Here's a surprise - a couple of handsets bearing the BenQ-Siemens brand.. surprising because the collapse of the BenQ-Siemens business last year would indicate that this particular brand was now defunct.

Well, it's been a long time but after a 10 months gap parent company BenQ Mobile has rolled out two new devices with the promise of some more on the way.
BenQ-Siemens E52

The squared off design of the BenQ-Siemens E52 is very reminiscent of Siemens designed handsets - but underneath this is a pure BenQ device with little or no input from the old Siemens Mobile arm of the business.

Priced at around €130 or less, the E52 is a tri-band GSM phone with GPRS and Bluetooth, an MP3 player, FM radio, 1.3 megapixel camera and expandable memory using microSD cards. The display is a 1.8" 176x220 pixel panel in 262,000 colours.

Our first glimpse of the Samsung E590 was way back in February of this year, but there wasn't much information to go on. Samsung have now given full details of the SGH-E590 which is due to hit worldwide markets this month.



The Samsung SGH-E590 is a very compact device weighing just 66 grams, but it manages to squeeze in a 3 megapixel digital camera with autofocus, a 1.8" 220x220 pixel display, expandable memory and Bluetooth.

Designed by the industrial designer Jasper Morrison, the SGH-E590 doesn't look much like other Samsung devices. The understated design is rather more reminiscent of Nokia or Sony Ericsson, and it is certainly an elegant and unshowy looking phone.

There is one oddity with the Samsung E590 - the "Bean Bag". This is an accessory that acts as a camera tripod, made from a rubbery material that allows the E590 to be placed on a solid surface for steadier camera shots. This is an interesting idea, although we suspect that the Bean Bag might be a bit of a pain to carry around.