Vodafone-branded smartphone arrives in Australia

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 24 May 2007 19:26

Your IT - Home IT

Vodafone has introduced into Australia the Vodafone 1210, a Windows Mobile 5.0 device which it says is the first to carry it own brand name.

According to Vodafone "the Vodafone 1210 marks the first step in a strategy to develop and bring to market a range of own-label products that represent great functionality and outstanding value for money." (Globally the company has just launched  a range of very low cost phones for developing markets)

It is designed for business users (it has no camera) and with a price of $399.00 (incl. GST) is claimed to be considerably cheaper than devices with similar functionality.

The Vodafone 1210, which has been offered by Vodafone in other countries since early this year, comes with 64MB of memory and interchangeable 'Micro SD' card. Users are able to view documents in the most popular formats, such as Excel, PowerPoint, Word and PDF. It also comes with an installed Media Player and memory card able to hold 1GB of music and videos.

According to Vodafone's general manager for business markets Edward Goff adds: "We felt there was a gap in the market that we could satisfy with the Vodafone 1210. We've been able to exploit our global buying power to bring economies of scale to Australian customers and deliver the most functional smartphone at the most competitive price."

However Vodafone has chosen an unusual source for the 1210. It is made not by HTC of Taiwan, source of around 80 percent of the world's Microsoft Mobile Smartphones, but by another Taiwanese company, Asustek. (www.asustek.com). Asustek manufactures a wide range of electronic products but cellphone are hardly its forte: its website lists only one model.