One thing that has stopped me from jumping onto the smartphone bandwagon is the sheer bulk of the things. The QWERTY keyboard found on most useful units necessitates a larger form factor, which I’m not a fan of. That said, I’m not sure how functional or easy to use Pocket PC phones would be without a significant text entry solution, but we’re going to have another handset to test that notion because Asus is releasing the P525 smartphone.

Running on Windows Mobile 5.0 Phone Edition, the P525 is powered by a fairly speedy 416MHz Intel XScale processor, and comes equipped with 128MB of flash ROM, 64MB of SDRAM, and a miniSD expansion slot for extra memory.

There’s plenty of support here, including love for both SkypeIn and SkypeOut, as well as push email, Bluetooth 2.0, 802.11b, and GPRS. Other features of this 0.75-inch thick smartphone include a business card-recognizing 2MP camera, and a 2.8-inch touchscreen display. No word on pricing or availability.