OK. You don't need a phone with video calling capability, but once again, 3.0G's still not viable for the general public. So, IMHO, you shouldn't compare it to a 3.0G device. There're users who don't see 3.0G as a necessity (for now).

But deep down my thoughts, with a PPC phone this good, it's quite a waste not to include 3.0G in this phone. But if I'm the manufacturer (& distributor) / seller, I'm sure that'll just bloat the price tag, making the possibility to own this device limited to executives / upper class consumers with a deep pocket to match. I think ASUS, an Asian-based co., needed to produce a device that sells to all to compensate on their manufacturing.

good the crowd is growing and the competition is getting hotter...better for consumer..Smile

wooikok, I couldn't agree more. Gimme a 5!

[n20nine]

yea, but bet it will not be cheap, surely around 3K. For that price, I think it should come with 3G. The P990i should be around that price, and it comes with 3G, hopefully the Hermes too will be around the same price range.

[hishamh]

A very useful feature's the "overclocking utility" that enables the user to set the P525 to either "Turbo Mode", "Standard", "Power Saving" / "Automatic Accord" to fully utilize the P525's processor & battery power.

Just to clarify - that's not overclocking, but rather the Xscale utility that comes standard with the PXA27x line of processors. It provides the ability to underclock the processor, not overclock it. Overclocking will still require third party utilities like Pocket Hack Master or XCPUScalar.

[farique]

Kudos to ASUS... among the features that I welcome are...
: Numeric Keypad = Easy SMSes
Autofocus = Always Nice
Mini USB port = Can easily charge in car and computer
PXA272 proc = good videos,good skype

cant wait to test this baby out

[visioncatz]

Do you think it will be selling below RM2k?

[n20nine]

Below 2K, definately no...all WM5 Pda Phones are above 2K, and this has better specs than all of em, most i mean.

[Terrasmark]

Just to clarify - that's not overclocking, but rather the Xscale utility that comes standard with the PXA27x line of processors. It provides the ability to underclock the processor, not overclock it. Overclocking will still require third party utilities like Pocket Hack Master or XCPUScalar.

Yes, you're right, hishamh. My bad, hee hee... I never'd a PXA27* device before, so I didn't know. I've rectified my mistake in my 1st post. Thanks, hishamh.

You got a point there. Overclocking's an act of tweaking the processor to exceed it's maximum clock speed. So, I suppose "Turbo" mode's the max. 416MHz (theoretically). If so, what do you think the "Standard" mode would be?

Kudos to ASUS... among the features that I welcome are...
: Numeric Keypad = Easy SMSes
Autofocus = Always Nice
Mini USB port = Can easily charge in car and computer
PXA272 proc = good videos,good skype

cant wait to test this baby out

Yes, farique. Numeric keypad's the best option for me & I believe, the best for Asian consumers as they're more inclined to smartphones rather than PDA phones. May the P525 encourage them to switch to PDA phones.

Autofocus has been the "secret weapon" of Nokia & Sony Ericsson's success as tests'd shown that camera phones with autofocus perform as good, sometimes even better than their high pixel counterparts. Pixel count's significant when it comes to the sharpness of a pic. relative to its size. But camera sensors such as autofocus, control the focus on a target image, keeping the image clear / sharp in a wide range of distances & to moving objects / shooter. Do correct me if I'm wrong.

Do you think it will be selling below RM2k?

Below 2K, definately no...all WM5 Pda Phones are above 2K, and this has better specs than all of em, most i mean.

Well, price-wise, if we compare it spec-to-spec to current PDA phones in the market now, I suppose we can make an educated guess. It also depends on your budget & definition of "expensive" when it comes to PDA phones. Anyway, IMO, it won't cost more than RM 3000 (US$ 790) coz' it's greatest competitors're the Xda Atom [RM 2988 (US$ 786)] & iPAQ rw6828 [(probably) RM 2588 (US$ 681)].

[hishamh]

I've rectified my mistake in my 1st post. Thanks, hishamh.

No problem!

So, I suppose "Turbo" mode's the max. 416MHz (theoretically). If so, what do you think the "Standard" mode would be?

If it's anything like my PDA and some of the others with the PXA27x I've seen, about 100MHz lower or about 300MHz or so. Power saving should be about 208MHz, but the Asus 730 series had theirs at 108MHz, so that's possible too.

Autofocus has been the "secret weapon" of Nokia & Sony Ericsson's success as tests'd shown that camera phones with autofocus perform as good, sometimes even better than their high pixel counterparts.

Don't forget the optics - the lense quality is pretty important too.

OT but personally, I'm waiting to see how the FSC T830 does in real life - now that beauty's got some killer specs (if only they made the screen higher resolution )