Toshiba TS605

Expected Q4 2006
19th December 2006

The Toshiba TS605 is a lightweight, slim handset available in a wide variety of colours.. if you can find anywhere that stocks it.

The TS605's feature set isn't too bad - there's a 1.9" 176x220 pixel TFT display in 262,000 colours, a 1.3 megapixel digital camera, microSD expandable memory (up to 1Gb, but there's only 5.5Mb on board), Bluetooth, an MP3/AAC and video clip player, FM radio, email client and WAP browser. All of that fits into a handset weighing only 79 grams and coming in at just 10.3mm thick, giving the Toshiba TS605 a certain svelte charm.

There's a pretty wide range of colours available with the Toshiba TS605, at least in theory, including Fluorescent Pink, Fluorescent Green, Champagne, Copper, Light and Smokey Silver and Aubergine. If this was a Motorola phone, they'd announce each one separately and pretend it was a new handset each time. Not all colours will be available in all regions though.

On the minus side, the TS605's talktime is a pretty short 2.5 hours with 6 days standby time.. so it does appear that the light weight has been achieved at least partly through a trade-off with battery capacity.

This handset is aimed at the European market, and unlike earlier Toshiba devices which tended to be very high end (such as the Toshiba TS921) or quite low end (the Toshiba TS10), the Toshiba TS605 is pitched more at the midrange market.

It's an elegant looking device.. if you can find one. Toshiba say that the TS605 is due for release by the end of Q4 2006, but that's pretty much now and we can't find anyone who has it in stock. It would be a shame is Toshiba missed Christmas with this handset, but at the moment it looks like the TS605 might not be filling anyone's stocking this year.

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