HTC manufactures Treo smartphones for Palm and also competes directly with their own retail devices. Today in London HTC announced their newest smartphone "Touch," a device they claim can distinguish between stylus and finger screen taps, and provide a richer user experience by responding accordingly.

Check out an audio interview our good friends at msmobiles.com recorded with the Chief Marketing Officer from HTC.

Press Release

HTC Device Signals New Direction In Finger Touch Navigation

LONDON – June 5, 2007 – Corp. (TAIEX: 2498; "HTC"), the world's leading provider of Microsoft Windows Mobile-based smart devices, today announced the global launch of the HTC Touch, a deceptively small and stylish mobile phone that ushers in an innovative new concept in intuitive touch screen navigation. The HTC Touch brings a new level of simplicity to the powerful and function-rich device experience that today's mobile consumers demand.

Building on its rich ten year history of mobile phone innovations, the HTC Touch represents extensive research and development and the conviction that fingertip control will enable more efficient, natural and intuitive touch screen navigation. The groundbreaking HTC Touch offers a new and unique way of controlling touch screen-based devices by recognising and responding to the sweep of a finger across the screen. It is even intelligent enough to distinguish between finger and stylus input and then respond accordingly.

"With the HTC Touch, access to your most commonly used content, contacts and features is only a simple finger flick away," said Peter Chou, chief executive officer of HTC. "Mobile phone makers have done a great job of cramming ever-more exciting features into ever-smaller phones. But the way in which one accesses these increasingly sophisticated features has not kept pace. That ends today with the HTC Touch."

Smart, stylish and versatile, the HTC Touch brings together a wide variety of communication, entertainment and professional capabilities that enable mobile consumers to balance work and play. The new HTC-designed homescreen provides one-touch access to emails, text messages, calendar appointments and contacts, as well as current weather conditions and forecasts for hundreds of cities around the world.

The HTC Touch is the first device to feature TouchFLO, the new underlying touch screen technology developed by HTC. Consumers simply sweep their finger up the display to launch an animated, three-dimensional interface comprising three screens: Contacts, Media and Applications. The interface can be spun by swiping a finger right or left across the display, providing efficient access to the features consumers use most. TouchFLO also enhances finger touch scrolling and browsing of Web pages, documents, messages and contact lists.

Leveraging the broad functionality of Windows Mobile 6 Professional, the HTC Touch includes Outlook Mobile, Office Mobile, Windows Live and the capabilities to run thousands of third-party applications. Users can surf the web with Internet Explorer, send and receive emails, chat on Messenger and send files to their own web space through Windows Live®. Other HTC Touch™ details include:

• Dimensions: 99.9mm (L) x 58mm (W) x 13.9mm (T)
• Weight: 112g with battery
• 1GB microSD storage card included / 64MB RAM, 128MB ROM
• 2.8'' LCD touch screen with backlight, 240 x 320 dots resolution with 65,536 colours
• Battery Life: Rechargeable Li-Ion battery with a capacity of 1100 mAh
• Standby time: Up to 200 / Talk time: Up to 5 hours
• Camera: 2.0 mega-pixel CMOS colour camera
• Windows Mobile 6 Professional with Direct Push Email and HTML email support
• Wireless Connectivity: GSM/GPRS/EDGE Tri-band: 900, 1800,1900, Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g and Bluetooth® 2.0
• Choice of two colors at launch - elegant soft black or alluring wasabi green

Availability

The HTC Touch is now available in the United Kingdom and will be released later this month in Asia and throughout Europe. The North and Latin American version of the HTC Touch will be available in the second half of 2007.

About HTC

Founded in 1997, High Tech Computer Corp. (HTC) designs, manufactures and markets innovative, feature rich smartphone and PDA Phone devices.

Since its establishment, HTC has developed strong R&D capabilities, pioneered many new designs and product innovations, and launched state-of-the-art PDA Phones and Smartphones for mobile operators and distributors in Europe, the US, and Asia. These machines are available as HTC devices and as products individually customized for operator and device partners.

HTC is one of the fastest growing companies in the mobile device market. The company is listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange under ticker 2498.

Related Links

Windows Mobile Smartphone Store

Audio interview with John Wang - Chief Marketing Officer of HTC - asking hard questions about Touch!

HTC Website

Social bookmarking: or

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