HTC Tattoo might be an affordable Android handset

TAIWANESE PHONE MANUFACTURER HTC has announced its latest Android mobile phone, the Tattoo, and it looks like it's ready to make its mark on the affordable smartphone market.

Not content with a hat trick, HTC's Tatoo is its fourth Google mobile OS powered handset, and it's finally one with a relatively affordable price tag according to HTC.

No official word from HTC on how cheap the Tattoo named mobile will really be, although online mobile phone reseller Expansys has the handset at £319.99, whereas the previous HTC Android phone was around £429.99 at launch.

To achieve this lower cost it appears HTC has brought down the specs of this phone from its past Google mobile models.

Lowering screen size from the 3.2-inch 320x480 HVGA HTC Hero and losing the 5MP camera, along with reducing the 1350 mAh battery size will no doubt bring the costs down to make this handset affordable, we can only assume.

The HTC Tattoo is a 2.8-inch 240x320 QVGA touch screen Quad band handset running its latest UI, along with a 3.2MP camera with 512MB and a microSD slot.

It's powered by the popular chipset of HTC, the Qualcomm 528 MHz MSM7225 and is capable of 390 minutes talktime and 340 hours standby from the 1100 mAh battery

It's been rumoured to the INQ that the Tattoo will appear at Vodafone and the newly merged network of Orange and T-Mobile in October, free on a contract or cheap on SIM free. µ