At a special invite-only event in London today, HTC at last revealed what its CEO described as the most important device for the company this year. Read More for all of the details and images.
HTC has long been known for its series of Windows Mobile based devices that are the best in terms of merging the capabilities of a wireless phone and a dedicated PDA.
From the beginnings of the company as an ODM for other more established manufacturers such as Siemens, i-mate, Palm, and carriers such as T-Mobile and AT&T, the company has provided an attention to detail and device quality that has only recently been matched by larger manufacturers such as Samsung.
Now the company once known for its utilitarian yet extremely functional feature-laden devices branded by carriers and manufacturers has completely reinvented itself as a manufacturer and brand in its own right beginning with the HTC Touch Diamond.
The HTC Touch Diamond is more than another version of the Touch. It is a complete reinvention of the guiding principles that led HTC to become so popular with so many users since the first devices were released.
It starts with its outer shell which is designed to resemble a high-end media player complete with glossy black finish, large 2.8″ VGA resolution display with TouchFLO 3D, a completely rebuilt version of the TouchFLO user interface found in prior Touch models that now responds to gestures and is rendered in 3D by the onboard GPU in order to make scrolling though various functions a more visually pleasing experience.
The device is powered by a Qualcomm MSM processor running at 528Mhz featuring 192MB of RAM, 256MB of ROM and 4GB of built-in flash memory for general storage with an additional microSDHC expansion slot, Bluetooth 2.0, Wi-Fi radio, and a built-in high-sensitivity GPS transceiver with A-GPS support also built-in to the processor. The device will launch with Windows Mobile 6.1 and also feature a 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus and video recorder along with a front mounted VGA camera for video calls.
From the additional information found in the press release, the Touch Diamond will become available first to European customers starting in June with Asian and Middle Eastern customers being served later on this quarter. The North and South American version will launch in the second half of the year, though it is unclear if that includes both GSM and CDMA models.
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Looks nice, now if we can get some info for the raphael we will be set.
Agreed. The Raphael, if it pans out like the teaser posts indicate, it’ll make me skip the Treo 800W and go right to it. VGA screen is a huge draw.
I also concur. The Raphael will awesome!
All the specs are for GSM, making look like att or tmo will get it 1st
Will this HTC Diamond have video drivers included, or will it have crippled video performance the same as their current models do?
The HTC Diamond has hardware 3D acceleration, and that powers the new TouchFLO system in the device. However, HTC did not confirm if hardware-accelerated drivers would be available system-wide.
I do think that they will, however. HTC has been writing drivers for newer versions of their devices, and it would seem illogical to have a dedicated graphics co-processor… and not let Windows Mobile access it.
Of course, one could also argue that it would be illogical to not write drivers for the graphics co-processor built-in to the Qualcomm silicon…
Also, to clarify, Sprint’s version of the Diamond will be CDMA, it simply was not announced at the launch event.
This will allow HTC and Sprint to announce the device at another high-profile event, at a later date.
i just was thinking about buying the mogul this weekend.. but with HTC’s raphael at the corner this is getting bad…
now i’m considering to buy treo 800w if it goes out in the stores first
any news about raphael’s launch?
Does anyone know if this will come out for Alltel?
i still wanta kno want thingy it comes out for…..u kno t-mobile, sprint, alltel, verizon,etc.
[...] HTC The Touch Pro has been announced by HTC. The device mimics the HTC Diamond in specifications but has an added QWERTY keypad making it slightly thicker than the Diamond. [...]
The HTC will release for alltel but there has not been an official date to it’s release yet.