By Martin Vedris
SYDNEY: While the world is still abuzz with news of the iPhone, Nokia is non-committal with its rival Tube and Samsung’s Omnia is still on the way, HTC has just launched another touch screen smartphone in Australia, the Touch Pro.
The Touch Pro follows on from the company’s recently released Touch Diamond. Modeled after a PC desktop and utilising the Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system, the Touch Pro will be available on the 3 Mobile network from late September for $22 per month on a $69 Cap (over 24 months) or $1,099 outright.
The phone utilises HTC’s proprietary touch interface called TouchFLO 3D, which provides icon-based navigation. HTC also states that a new customised mobile web browser enables websites to be viewed the way they are designed to be viewed on a PC.
Like the iPhone, users can use the touch screen to zoom and pan websites with one-hand and view content optimised to fit the display. An accelerometer enables images to be switched from portrait to landscape view by rotating the phone, a feature also popularised by the iPhone.
For those not so adept with typing on touch screen keypads, the HTC Touch Pro comes with a slide out QWERTY key pad. For business users, the TV-out functionality allows Powerpoint presentations to be stored on and delivered from the phone. The phone also has a built-in camera with flash light and an optical auto-focus lens.
“The HTC Touch Pro and Touch Diamond have created a new generation of HTC touch devices that make the promise of the one-hand, one-touch mobile internet a reality,” said Peter Chou, president and CEO, HTC Corporation.