If you’re what some might call a cell phone junkie, you should already know that HTC is releasing a top-end flagship device known as the Touch Pro in the very near future to the U.S. market. The handset is starting to land in the…erm…hands of reviewers, and they like what they see.

I can’t help but be excited about this handset. As a self-admitted texting addict and mobile tweeter, I need a full qwerty keyboard to really pound out the messages in short order. The lovely thing about the Touch Pro, unlike the iPhone or the HTC Touch Diamond, is that the Pro delivers a full-sized qwerty keyboard coupled with the sleek TouchFlo 3D Windows Mobile-based interface for all your touch-screen pleasure.

The folks over at MobileBurn were graced with a peek at the device (alongside a HTC Touch Diamond), and the report is good. The Touch Pro, though a heftier big brother to Touch Diamond, does not have the same high-gloss finish, a welcome relief from the fingerprint canvas of the Diamond’s finish.

Obviously the big question is how the keyboard feels (as the physical keyboard is really all that separates the Touch Diamond from the Touch Pro). MobileBurn said the keyboard was great, and though the keys are small, they are very easily navigated by touch; additionally, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1, a mobile unit similar to the Pro, does not have as nice of a keyboard, something that will have a big effect on handset sales.

MobileBurn wasn’t able to power up the device because HTC is keeping a few secrets up its sleeve in regards to changes to the TouchFlo 3D GUI. HTC did disclose that changes are being made to enhance the landscape performance of the Touch Pro, but that’s all the HTC folks would say.

No real word yet as to the pricing of the HTC Touch Pro (or the HTC Touch Diamond, for that matter) in the states, but you can expect it to cost more than a few pennies. Then again, if carriers are looking to position the new Touch handsets as a competitor to the iPhone, they will need to make pricing competitive. $199 for a brand new iPhone 3G is stiff competition, after all.

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Entry was posted on Friday, June 27th, 2008 at 6:45 pm under Uncategorized.

Read more entries by Triston McIntyre.
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