HTC unveils Touch Diamond2 and Touch Pro2

High Tech Computer (HTC), the largest maker of handsets that run Microsoft Windows Mobile software, unveiled updates to two of its most popular smartphones ever, the HTC Touch Diamond2 and HTC Touch Pro2 handsets.

The sleek new handsets are both 3G touchscreen devices. While the Touch Diamond2 is a consumer smartphone designed to compete with Apple's iPhone 3G, the Touch Pro2 is geared towards business people and could be a hit with its speaker phone function.

Both handsets continue the Touch line's tradition of attention to design and detail. They are both metallic in color, mixed with chrome and black and are designed to make people stop and ask -what is that?

HTC improved both handsets by a large measure over their predecessors, starting from the screens, which are much larger, more visually stunning and more responsive to touch commands.

The software inside - a customized version of Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6.1 with a new version of HTC's TouchFLO 3D - has also seen major improvements.

Two new features are Push-Internet, which enables the handset to download favorite Web site information at specified times so users don't have to wait for the sites to download. The handsets also have so-called unified communications so people's contact books and most recent conversations are right on hand no matter what form they came in, either from a phone call, SMS or e-mail.

The new Touch Diamond2 has several advantages over the original Touch Diamond. The Diamond2 sports a larger screen at 3.2 inches, compared to 2.8 inches for its predecessor. The overall handset is still slim at 13.7 millimeters thick and small enough to fit easily into your pocket.

The larger screen offers two noticeable benefits right away. The touch function works much better than on the older model and HTC's 480x800 wide-screen VGA resolution is stunning.

The Touch Diamond2 also boasts a 5.0-megapixel camera with mechanical auto-focus, a bid to make cameras in handsets work more like regular digital still cameras. You can snap pictures much faster due to the mechanical auto-focus, according to HTC.

The Touch Pro2 carries a 3.6-inch touchscreen with the same WVGA resolution as the Touch Diamond2, but even thought the screen is nice, it isn't the best physical feature on the handset.
The best feature is that it doubles as a speaker phone for conference calls.

The Touch Diamond2 will be available in Europe and Asia early in the second quarter of this year, with North America to be included later in 2009. The Touch Pro2 will be available globally beginning early in the summer.

Pricing information about the devices is not available yet.

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