Windows Phone 7 fans rejoice! HTC aren't holding back on the hardware, bringing out the second edition of their huge Titan handset.

Known naturally as the HTC Titan II, it features a 4.7-inch display, an eye-watering 16-megapixel camera and LTE and a slightly tweaked design that brings back the HTC Chin.

It is, sadly, an AT&T handset at launch and although HTC has confirmed that a global variant will be getting a launch further down the line we can confirm that Europe won't be getting it.  

But before you get too excited about that 16-megapixel camera, HTC detail that it only offers 720p video capture, slightly out of kilter with the Full HD talents on show elsewhere in the smartphone world.

The camera seems to be the main focus (excuse the pun) of this handset, offering dual LED flash, smart tweaks like red-eye reduction and a backside-illuminated sensor and in our tests around the pool in the Palms hotel in Las Vegas coped well with the bright desert sun.

HTC claims it's a viable replacement for a compact camera. They obviously haven't seen the new Canon G1 X.

What you do get, however, is a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S2 processor and LTE connectivity on AT&T, so you'll get fast data on the go. There is a 1.3-megapixel front facing camera and the performance zips along in the same way as it does with the HTC Titan, only web pages load considerably faster. 

We're not certain how much life you'll get from the 1730mAh battery when surfing on 4G waves, and we'd bet our bottom dollar that the screen resolution hasn't seen a bump either.

However, it's nice to see Windows Phone 7 putting itself out there. Peter Chou, HTC CEO commented: "This full-featured smartphone combines HTC's design with AT&T's high-speed 4G LTE network and Microsoft's powerful Windows Phone software, giving people more of what they crave."

We'll be keeping an eye on this handset and await it's arrival outside the US and of course, this is a precursor to a 16-megapixel HTC Android phone, if history repeats itself.

What we can say is that talking to HTC there big "unveil" is going to be at MWC. Pocket-lint will be at the show in Barcelona in February. 

We will keep posted. 

What do you think of the Titan II? Let us know in the comments below