Unfiltered

There was a new face in the smartphone manufacturer crowd at CTIA this year. Called Velocity Mobile, the company launched this week, along with two new smartphones designed to enhance the Windows Mobile experience. The company is designing and selling its own devices, manufactured by Taiwan-based ODM Inventec Corp, the world’s third-largest notebook manufacturer.

The phones are billed as entry-level smartphones for general customers and have similar design features as its competitors in the U.S. According to the company, its handsets combine Western design expertise with Eastern manufacturing efficiencies necessary to give consumers a no-compromise experience at great value. If this translates to sleek design at lower prices, the company has a good shot at success.

Thus far, no pricing information has been released, but the phones don’t fail to deliver on the sleek factor. One phone, dubbed the Velocity 103, looks to be an iPhone competitor with a flush touch screen, Qualcomm CPU and quad-band GSM with tri-band UMTS. The other, Velocity 111, is more on the level of Research in Motion (RIM)’s Blackberry, with an integrated QWERTY keyboard and a scroll ball a la Blackberry. Both phones run on the newest version of Windows Mobile Professional, v6. The handsets are scheduled for release in Q2 and Q3 of this year, respectively, through carriers and third-party distributors. According to the company, the 3G handsets might support the AWS 3G bands in the U.S.

In a market dominated by big names like RIM, Treo, Symbian and Palm, Velocity is up against a lot of competition. There is some pressure on Inventec to deliver well-made, sustainable products, however. Velocity Mobile president David Hayes is the former CTO of i-mate, a global specialist in Microsoft Windows Mobile devices and software applications. The company, whose devices were also manufactured by Inventec, shut down its U.S. operations last month. While some have called Velocity Mobile the next HTC, it also has to make sure it’s not the next i-mate instead.

That being said, Velocity seems well positioned for success. The line between enterprise users and general consumers is becoming more and more blurred as handset owners use one device for both or change user hats depending on the time and day of the week. Either way, a handset that provides the functionality of an enterprise device and the multimedia features and sleek design of a consumer device makes a lot of sense in the market right now – especially at the right price point.

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