Did you know you can cook bread with steam?
© 2026 Appliancenews. All Rights Reserved.
Telstra is exploring a move into the MID (Mobile Internet Device) market with a brand new BenQ device currently being reviewed by the carrier. In Europe one major carrier has already purchased 200,000 of the BenQ MID devices.
Lost in the IT wilderness for the past two years Taiwanese Company BenQ is set to explode back into the IT and consumer technology market with a range of new products that include their new mobile internet device, a new net book, a new range of 22″ and 24″ monitors that are already on back order and a high end Full HD projector.
The Company is also set to launch a full 22″ HD TV capable monitor with a PC built in for sub $1,000.
 Click to enlarge |
After recovering from their ill fated foray into the European mobile phone market via the acquisition of the Siemens mobile business which was eventually put into administration BenQ is now using design and their manufacturing capability to grab back market share coupled with some exciting new products which company chairman, KY Lee told ChannelNews are critical to the Companies future success.
“We have the products now that we believe are essential going forward. We have invested significantly in design and engineering and are on top of some major green and environment issues which are important as government start to legislate overpower requirements”.
In Australia BenQ is currently in discussions with Telstra about their new mobile internet device though there are no plans to move into the Smart phone market up against HTC. “Our new internet device has attracted enormous interest from telecommunication carriers around the world. Telstra is extremely interested. Our MID has a Linux operating system developed by BenQ and is full 3G mobile capable. We believe that there are some interesting applications for this phone in both the home and in business environments.” said KY Lee.
Recently KY Lee revised BenQ’s mobile product strategy to focus more on mobile Internet devices (MID). In Europe Telecom Italian Mobile recently ordered an estimated 200,000 MIDs from BenQ?
This is the first case worldwide that a telecom-service provider supports MIDs. Intel has also thrown its weight behind this deal since BenQ builds its Atom processor into the devices.
The company has stopped selling BenQ-branded mobile phones outside of Taiwan.
In Australia local BenQ Managing Director Phil Newton is confident that by Xmas he will have a range of new products that will make BenQ a key player in 2009. “This will be our year. We have already sold out of our new range of monitors with our distributors including Ingram Micro and Synnex on back order. While we will not move into the large LCD TV market we will sell a range of smaller 32″ and 22″ Full HD monitor TV’s”.
He added “I am also confident that we can establish a strong market for our MID offering as well as expand our current leadership in the projector market.
The new BenQ MID which ChannelNews has seen and played with is unique and different from anything else we have seen to date. It will give BenQ access to mobile market, which Intel has begun helping foster since last year without the Company having to compete in the already overcrowded mobile phone market.
The new device could end up costing less than $400 should Intel drop the price of their Atom processor which now stands at US$40. Last year, Intel set MID`s retail price at US$500, only half the price of UMPC.
Last year, Intel formed an alliance called Mobile Internet Device Innovation Alliance with Taiwanese hardware manufacturers including Compal Electronics, Asustek Computer, HTC Corp., Inventec Quanta Computer and BenQ.
