Planet Technology

The HTC Touch HD may be the biggest, meanest thing that has happened to Windows Mobile for quite some time now. It's got an unforgiving spec sheet that can easily put to shame most high-end devices out there. A massive 3.8-inch touchscreen with a WVGA resolution is combined with a sleek form factor of only 12mm thickness. Add a 5 megapixel camera, GPS, and Wi-Fi and a powerful CPU and you've got yourself a spanking WinMo killer machine.

It just happened that we laid our hands on a HTC Touch HD unit and of course we decided to give you a quick impromptu preview. It's not as detailed as we would generally like, but hey, it's better than nothing, right? We had a really brief HD encounter but you can bet we'll offer you more as soon as we get more of it.

HTC Touch HD official photos

While rumors of a future Touch HD Pro equipped with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard are rolling out, the HTC Touch HD is actually getting ready to roll out in stores with pre-order prices ranging from 600 euro (800 US dollars) to an arm and a leg, but that's understandable.

HTC Touch HD at a glance:

• General: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS 900/2100 MHz, GPRS/EDGE class 12, HSDPA 7.2 Mbps
• Dimensions: 115 x 62 x 12 mm, 146 g
• Display: 3.8-inch 65K color TFT touchscreen, WVGA resolution (480 x 800 pixels)
• Processor: Qualcomm MSM 7201A, 528MHz CPU
• Memory: 288 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM, microSD card slot
• Operating System: Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
• Internet browser: Opera Mobile 9.5 browser
• Camera: 5 megapixel autofocus, CIF (352 × 288 pixels) video recording
• Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.0+EDR with A2DP, Wi-Fi, GPS receiver, 3.5mm audio jack
• Battery: Li-Ion 1350 mAh, Talk time: 6 h 30 min, Standby: 450 hours

Live photos of HTC Touch HD

Comparison of the HTC Touch HD with the iPhone is unavoidable. Although the Touch HD outruns the iPhone 3G specs by far, the Apple iPhone is still the most hyped full touch device.

Although Windows Mobile 6.1 is pretty much lagging behind in terms of usability (when compared to all other recent all touch phones), HTC have taken care to improve things a bit with their TouchFLO 3D (well known from the HTC Touch Diamond).

We are far from considering that Windows Mobile (TouchFLO or not) will ever be capable to match the fluid iPhone interface, but still a physical comparison is interesting. In fact the most intriguing thing about the HTC Touch HD is the relatively compact size for feature-packed load that's on board. The HTC Touch HD is no bigger then the Apple iPhone 3G.

The HTC Touch HD next to the Apple iPhone 3G

Tags: HTC