HTC Announces the New Touch Cruise

HTC, the company best known for their stylish smartphone design kung-fu, has announced their latest smartphone, the HTC Touch Cruise.

The Touch Cruise is a Windows Mobile Professional 6.1 powered smartphone that features another stunning industrial design. The Touch Cruise just looks great!

Included in HTC’s latest smartphone is a built-in GPS that not only integrates with an optional vehicle cradle to provide turn-by-turn navigation, but also integrates with HTC’s new Footprints software. With the GPS enabled Touch Cruise and Footprints, customers are able to take photos and an audio recording while tagging the photo with co-ordinates provided by from the GPS receiver.

“The new HTC Touch Cruise is the first mobile phone to offer HTC Footprints, an application experience that 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 favourite restaurant or special place while identifying its specific geographical location. 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.

“Just as we have seen GPS technology transform how people navigate to new places, we are now seeing location-based applications like HTC Footprints changing how we interact and carry our memories,” said Peter Chou, President and CEO, HTC Corporation.”

The published specifications for the HTC Touch Cruise are:

• Size: 102 x 53.5 x 14.5mm
• Weight: 103 grams
• WCDMA/HSPA: 900/2100MHz. HSDPA 7.2 Mbps
• Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional
• 2.8-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with QVGA resolution
• HTC TouchFLO™, 4-Way navigation wheel with Enter and HTC Footprints™ buttons
• 3.2 MP camera, with fixed focus
• Internal memory: 512 MB flash ROM, 256 MB RAM
• microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
• Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR
• Wi-Fi 802.11b/g wireless
• GPS/A-GPS
• Interface: HTC ExtUSB (mini-USB 2.0 and audio jack in one)
• Battery: 1100 mAh
• Talk time: GSM: up to 400 minutes
• Standby time: GSM: up to two weeks
• Chipset: Qualcomm® MSM7225™, 528 MHz

HTC is expected to begin shipping the Touch Cruise later this spring. For more details, check out the HTC Touch Cruise website.