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BenQ unveiled a slew of new handsets at the CeBIT trade show in Hanover, Germany today. The most interesting to readers of this Web site is the resurrection of the fabled P50 as the P51.

The P50 was the first BlackBerry/Treo killer in the Windows Mobile realm. Except, the compact communicator didn't hit the streets - and few roads at that - until it was well past its prime, almost two years after its March 2004 introduction. By that time, this once eagerly-awaited smartphone was no longer so unique. Palm even had its own Windows Mobile smartphone in the Treo 700w, let alone the many other QWERTY keyboard-based Pocket PCs and those built on other smart device platforms that have been released in its wake.

And the lack of some features—no high-speed cellular networking (even EDGE) or Windows Mobile 5.0 (for landscape viewing and - more importantly - Microsoft-based push e-mail support, for example)—really placed the P50 in the back of the pack.

While the BenQ's P51 announcement is short on details, it does indicate the upcoming smartphone will in fact run Windows Mobile 5.0, maintain the P50's Wi-Fi capability (but with VoIP added) and even integrate a SiRFstar III GPS receiver for navigation and location-based services.

There's also a 2.83-inch 65,000 color QVGA (240 x 320 pixel) resolution display, SDIO slot for peripheral and memory expansion, 128 MB of RAM and 128 MB of ROM, a 1.3 megapixel camera, and Bluetooth.

BenQ literature estimates the P51 will ship during "Q3/2005." We're assuming that's mistake and July 2006, as indicated on the company's Web site, is a likelier timeframe. We'll report more details as we get them.

More on the P50
The quad-band (850/900/1800/1900) GSM/GPRS P50 stood apart as a compact 4.7 x 2.4 x 0.8-inch (122 x 60 x 20 millimeters) and light 5.3-ounce (170 grams) Pocket PC Phone with a QWERTY thumb-keyboard, in the mode of Palm's Treo and RIM’s BlackBerry handhelds.

A smallish 2.8-inch display helped keep the smartphone's dimensions small. Although the screen ran at the Pocket PC standard 240 x 320 pixel resolution, it supported 18-bit color (262,144 colors)—more than many other handheld and smartphone display at the time of its announcement.

Inside was an Intel PXA272 416 MHz processor, 64 MB or RAM, and 64 MB of ROM. As mentioned, the P50 ran on a Windows Mobile 2003 rather than the newer 5.0 edition of the platform, with all its accompanied advantages.

Additional features included a 1.3-megapixel digital camera with 4x digital zoom, USB, Bluetooth for wirelessly connecting to headsets, an SDIO-enabled Secure Digital slot for memory and peripheral expansion, plus a battery with specifications for 4 hours of talk and 120 hours of standby time.