If you thought Velocity Mobile just rolled over and died after showing off a few handsets at CTIA earlier this year, you'd be exactly wrong. The outfit's Windows Mobile-powered 103 has just surfaced in the FCC's lair, giving us a smidgen of hope that a US release is but moments / weeks / months away. Unfortunately, this filing doesn't spill the beans on any other specifications, but the 67 page User Manual does dive into great detail on changing the battery, inserting microSD cards and navigating around within the operating system. C'mon Inventec, give us the good stuff.

It's hard to stand out in the sea of Windows Mobile handsets; no smartphone platform is already more stratified, serves more market segments, and offers more form factors, so where's a new entrant supposed to fit in? Somehow, though, Velocity Mobile manages to do exactly that -- partly through an interesting software strategy, partly through sheer brute force of its first devices' impressive spec sheets. We had a chance to check out both the 103 and 111 models that'll lead off Velocity's production roadmap, and while they don't really look much different than your average high-end WinMo handsets, the flush touchscreens, trackballs, and clean lines all feel great to the touch. We're told that Velocity's slick, finger-friendly, widget-based interface will improve over time; the improvements will be made available to all existing owners, too, so don't let that little fact deter an early purchase.

Riding the Windows Mobile 6.1 wave at CTIA, new player Velocity Mobile officially came out of stealth mode today to reveal its very first two devices: the creatively-named "103" and "111." Designed in partnership with mega-ODM Inventec, the handsets offer pretty much every feature a 2008-spec Windows Mobile device could possible be expected to, with triband HSUPA (available in both AWS and non-AWS configurations, T-Mobile fans!), TV / VGA out, and WiFi headlining the bill. The QWERTY-less 103, pictured, also sports a true VGA display -- a feature so poorly received by manufacturers (for some reason we'll never appreciate) that some have gone so far as to artificially dumb it down to QVGA. Follow the break for a picture of the 111, which'll be available come the third quarter; the 103, meanwhile, will be available sometime this quarter.

It's not every day that a new phone manufacturer backed by one of the world's largest ODMs gets off the ground, so this might just be worth keeping an eye on. Seattle and London-based Velocity Mobile -- with support from electronics giant Inventec -- will be revealing itself and its product line at CTIA next week, adding some sort of entry to the crowded smartphone market. We can only assume there'll be something here to set 'em apart from the crowd, since anonymity is a recipe for a new entrant's quick, profitless death. Inventec's been responsible for some lovely kit in recent memory, so they're definitely capable of pulling off some sort of coup; then again they've also brewed up disasters like the i-mate JAQ, so we don't think we're in a position to use our jump to conclusions mat here without seeing the goods. Hang tight on this one, folks.