HTC Touch Pro2 Smartphone Hits The UK

The smartphone market is set to heat up over the next few months, with the big guns all rolling out what they hope will turn into summer blockbusters.

Some of the most eagerly anticipated handsets include the third-gen iPhone, Samsung’s Android device, Blackberry’s update to the touchscreen Storm and Palm’s new Pre phone, running their shiny new webOS.

Already out of the traps and hoping to be enjoying a summer of love is HTC’s new flagship Touch Pro2 handset, a feature-rammed device running on Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, happily covered up with HTC’s own slick TouchFLO 3D interface.

Measuring up at 116 X 59.2 X 16.65 mm (4.57 X 2.33 X 0.66 inches) and weighing 178.5 grams (6.3 ounces) with battery, it’s not the slimmest phone in town, but the pocket bulging beast certainly delivers in the specs department.

Powered by a beefy Qualcomm 528 MHz processor, the Touch Pro2 features a distinctive slide-out 5-row QWERTY keyboard, a 3.6-inch touch-sensitive tilt screen packing a healthy WVGA (480 X 800 pixel) resolution and ‘zoom bar’, noise canceling microphones and a 3.2 megapixel camera with auto focus.

There’s a handy MicroSD memory card onboard, FM Radio and G-Sensor, Bluetooth 2.1 with Enhanced Data Rate and A2DP for wireless stereo headsets, Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11 b/g), VGA CMOS colour camera for video calling, with 1500 mAh Lithium-ion battery claiming a battery life of up to 390 minutes talk time for WCDMA (up to 510 minutes for GSM).

Multimedia format support is comprehensive covering AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, QCP, MP3, WMA, WAV, MIDI and M4A in the audio department, and video covering WMV, ASF, MP4, 3GP, 3G2, M4V, AVI.

Annoyingly, HTC have stuck with their ruddy annoying ExtUSB connector for headphones, which seriously blights what is rather an attractive phone.

You can pick up the handset right now for around half here.

Specs:
Operating System – Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional

Processor – Qualcomm MSM7200A, 528 MHz

Memory – RAM – 288 MB, ROM – 512 MB

Display – 3.6-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with 480 X 800 WVGA resolution. Adjustable tilt screen
Operating Frequency – HSDPA/WCDMA:
Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz
Up to 2 Mbps up-link and 7.2 Mbps down-link speeds

Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:
Europe/Asia: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
(Band frequency, HSUPA availability, and data speed are operator dependent.)

Connectivity –
Bluetooth 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate and A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
Wi-Fi: IEEE 802.11 b/g
HTC ExtUSB (11-pin mini-USB 2.0, audio jack, and TV Out in one)

GPS – Internal GPS antenna

Expansion –
microSD memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)

Camera – Main camera: 3.2 megapixel colour camera with auto focus
Second camera: VGA CMOS colour camera

Battery – Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery 1500 mAh

Dimensions – 116 X 59.2 X 17.25 mm (4.57 X 2.33 X 0.68 inches)

Weight – 175 grams (6.17 ounces) with battery

Warranty – 2 Years

HTC Touch Pro2