HTC Touch Pro goes for market ubiquity
Anyone not carrying an HTC Touch Pro over the next few months is hard-pressed to blame their mobile provider, as Verizon Wireless becomes the latest major mobile telco to offer the slider-style touchscreen handset.
The Windows Mobile-based Touch Pro's already headlining the holiday offerings at Sprint Nextel, which was the first company to announce support, and Alltel (also a CDMA-based service) carries it as well. There's also a GSM model, and AT&T has that traveling under the name of "HTC Fuze."
The Touch Pro is the successor to the Diamond, which was released last year. Older siblings include the HTC Touch Dual, with a traditional phone keypad hidden under the slide, and the GPS-crazy HTC Touch Cruise. In the tradition of interesting HTC product code names, the Touch Pro was known as Raphael.
Like its predecessor, it runs the TouchFLO 3D interface, and thus the user is presented with screens that look less like Pocket PC derivatives and more like those on other touchscreen phones. The underlying keypad, however, girds users for QWERTY work when it's time to type.
The handset also includes an orientation sensor / accelerometer, so it can reorient its display when turned, as well as respond to other applications hip to spatial orientation. HTC also has a warm relationship with Google, and the phone includes and YouTube viewer and a Google maps app. The camera is 3.2 megapixel with autofocus and a flash; storage is handled via microSD chips.
The GSM and CDMA versions of the handset are quite similar across the services, but the prices aren't. VZW is charging $420 for a phone with a two-year contract, or $350 after a $70 rebate. Prices are better at AT&T ($500 with no contract, $350 with a two-year contract, $100 rebate available), and though Sprint's site says that the phone's out of stock at the moment, when it's around it can be had for $300 -- $579, minus a $180 instant rebate and a $100 mail-in offer.
As for T-Mobile, no Touch Pro plans have been announced. References to it as the "MDA Vario IV" have been spotted fleetingly on certain company European support pages, but T-Mobile already does have that other HTC phone this year.
Creative thinkers might choose to hit Alltel, which is selling its HTC Touch Pro at the moment for $280 ($600 list with agreement, $220 online discount, $100 mail-in rebate)...as its acquisition by Verizon was approved by the FCC earlier this month.