Benq recently won a design award for their Aries 2 MID (that we’ve seen before) which prompted a few news releases, one of which included the line "BenQ also claimed that the new MID model would be launched in Europe this quarter."
A businessweek article included the image above. It’s certainly looking attractive! Other snippets of info include a mention of the ’shake’ interface where windows respond to a shaking action and a mention of an auto-rotate feature. Benq calls this the ‘Free Surf’ user interface. Obviously they’re making a big deal of it so it needs to be good!
Aries2 won the Bronze Award in the Interactive Product Experiences category at the 2008 Industrial Design Excellence Award (IDEA) held in the United States.
I’m hoping we’ll see this at IDF and IFA later this month. No lets aim higher than that. I’m hoping to see this on a UMPCPortal live session ASAP 
For the latest specs and news, check out our Benq MID info page.
August 4th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Finally my dreams seem to come true !!!
[Reply (threaded)]
August 5th, 2008 at 12:03 am
I zoomed in on the picture and found that the Application pane overlaps the bezel. Does this mean they’re behind schedule and doing poor photoshopping or that they have perfected a way to make part of the display come flying out at you in a dramatic way? If the latter, will it be too fragile to shake?
[Reply (threaded)]
August 5th, 2008 at 8:33 am
haha
yes, it must be 3D!
[Reply (threaded)]
August 5th, 2008 at 12:11 am
I noticed that too… and imho it sounds like poor photoshopping
Let’s hope device will be real… ehehh…
[Reply (threaded)]
August 5th, 2008 at 10:05 am
Looks cool. Does it have a keyboard?
[Reply (threaded)]
August 5th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
No, no hardware keyboard. One of the few devices that completly meet my needs!
[Reply (threaded)]
August 5th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
any vague idea about the price ?
[Reply (threaded)]
August 5th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
I’ve searched a lot about it but with no solution.
Considering the price of the Megabyte M528 that adds GPS and hardware sliding keyboard I hope it will be around 300 euro, but 250 would be fair, IMHO.
I’ll seriously consider to buy it if it will cost not more then 300 euro.
[Reply (threaded)]
August 6th, 2008 at 10:36 am
I agree.. 300 EUR is a reasonable price for such device, unfortunately it is too good to be true. Probably, will be around $600…
BTW, Acer One ~$450 appeared in a local shop
Still too damn expensive, waiting for the price drop, $300-$350 is the budget 
[Reply (threaded)]
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:10 pm
500~600$ is a resonable price for this chicks, as m528 is in this range with more attractive
[Reply (threaded)]