HTC has officially announced the third device in its Touch range - the HTC Touch Cruise - which goes on sale this month.
The previous two - the HTC Touch and HTC Touch Dual - have been big hits for HTC. They were aimed at specific consumer segments, and now the HTC Touch Cruise is aimed at a different group again.
The Cruise is the first Touch device to include built-in GPS, as well as 3G/HSDPA, wif-fi and Bluetooth connectivity.
Other new features include the new HTC Home Screen providing one-touch access to messages, calendar and contacts as well as, for some reason, global weather reports. It also features Windows Mobile 6, TouchFLO controls, media player, three-megapixel camera, 128MB memory (plus microSD card slot) and FM radio.
The HTC Touch Cruise’s GPS software comes from TomTom offering either a taster city map, or the option to buy full maps covering all of Western Europe.
It seems HTC’s aim of releasing different Touch devices that will find an audience among all consumers is slowly becoming a reality.
HTC obviously has high hopes for Google’s Android OS if recent claims are to be believed.
The manufacturer has already thrown its hat into the ring by helping develop the first Android handset, the Dream, but this is apparently only the start.
Speaking to Taiwanese analysts, HTC CEO Peter Chou has come out and said his company plans to launch up to three Android-based phones in the coming year, and expect its revenues to rise 20% next year.
Some manufacturers like Samsung and Motorola have already signed up to Google’s Open Handset Alliance, but Nokia is yet to commit fully. HTC’s support will be a fillip to Google’s attempts to break the Windows Mobile-Symbian-UIQ hegemony of mobile OS systems.
He also said that HTC plans to launch new user interface that’s better than TouchFLO and its first WiMAX devices by early 2009.
[Via Digi Times]
Carphone Warehouse’s Ted Baker-designed mobiles have finally gone on sale, including the limited edition HTC Touch, renamed the Ted Baker Needle. HTC today said its Needle will go on sale in 785 UK Carphone stores, so presumably the Button (a Samsung handset) will also be on sale.
We’ve been featuring these handsets for what seems like forever, but now it seems they’re finally on sale.
The Needle is basically a purple HTC Touch featuring the TouchFLO technology and Windows Mobile 6 Professional OS. The Touch has proved a bit of a hit since launching in June, selling 800,000 devices in Europe and Asia. Ted Baker has stamped its mark on the device with a load of pre-loaded wallpapers and a tailored start-up animation.
Interestingly, HTC has said the release marks the start of a national retail deal between the two companies, which will see more exclusive HTC devices being made available through Carphone Warehouse.
O2 has confirmed it’s carrying the new version of its xda Orbit called, imaginatively enough, the xda Orbit 2.
HTC’s poor old smartphones always have a schizophrenic approach to their names, and this is no exception. O2 is calling the device one thing, but you might know it as the HTC Polaris or HTC Touch Cruise. Of course, when other operators carry it, it’ll have another name as well.
Needless to say, all these different versions will have the same features. They’ll have the new TouchFLO controls, a 400Mhz processor, quad-band GSM as well as 3G/HSDPA, a three-megapixel camera and wi-fi. Oh, and of course, as a HTC device, you know it’ll run on Windows Mobile.
O2 will start selling the xda Orbit 2 from early next month with pre-installed TomTom GPS software and a 1GB microSD card. Now, you might think this’ll be expensive, right? Wrong. According to reports, it’s going to cost a mere €99 (£65-£70) on a contract.
It’s got more under the hood than and iPod and it’ll cost less than an iPod Nano let alone the iPhone. Now that’s a bargain.
The Boy Genius certainly seems to think so, posting this picture, which the site claims is an accurate render of the upcoming HTC Juno.
Said to sport a version of the HTC Touch’s TouchFLO interface, the Juno is a Windows Mobile 6-based handset with a slide-out keypad that may (if our squinting is right) offer a QWERTY key set.
Other specs are a bit vague, with talk of a 2MP camera and microSD card slot. However, CrunchGear is betting on a US debut for the Juno on AT&T, with T-Mobile to follow in 2008, while BGR reckons the latter will get it first sometime in October.
