HTC Corporation has this afternoon unveiled the latest addition to its strong line-up of smartphones, the HTC Desire. The new device will be launched on 27 April exclusively through Telstra.

Anthony Petts, sales and marketing director ANZ, HTC Corporation, unveiled the company’s latest Android-powered device at a launch event in Sydney this afternoon. According to Petts, the handset will be very aggressive in the mobile market.

“There has been a huge build-up around the Desire, we want to be really aggressive with this device,” he said.

“This further pushes the HTC Sense message to our consumers. We want to enhance the user’s ability to personalise their smartphone, discover endless possibilities with applications and stay close to people like never before.”

Petts said that one of the highlights of the Desire is its customisation possibilities. The smartphone features seven different home screens, which can then be optimised however you like with buttons such as widgets and contacts.

The days of having to cycle through all of these screens has now also become a thing of the past thanks to what Petts calls a ‘Helicopter’ thumbnail view, which displays all of the screens at once.

Additional features of the Desire include the new Friend Stream application which incorporates all of your social media accounts into one app, Flash 10 support for faster web browsing and pinch to zoom.

The device includes a 3.7-inch AMOLED display, 1-gigahertz Snapdragon processor, 5-megapixel digital camera, talk time of up to 390 minutes and standby time of up to 360 hours.

Telstra will have the exclusive rights to the Desire for the first three months. Richard Fink, director, Telstra Device Management and Operations, was thrilled with the new partnership.

“The Desire is Tesltra’s first Android-powered handset. The HTC Desire offers a very exciting package and features a range of HTC innovations,” he said.

“The customisation possibilities on the Desire is amazing. I don’t think we have ever had a phone at Telstra that offers this level of customisation.”

The HTC Desire will be available for $0 on Tesltra’s $60 consumer Phone Plan for 24 months. Business customers can also purchase the Desire on a $65 plan for 24 months, which includes 300-megabytes of data.

The HTC Desire is also available outright for an RRP of $779.