HTC launched earlier this week in London the "Touch Diamond" the lastest smartphone of their TOUCH series.

The Touch Diamond is a stainless steel frame based of only 11.5mm thick, comes with a 2.8 inch touch-sensitive TFT 640×480 VGA screen. An integrated GPS system as well as a 3.2 megapixel camera and a second VGA CMOS one are also available.

This "iPhone-like" smartphone will be available in Europe and Asia in June 08 for about 770 USD.

Surprisingly, there is apparently no Mini-SD card slot to extend the 4 GB internal storage memory.

Highlights:

• 2.8-inch touch screen, with four times the pixels of most phones.

• Vibrant TouchFLO 3D user interface, responding perfectly to your finger gestures when scrolling through contacts, browsing the web, and launching media… all vividly displayed as photos and artwork powered by the 3D graphics processor.
• HTC Weather - providing a constant view of weather at home and abroad.
• Surf and download at broadband speed with HSDPA internet connectivity.
• 3.2 megapixel auto-focus camera for quality stills and video.
• 4GB of internal storage to preserve more photos, music, files and exchanged data than ever before.
• Integrated GPS for use with maps software for a full turn-by-turn satellite navigation experience.

Technical Specifications:

• Processor
  Qualcomm® MSM7201A' 528 MHz

• Operating System
  Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional
• Memory
  ROM: 256 MB
  RAM: 192 MB DDR SDRAM
  Internal storage: 4 GB
• Dimensions
  102 mm (L) X 51 mm (W) X 11.5 mm (T)
• Weight
  110 g (with battery)
• Display
  2.8-inch TFT-LCD flat touch-sensitive screen with VGA resolution
• Network
  HSDPA/WCDMA: Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz
  Up to 384 kbps up-link and 7.2 Mbps down-link speeds

  Tri-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:
  Europe/Asia: 900/1800/1900 MHz
  (Band frequency and data speed are operator dependent.)

• Device Control
  TouchFLO' 3D
  Touch-sensitive navigation control
• GPS
  GPS and A-GPS ready
• Connectivity
  Bluetooth® 2.0 with EDR
  Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g
  HTC ExtUSB' (11-pin mini-USB 2.0 and audio jack in one)
• Camera
  Main camera: 3.2 megapixel color camera with auto focus
  Second camera: VGA CMOS color camera
• Audio
  Built-in microphone, speaker and FM radio with RDS
• Ring tone supported formats:
  MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA, WAV, and AMR-NB
  40 polyphonic and Standard MIDI format 0 and 1 (SMF)/SP MIDI
• Battery
  Rechargeable Lithium-ion or Lithium-ion polymer battery
  Capacity: 900 mAh
• Talk time:
  Up to 270 minutes for WCDMA
  Up to 330 minutes for GSM
• Standby time:
  Up to 396 hours for WCDMA
  Up to 285 hours for GSM
• Video call time: Up to 145 minutes for WCDMA
  (The above are subject to network and phone usage.)
• AC Adapter
  Voltage range/frequency: 100 ~ 240V AC, 50/60 Hz
  DC output: 5V and 1A

All informations on HTC site

While HTC Europe concentrate all its marketing on HTC-Touch, in Asia, HTC under its Dopod brand name has released earlier last month the Dopod C730 also known as HTC Cavalier successor of Dopod 720w (HTC S620).

At first look there are not many differences between both models. the C730 is slightly thicker (0.7mm) but also lighter 120g (-10g) than its predecessor.

Price tag in Singapore : 790 SGD (513.- USD)

Main differences are the following :

• MicroSD slot is now accessible from outside. Easier to swap cards
• Operating System is Windows Mobile 6 which integrates more services (Office files edition, Live Search, MSN, etc..)
• Camera 2 mega pixels.
• Better battery capacity (1050 mAh)
• Samsung 400 MHz CPU, 64MB of RAM and 128MB of flash ROM
• Quad band GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) + 3G and HSDPA connectivity

Some points are still missing or require improvements

• Touch-sensitive strip on the edge of the phone is still hard to tame (usually I just use it to adjust volume during calls).
• Only a 2 megapixel camera when Nokia proposes 5 mega ones.
• No LED flash and front-facing camera for 3G video calls.
• No standard audio jack but a multi-purpose mini-USB connector instead.

Full Specification available on Dopod Singapore site

Sources : CNet Asia, Dopod Singapore

While "everybody" is expecting Apple and its future iPhone (expected in USA by the end of June 07), HTC announced on the 5th of June, after few teasing days, its own touch screen smartphone.

The HTC TouchFlo, a touch screen running on Windows Mobile 6 Professional which according HTC will revolutionize the way you use the touch screen by allowing finger scrolling and panning.

Unlike the Apple iPhone, HTC TouchFlo is already available in UK (Expansys at 520 €) and will be on asian and european shelves later this month. US market will be provided later this year. 

I wonder how the input method will work and how comfortable typing messages or entering information will be with a touch screen keyboard where a constant attention is needed to make sure that all letters have been correctly entered. 

Highlights

	TouchFLO™
	Large 2.8" touch screen display
	Tri-band GSM with GPRS/EDGE
	2 megapixel camera
	Internet browsing and Push E-mail
	Multimedia capabilities
	Stereo Bluetooth® 2.0 and Wi-Fi®

Technical Specification

More information on HTC Touch site,
Source:  Presse-Citron,  Smartphonethoughts