BenQ increasing co-operation with MediaTek

Following the separation of its manufacturing unit as Qisda, electronics company BenQ has started to increase its cooperation with MediaTek in developing new handsets. Analysts predict that this will undermine BenQ’s current partnership with Texas Instruments (TI) for the production of 2G handsets.

BenQ’s latest 2G handset, the T60, is currently being showcased at the 2008 GMSA Mobile World Congress in MediaTek’s booth. This will be the first low-cost multimedia handset by BenQ that incorporates a MediaTek developed platform.

The T60 is just 8.9mm thick and features a 3.2 megapixel camera, a 2.2 inch screen and supports near field communication (NFC) technology. It will be available for consumer purchase from the second quarter of 2008.

The development of BenQ’s low-price C-series handsets is being outsourced to a handset designer in China. The models in this series will be based on MediaTek’s 2G solutions.

BenQ is also expected to continue developing its 3G handsets using Qualcomm chipset solutions.