HTC Touch Diamond2 debuts

MWC 2009: New Windows Mobile handset announced

16 February 2009 10:30 GMT / By Stuart Miles

HTC has announced a new version of its popular HTC handset, the HTC Touch Diamond, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The new 175 gram handset, which will be dubbed the HTC Touch Diamond 2, will offer the usual array of HSDPA, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity but sport a bigger 3.2-inch glass 480 x 800 resolution WVGA touchscreen.

Users of the Windows 6.1 OS powered handset will get an improved Touch Flo interface, complete with a swiping touch activated toggle bar similar to the Palm Pre, so they don't have to hide details with their fingers.

Powered by a Qualcomm chipset (the Qualcomm MSM7200A, 528 MHz), although not Snapdragon, users will also get a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus, up from 3 megapixels on the first outing.

Elsewhere users will get 512MB of ROM, 288MB of RAM and storage for files will be provided by microSD card. GPS and A-GPS will help with direction finding.

HTC, who themselves admit the technology isn't a massive step forward from the current handsets they offer already, says that they hope a number of new software innovations will help it seal the deal when it comes to impressing consumers over the multitude of smartphones available.

Realising the browsing experience on a mobile handset is anything but fast, HTC has said that it has designed a software initiative called Push Internet.

"We need to make surfing better", HTC's chief marketing officer, John Wang told Pocket-lint.

The idea behind the software will be to allow you to request your favourite websites to be loaded at set times during the day, so that when you come to check on them the first page has already been loaded. It is not sure though whether the service will be able to pick up pages any deeper than the first page you've requested, something that has been tried by other companies on the PC but failed before.

The company, again seemingly gaining some inspiration from Palm and its CES announcement of the Palm Pre in January, hopes to make finding email and SMS text trails with your contacts easier.

The new feature specifically built by HTC for its enriched version of Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6.1 OS will allow users to scroll through a number of tabs within a contact to see emails, text messages and meeting events at the swipe of a finger.

HTC is hoping the feature will appeal to business users looking to find previous conversations quickly.

"Business phones are so much more than email", Wang told us.

HTC is yet to confirm whether this feature could be linked to 3rd party social networking sites like Facebook, but does say there are "plenty of opportunities" for expanding the sliding tab offering.

The new phone is expected to be available at the end of March, beginning of April in the UK.