Asus P552w is pretty compact, comes with 3D UI plus GPS and Wi-Fi

Asus announced their latest WinMo Pro handset - the Asus P552w - a compact device that not only features the latest Asus-grown 3D UI Glide, but also packs a powerful CPU, as well as both GPS and Wi-Fi. This nifty device seems to have almost all goodies you could wish for, except for a capable camera (just as an Apple handset we've heard about - called the iPhone or something).

Named after a supersonic fighter jet plane, Asus P552w is powered by a fast Marvel 624Mhz CPU and has 128MB of RAM. (We were just kidding about the fighter jet thing - but we had you there for a second, right? Don't worry, the new Asus device name is so complex that it could have been a fighter jet alright.)

Slightly larger but lighter than the HTC Touch Diamond, the Asus P552w also packs a 2.8-inch 65K color TFT display of QVGA resolution, Wi-Fi, SiRF StarIII GPS receiver, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, and a microSD card slot. The P552w operates with tri-band GSM support and has UMTS 2100Mhz with HSDPA to offer high-speed data transfers.

The software goodies on board the Asus P552w start with the new Asus Glide graphical user interface, which should match the HTC TouchFLO 3D. The thumb-optimized Glide interface so far has only been demoed here and there and the P552w is the first device to feature it. We hope that means the device will have a 3D accelerator on board, too. Asus have also added several touch-optimized applications, including Multi-Home, Anytime Launcher, EziPhoto, and EziMusic.

Asus own applications: Asus Today • Anytime Launcher • EziPhoto • EziMusic

Next in the software department is the Google integration, which includes a Google search bar on the Today screen and Google Maps with an exclusive feature that allows location sending via messages.

The Asus P552w runs on the latest Windows Mobile Pro 6.1 and the only downer in the otherwise brilliant specs sheet is the 2 megapixel fixed focus camera that is also able to shoot video in only QVGA res at 24fps.

The Asus P552w will be offered in black or white, but there's no info on availability just yet.