New Japanese Pocket PC Raises Questions about Pocket Loox 720

A new Pocket PC from Fujitsu raises the possibility that the upcoming Pocket Loox 720 will simply be a rebranded version of a model ASUS announced months ago.

This spring, ASUS unveiled plans to release the A730, a very high-end Pocket PC with a VGA screen, two types of wireless networking, two memory card slots, and a camera. This handheld will have a 520 MHz XScale processor and 128 MB of RAM.

Recently, FirstLoox.org was able to uncover word that Fujitsu-Siemens plans to release the Pocket Loox 720, a handheld with essentially the exact same feature set as ASUS' upcoming model. However, some pictures of the 720 were leaked showing that the two models didn't look the same.

Now, however, Fujitsu has introduced the Pocket Loox v70 in Japan, a new Pocket PC that is virtually identical to the ASUS A730, except that Bluetooth has been left out. Externally, aside from some color changes, the two are dead-ringers for each other, even down to the shape and arrangement of buttons.

Two Possibilities

The fact that the Fujitsu Pocket LOOX v70 is almost identical to the Asus A730 raises the possibility that the Pocket Loox 720 will also be identical. If so, some of the information leaked to FirstLoox.org about the 720 must have been inaccurate, including the size of the screen and overall dimensions.

The other possibility is that Fujitsu has decided to release only in Japan a Pocket PC designed by ASUS, rather than one it created in cooperation with Siemens, even though both have essentially the same feature set. If this is true, then apparently Fujitsu-Siemens still intends to release a Pocket PC based on its own design in the rest of the world.

More information on the Pocket Loox v70 is available on the Fujitsu web site.

Related Links

• The Pocket Loox 700 Series Revealed
• ASUS A730 Now Available for Pre-order