Last Saturday, a small team of PPCSG Moderators was invited to a special preview session with Microsoft and HTC, we met up with John Starkweather, International Director of Marketing at Microsoft and Jason Gordon, Director of Global Communications at HTC, John and Jason took time from their busy schedule and weekend to share with us about the latest device from HTC. It was F1 weekend in Singapore where the first night race was held. We had a sneak preview of the yet to be launched in Singapore devices, the HTC Touch HD and the HTC S740. Both devices were given the thumbs up by the team, we played around with it, tried and test the functionality and also compared it with our current devices. Though these are test units, but we like what we saw. Click in here for more preview notes and comments.

The HTC Touch HD is a device that is the answer to the Samsung Omnia and the iPhone, this is something we cannot really ignore to compare the HTC Touch HD to the rest of the other touch screen devices. In the last few months the HTC Diamond was pitted against the Omnia and iPhone but they were of different in dimensions of the other two as the HTC Diamond had a smaller screen footprint.

With the HTC Touch HD launch that will be coming to Singapore in a few months time (it has been officially announced but it is not available anywhere yet.) The HTC Touch HD is for people whom wants a bigger screen estate but yet have the HTC TouchFLO 3D experience. This will be the device for them. It comes with haptic touch, means a little buzz is felt when you touch the screen to tell you that it has registered your touch on the device, this is nice as you do not need to press the screen too hard, this is specially for people whom wants that "tactile" feel of the device which the software screen haptic touch resolves and serves that need. You can also turn it off if you do not need it, which would save battery power.

With a speedy Qualcomm MSM7201A 528 MHz processor you are getting very quick and snappy performance from the device itself, it was not a slow coach when we played with it, the device felt solid and well built and there was no creaking sound when we squeezed the device in our hands to test it the built quality. With 512MB of ROM and 288 RAM it was well enough to open up a host of applications without needing to check out the amount of memory space required.

The 3.8 TFT screen with a 480 x 800 WVGA resolution is to die for, it is gorgeous, pictures on it was super clear and a small video that we saw on Windows Media player was fantastic too. Sound quality was decent as we were in a crowded place we we able to hear it well, so the speakers are above average. With 3.5G and being a quad band phone, it is a truly international device.

It come with not just A-GPS but GPS as well, means a better GPS fix for the user whenever the location demands of it's network. it comes with Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP and WiFi 802.11 b/g, for your storage use there is a microSD slot for your memory needs. It comes with the already fun G-sensor.

Now for the exciting part, the HTC Touch HD is the first device with 3.5 mm audio jack and the device comes with FM radio as well. It;s battery life is also impressive with a 1350mAh capacity lithium-ion battery with up to 6.5 hrs of talktime.

Finally it comes with a top of the range 5 megapixel camera, honestly in this area, having tried alot of Windows Mobile devices, the HTC Touch HD's camera is best as of the time of this article.

We hope that we can get a full review unit soon so that we can do a more thorough review.

The HTC S740 Windows Mobile Standard device has been given the extreme make-over by HTC and we liked it. The last Windows Mobile Standard device from HTC with slide out QWERTY was the HTC S730, which seemed a little dated, not resting the tireless HTC came up with the HTC S740.

The specifications of the HTC S740 is quite impressive, as it comes with a Qualcomm MSM7225 528 MHz processor, which in the past this was found in the more top end touch sensitive devices, the device comes with Windows Mobile 6.1 with ROM 256MB and a RAM of 256 SDRAM, it has a slide out QWERTY keyboard which was impressive, with a 2.4 inch TFT non-touch sensitive screen, at just 140g it is light yet it comes with A-GPS and a full GPS chip as well, with Bluetooth 2.0 that is A2DP ready and WiFi 802.11 b/g plus a 3.2 Megapixel camera and a 1000mAh capacity battery with up to 350 minutes of talktime for GSM, for your storage needs it comes with a microSD memory card slot.

wow, it's almost the same size as Q9h, I can certainly live with that size, and this may well be my first non-qwerty keyboard since jornada days Any idea when this will be launched?

btw, don't understand the statement



It's pretty much a de facto now that all mobile devices come with GPS chip supplemented by A-GPS/Q-GPS/InstantFix/InstantSirf (not the other way round)

How does it feel navigating around the phone without a Dpad and jog wheel?

HTC should have put in a jog wheel by the side, since they are removing the D pad for easy scrolling.

Is it possible for a one hand operation?

HI Zenkinz, not all mobile devices comes with GPS stand alone chips some are just A-GPS, while the HTC Touch HD and HTC S740 aka HTC Rose are GPS and A-GPS. But you are right the phrasing should have been the other way around and should read GPS and A-GPS supported.

Thanks for the comments.

Yea, I'm almost sold on this, but also worry about the navigation issue.

The A-GPS you mentioned in those mobile would be LBS, and will be different from the A-GPS found in modern phones these days.

when when when?? when is HTC Touch HD coming?? Waiting.... will it be in time for christmas?

No date was given.