HTC Touch Cruise hits the ME market.

Byline: [e-mail] (Staff Writer)

HTC Corporation, which likes to describe itself as "a global leader in mobile phone innovation and design," has announced what it called its latest "personal navigation handset" (is that what they call mobile phones these days?) with "inbuilt GPS in ME market" (Sic) a press release exclaimed in the kind of heavily abbreviated language which is all the rage these days amongst the young and less easily confused.

The new HTC Touch Cruise (whose title may or may not have been dreamed up by someone called Katie Holmes), is an update of 2008's supposedly popular HTC GPS device of the same name, and boasts a new, more compact design and a host of new capabilities to offer a "richer and more intuitive" experience in one "powerful" package, the press release went on to declare breathlessly.

The new HTC Touch Cruise is the first mobile phone/ personal navigation handset to offer HTC Footprints, an "application experience" (whatever that is) which enables people to permanently chronicle their special moments by capturing a digital postcard on their phone. Once captured, Footprints provides the ability to take notes and an audio clip of that favorite restaurant or special place while identifying its specific geographical location, such as immediately after car crashes, contested restaurant bills or other expensively memorable events that require instant capturing and later recall for possible legal reasons.

In addition to identifying each postcard with its specific GPS co-ordinates, Footprints also auto-names each postcard with its general location or area.

Flipping back through their photos, HTC Touch Cruise users will be able to retrace their steps to that exact location in just a few touches. Unlike other devices with geo-tagging functionality, HTC Footprints works effectively outdoors and indoors, offering a more accurate record of location for future reference and navigation.

The HTC Touch Cruise is also works as an in-car navigation system, taking the place of some hot and bothered human who can't read maps or habitually misses intelligently-placed road signs which are usually placed after the turn off.

The new toy has a 2.8 inch QVGA display (or Quarter Video Graphics Array to the tech un-savvy), and by using HTC's TouchFLO technology, the HTC Touch Cruise provides fingertip access to phone, contacts, email, messaging, calendar and GPS applications, making it a strong all-around device, for those with fingers anyway.

The new HTC Touch Cruise will be available through all the major retailers in selected ME regions starting with the UAE from mid-March at an estimated end user pricing of $654.

Key HTC Touch Cruise Specifications

Size: 102 x 53.5 x 14.5mm

Weight : 103 grams

Connectivity : WCDMA/HSPA: 900/2100MHz. HSDPA 7.2 Mbps

Operating system : Windows Mobile[R] 6.1 Professional

Display : 2.8-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with QVGA resolution

Control panel : HTC TouchFLO™, 4-Way navigation wheel with Enter and HTC Footprints™ buttons

Camera : 3.2 MP, with fixed focus

Internal memory : 512 MB flash ROM, 256 MB RAM

Expansion Slot : microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)

Bluetooth : 2.0 with EDR 

Wireless : Wi-Fi 802.11b/g

GPS : GPS/A-GPS

(mini-USB 2.0 and audio jack in one) aInterface: HTC ExtUSB

Battery : 1100 mAh

Talk time : GSM: up to 400 minutes

Standby time : GSM: up to two weeks

Chipset : Qualcomm[R] MSM7225™, 528 MHz

2009 CPI Financial. All rights reserved.

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