HTC Touch launches: First impressions and thoughtsHTC, the company behind many of today's most popular Windows Mobile smart phones, is known for offering a broad range of devices. It has done petite, thin, and powerful, and it's even gone above and beyond traditional smart phones, as we saw at CTIA 2007 with the introduction of the HTC Shift and HTC Advantage. And now here's the company's latest twist: The HTC Touch.
Announced today for the UK (foiled again!), the HTC Touch features a technology called TouchFLO that allows you to operate the smart phone just by swiping your finger on the device's 2.8-inch, 65,536-color touch screen. The motions are preprogrammed to perform certain actions. For example, swiping your thumb in an upward motion launches a page where you can access contacts, media, or applications; sweeping left to right rotates through the various functions; while you can close out of apps by swiping downward. In addition, the screen knows the difference between the touch of a stylus and your finger and will act accordingly, and there's a new HTC-designed home screen where you can get one-touch access to your messages, calendar, contacts, and weather conditions. Aside from the advanced touch screen, the HTC Touch looks different than any other smart phone we've seen from the company. Known as the HTC Elf in some circles, the Touch is certainly petite at 99.9mm long by 58mm wide by 13.9mm thick and weighing 112g. One observer said it resembled the Rio Carbon MP3 player, and I'd say that's a fair comparison. It actually also kind of reminded me of a Tamagotchi toy--is that bad? HTC says the Touch is targeted more toward consumers who want to make the leap from a regular cell phone to a smart phone. Oh yes, this is a full-blown smart phone. It runs Windows Mobile 6 Professional Edition and has support for push email, integrated Bluetooth 2.0 (A2DP supported) and Wi-Fi, a microSD slot, and 128MB ROM/64MB RAM. It's also equipped with a 2-megapixel camera and is rated for 5 hours of talk time and up to 8 days of standby time. While today's announcement was for the UK, the HTC Touch is expected to cross the pond and ship in the US during the second half of the year, though pricing and carrier have not yet been determined. | |||||
- Talkback
-
There are currently no comments for this story.
To post comments, you need to become a member. It's FREE.
