ASUS goes Hermes style with Mars II

by Chris Ziegler, posted Oct 26th 2006 at 12:58PM

If imitation is truly the sincerest form of flattery, HTC must be turning beet red right about now. The Mars II from ASUS follows the HTC Wizard / Hermes formula down to the letter, featuring that fabulous side-opening QWERTY keypad we'd now be lost without, an Intel Xscale PXA270 core making haste at 520MHz, 128MB of ROM, 64MB of RAM, UMTS, 802.11g, Bluetooth 2.0, 2-megapixel shooter, and a 2.8-inch QVGA display (why no love for the VGA?). As you may recall, we were able to correctly call all the specs out last month with the exception of the name and the ODM, which we'd heard would be HTC -- and given the Hermes-esque dimensions and feature list, who could blame us? Look for the Mars II to grace O2's networks before too long as the "Xda Zinc," but thanks to the old-skool tri-band GSM radio sans 850 support, we're going to be putting our import plans on hold.

[Via phoneArena]

Filed under: Handsets, ASUS, O2, Windows Mobile, GSM, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS

Tags: asus, asustek, hermes, mars, mars ii, MarsIi, o2, phone edition, PhoneEdition, pocket pc, PocketPc, windows mobile, WindowsMobile, wizard, xda, xda zinc, XdaZinc

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

Scott @ Oct 26th 2006 1:50PM

If this PPC wasn't made by a reputable ODM and picked up by a reputable carrier, this could be another episode of "Keeping It Real Fake".

Neutral

Desh @ Oct 26th 2006 10:16PM

Sorry, I'm new to this fancy-phone blogosphere...but how would you actually dial a phone number on this thing? Do you have to hold down "Chr"?

Neutral

Wayne @ Oct 26th 2006 10:35PM

Desh, the screen is touch-sensitive. A keypad appears onscreen when you activate the phone. If it's like the HTC Wizard, you can't use the keyboard at all to dial numbers.

Neutral

Bryan @ Oct 26th 2006 11:29PM

Wayne, do you own a Wizard? Cause I've had one for a while and I can dial numbers with the keypad just fine.

Their just not set on the keyboard in a phone-keypad design. they're set like a normal keyboard, straight across the top.

Neutral

Wayne @ Oct 27th 2006 8:19AM

Yes, Bryan, I own the Cingular 8125. To be honest, I've never tried using the keyboard to dial numbers. I read a review that said you had to use the touch screen. The reviewer must have been wrong. I much prefer the touch screen, though.

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