SlashGear

With Velocity Mobile’s 103 (not to mention its other handsets) conspicuous by its absence in the market, the company’s ODM supplier, Invantec, is back with a new brand and a very slightly tweaked device.  The Pharos Traveller 117, which has just cleared the FCC, looks like it’s coming to the US, bringing with it a 2.8-inch VGA resolution touchscreen, quadband GSM, triband UMTS, WiFi and GPS.

If you compare the FCC shot of the Traveller 117 with the VM 103, here, you’ll see just how little has changed.  The front panel has two new buttons – with ‘send’ and ‘end’ moving down and a Windows key and ‘OK’ key introduced - and there’re two new silver stripes running around what looks to be the same soft-touch black shell, but otherwise it’s identical.

• Quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE connectivity (850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz)
• Tri band UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA connectivity (850 / 1900 / 2100 MHz)
• 2.8 inch resistive TFT touchscreen display with 480 x 640 pixels
• GPS and A-GPS
• Wi-Fi
• Bluetooth 2.0
• USB 2.0
• 2.5mm headset jack
• 2MP camera
• Secondary VGA camera for video calls
• 400MHz Qualcomm MSM7201 processor
• 128 MB RAM, 256 MB ROM
• MicroSDHC cards support
• 2G talk time: up to 7.5 hours
• 3G talk time: up to 5 hours
• Standby time: 200 hours
• 4.44 x 2.28 x 0.6 inches
• 4.8 ounces

The Pharos Traveller 117 is already available to order from the company’s own website; it’s unclear whether they’ve secured any deals with US carriers as yet, which given Velocity Mobile’s struggle would seem a good place to start.  Otherwise that $529.95 SIM-free price – higher even than what VM were asking – is not going to win the any favors.

[via Unwired View]