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Phillips has just tossed its hat into the ring of companies targeting the iPhone with a new smartphone with, well, an iPhone-like look and feel. Called the Xenium X-Connect, the device is pretty-much all touch screen, lacks a keyboard and has very few buttons.

It runs on, just like HTC's touch smartphones, Windows Mobile 6. No word on whether it layers a special touch-centric interface on top of Microsoft mobile-device operating system, as HTC does for the touch models, though.

Additional known features for the GSM/HSDPA 3G handset include a microSD slot, GPS, Bluetooth 2.0 and a 3-inch display. Rumor has it the Xenium X-Connect runs on a 624MHz processor - just like a typical smartphone - a rechargeable battery, but there's also a slot for standard AA or AAA battery types as well.

There's no Wi-Fi.

No word on when this smartphone will become available, how much it'll cost, and what it'll go for.

With the Nino, launched over ten years ago, Phillips became one of the first vendors to build a handheld based on a Microsoft operating system -Windows CE, the predecessor to the Pocket PC and Windows Mobile. It stopped offering these devices a long time ago. It's been a long time, but it appears the company is finally getting back into the Microsoft mobile-device business.

The introduction of the Xenium X-Connect coincides with the announcement of another mostly touch-screen handset, an advanced tri-band GSM/GPRS feature phone, called the X800, with handwriting recognition.

This phone promises 850 hours standby and 8 hours of talk time on a single charge of its battery. It also sports a 2 megapixel camera with auto focus, Bluetooth, and a microSD slot.

With the Nino, over ten years ago, Phillips became one of the first vendors to build a handheld based on a Microsoft operating system -Windows CE, the predecessor to the Pocket PC and Windows Mobile. It stopped offering these devices a long time ago.

[GSMArena via Brighthand]