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HTC follows Touch Diamond with Touch Pro(InfoWorld Daily Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) High Tech Computer on Wednesday announced the Touch Pro, a business handset a similar design to the iPhone rival,?HTC Touch Diamond?revealed last month to great fanfare. Touch Pro shares the curved diamond backside of its sister handset, but it's thicker due to the QWERTY keypad that slides out for easy thumb typing. The keypad also includes a fifth row, a top line with numbers, which HTC handset keypads have not had in the past. Also like the Touch Diamond, the Touch Pro is a 3G smartphone running Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional OS. The 2.8-inch screen on front is made for easy touch navigation using HTC's TouchFlo touch-screen software. Touch Pro marks the second 3G touch-screen handset HTC has announced head of the 3G iPhone. Last year, the company launched its popular?Touch smartphone?a few weeks ahead of the iPhone?and has sold 3 million since then. Apple has not formally announced a?launch date for its 3G iPhone, but some speculate it may be out this month. Touch Pro is aimed at business users who need the keypad and message/e-mail functions. An HTC representative said the device will be out globally around August. The smartphone works on WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) networks. For mobile Internet access, it offers data rates up to 7.2Mbps using HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) on cellular networks, or via Wi-Fi 802.11b/g. HTC Touch Pro also includes a video-out port so that?people can hook up?the device to a larger screen or television and project a bigger image, a boon for activities such as giving presentations. Price information was not immediately available for the device. As a reference, Touch Diamond will cost around NT$26,000 ($857) when it launches in Taiwan next month. An EDGE-based version of the Touch Diamond launched in India last month at a price of 27,500 Indian rupees ($646). The price reflects some of the expensive features on board the device, which are similar to the Touch Pro, including GPS?and a 3.2-megapixel camera. Copyright ? 2008 InfoWorld Media Group, Inc. |