By | Tony Smith 15th April 2005 12:36

Carphone Warehouse confirms Orange SPV C550

Shipping next month, apparently

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Orange's second-generation SPV C5xx series Windows Mobile-based smart phone will ship next month, a UK mobile phone reseller has let slip.

Orange SPV c550 smart phone The existence of the SPV C550 emerged in February, courtesy of an allegedly leaked picture of the handset and some specifications that slipped out too.

At the time, we noted its similarity with manufacturer HTC's 'Amadeus' music phone, taking the music playback-oriented keys from that handset and incorporating them into 'Typhoon', the HTC smart phone on which the SPV C500 is based.

The phone is said to feature a 262,000-colour 240 x 320 screen, sport a Mini SD slot and 64MB of memory.

Carphone Warehouse's blurb doesn't confirm all the handset's specifications, but it does confirm the claim that the C550 will feature a 1.3 megapixel camera and Bluetooth. It will play MP3 files too, courtesy of Windows Media Player, the retailer says, but then so did the C500.

Still, CW's tiny pic of the product shows the music keys, and crucially confirms the name and ship date: May 2005. Orange may yet change its mind, of course.

The C550 will also ship as the i-mate SP4, and quite possibly under a number of other brands too.

Orange is also preparing own-brand versions of HTC's 'Universal' 3G palmtop smart phone, the Taiwanese firm's 'Alpine' full-size PocketPC phone and its compact sibling, 'Magician'. The latter is expected to ship as the SPV M500, the larger model as the SPV M2500. ®