HTC gets serious with new phone line

HTC HAS launched in London its Q4 2007 product line-up of new mobiles. This consisted of a new extension to the touch family, the firm's first enterprise phone, a mobile computing device and an update to an existing handset.

HTC Launch – all the new phones lined up

First out was the ever-so imaginatively named HTC P6500. This is the firm's first ever venture into the grown-up enterprise world of mobile handsets. It’s a Windows Mobile 6 Professional driven device with open platform support for industry applications. All meaning it shouldn’t struggle with running off-the-shelf mobile business apps or bespoke, as now seen in other competitors’ products. It’s a Tri-Band HSDPA with Quad-Band GSM/EDGE support, bundled with Wifi and Bluetooth. Hitting all the possible angles for connections, operator and otherwise. They’ve even gone as far to build in GPS and include a three mega-pixel camera. The latter could provide 2D barcode scanning and business card recognition. It has 1GB internal memory and 2 SDIO slots for expansion with a nice fingerprint ID sensor for security conscious individuals. This will be wandering to the regular outlets in November; unfortunately no prices were given out.

HTC P6500
The next spoken about at the launch was the HTC Shift. IThis is a 7-inch screen, 800gram mobile computer, running Windows Vista with always-on push email. Apparently, the first global offering to have those last two features.

They’re touting worldwide 3G and HSDPA along with Wifi, so expect the battery to be hit with all that on board – despite their 2day battery life claim whilst on standby. This is also the first to include their SnapVUE technology. This provides access to Outlook functionality without the need to boot-up fully, saving those precious battery cycles. This is all a “new era in mobile computing” or so we were told. Expect to see this around November time too, with the street value of 1199 Euros.

HTC Shift
The last of the regular phones running in for a try at the briefing ,was the HTC S730. This is just an enhanced version of their popular S710 mobile launched earlier this year. Now with Windows Mobile 6 and all wrapped up nicely around a 400 MHz processer with 3G/HSDPA – Quad-band GSM/Edge with Wifi support.

It’s aimed at the more robust consumer and business users, requiring access to a QWERTY keyboard for great amounts of typing. Coming to a store near you in October, no prices were announced once again.

HTC S730
Following on from all that and why we were really there – straight from the success of 800,000 HTC Touch sales comes a new edition to the errant family. The HTC Touch "Dual" is their 3.5G HSDPA with GPRS/EDGE with a slide out keypad. Offering both, or dual functionality of its touch screen or a physical keypart. It’s all based around, as you have correctly guessed, the HTC Touch and its design that we covered in June.

HTC Touch Dual

It’s thinner and narrower than its wayward cousin, now with a 2 mega-pixel frontward facing camera. It has the same OS and features as within the TouchFLO, albeit some minor enhancements. Battery time varies 240mins to 360mins talk-time, depending on WCDMA or GSM networks. There’s a clear absence of the presence of Wifi in this model, where as the original shouted from the roof tops that it was included.

This handset comes in two flavours of keypads, 12 and 20 – all depending on operator and country. On that note, HTC announced the first ever pan-European operator partnership for the Touch Dual – as Orange. With a shipping date of late October at around 529 Euros, although they did let slip it’s free on a £35 contract within the UK.

HTC Touch Dual – Keypads 12 & 20

HTC Touches – Touch Dual Vs Touch

Also mentioned was a new optional colour scheme to the HTC Touch just in time for Christmas, Arctic white. This is along with the availability of a new free full-screen downloadable virtual keyboard for the Touch. A nice edition for those who have tried to use the existing on-screen keyboard and cried for several hours at the awkwardness of it all.

HTC chose to launch at the exact same venue as Blackberry/RIM did for the Curve. Shall we read into this or just take it as a bizarre coincidence? Let's read into instead as we're not one to believe in the other. µ