It's no secret that HTC has broad aspirations for growth, but until recently the Taiwanese manufacturer has offered mostly high end Windows Mobile and Android products, like the HTC Hero or HTC Touch Pro2. That's all set to change soon with new handsets hitting the market, like the newly announced HTC Touch2. The HTC Touch2 will be among the freshman class of Windows Mobile 6.5 phones when the new mobile OS update launches officially on October 6. In addition to the familiar HTC TouchFLO interface that has graced all of the manufacturer's WinMo touchscreen phones of late, the HTC Touch2 will also benefit from improvements to Windows Mobile, including access to Microsoft's My Phone service as well as the upcoming Windows Marketplace for Mobile, a direct competitor to Apple's App Store and Google's Android Market.
The HTC Touch2 isn't the most impressive piece of hardware, but it's obviously intended to appeal to a more broad audience than high-end phones like the HTC Touch Diamond 2. The design is more smooth and rounded, reminiscent of the original HTC Touch, and in fact it shares more in common with the original phone's feature set, including the 2.8-inch QVGA screen, though the new Touch2 will be slightly shorter and slimmer than that original device.
The HTC Touch2 will also get some updated features, including some improvements from the high-end HTC Touch devices. The phone will use the Zoom Bar we liked on recent HTC Touch phones, a touch sensitive strip beneath the screen that lets users expand text in a Web page or zoom in and out on photos in the gallery. The HTC Touch2 will also get a 3.2-megapixel camera, though it won't use auto focus, let alone the touch focus feature we loved on the HTC Touch Diamond 2. Of note, the HTC Touch2 will be one of the first HTC phones to finally give up on the unified USB port for audio, power and sync, and the phone will get its own 3.5mm headphone jack so you can finally plug in your own earbuds without an extra adapter.
HTC says the Touch2 will initially be available with the first wave of Windows Mobile 6.5 phones on October 6, with wider availability into the 4th quarter in Europe and Asia. The quad-band phone uses 3G radio bands found commonly in Europe and Asia, but HTC hasn't announced a model with frequencies that can access either T-Mobile's or AT&T's 3G networks. Still, with so many new, inexpensive all-touch phones hitting the U.S. market (mostly from Samsung) we wouldn't be surprised to see HTC sell a tablet phone that is more mass market friendly on a U.S. carrier.
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