Mobile phone maker HTC has unveiled the next generation of its popular Touch device, the Touch Diamond, as the Taiwanese company looks to take on Apple's iPhone at the top end of the handset market.The launch of the phone, which will be available in Europe next month, comes as Vodafone announced it would begin stocking Apple's iPhone across 10 markets, including India and Italy, later this year.
The HTC Touch, launched last year, has sold more than 3m worldwide through over 100 operators in more than 50 countries. HTC is hoping the next version of the device, which it has been developing since 2006, will be more successful.
The idea behind the phone is what HTC's chief innovation officer, Horace Luke, calls "thumbability". Unlike the iPhone, which users need both hands to access properly, the smaller HTC Diamond can be used easily with one hand.
"What we want people to be able to do is the equivalent of walk and chew gum at the same time; walk down the street and access the internet at the same time," he said.
The Diamond has a 4GB memory, which is smaller than the iPhone, but a more powerful 3.2 megapixel camera. Unlike the iPhone it also has GPS built in and works on the latest generation of super-fast mobile phone network technology, HSDPA. It has wi-fi and Bluetooth short-range wireless technology and is light-sensitive.
The phone uses the latest version of the Windows Mobile operating system but is far more intuitive than any Windows device so far seen.
Users navigate the phone through the touchscreen and a small iPod-like clickwheel. The thumb-rotation movement also allows users to zoom in on particular areas of the screen, while tapping the screen formats web text into columns, making it easy to read. The phone also has a stylus for notes and character recognition.
The phone's music service uses what HTC calls Touchflow 3D, which animates album covers a bit like flipping through LPs in a record store. Contacts also flow as if they were on a Rollerdex.
Getting music onto the phone is relatively easy. It is treated as a hard drive so users do not have to upload their music through a particular computer-based music player.
HTC's chief marketing officer, John Wang, said the phone was part of HTC's efforts to improve its brand identity. The company is a relative minnow when compared with other manufacturers in the far east, such as second-placed Samsung and number five player LG.
"In 2007 we talked about the Touch, in 2008 we are talking about the Touch Diamond. We have to come up with more great ideas in 2009, 2010 and so on. It's all about repeatedly demonstrating our leadership. That will gain us respect in this industry," he said.
Orange, 3, O2 and Vodafone will offer HTC's latest device. In the past HTC phones have been stocked under operators' brand names, such as the O2 XDA, or given generic names, such as the SPV. But most of the operators stocking the Touch Diamond phone will stock it under the Diamond name.
"Not because I have requested that they do that, but because they want to," said Wang.
HTC, however, still makes a lot of bespoke devices. It is looking to make a phone using Google's Android operating system, and is understood to be working with BT on a device that will work with its new Blackberry-style email and mobile internet service, to be announced tomorrow.
Vodafone gets the iPhone
As well as signing up for the Diamond, Vodafone has secured a deal to supply Apple's iPhone in Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey. Apple has already announced it will have other partners in some of these markets, including Canada and Italy.
The mobile operator is also understood to have signed a deal for the new 3G version of Apple's device, which is expected to be unveiled next month.
In a change of strategy, Apple has decided to dump the exclusive deals that marked the phone's entry into the initial markets of the US, UK, France and Germany in favour of having more operators stock the phone in the next batch of markets.
While Vodafone refused to comment, the company is understood to have struck a better deal than the original list of iPhone stockists. It does not have to give Apple as large a slice of ongoing revenues from iPhone customers as operators such as O2, who supply the handset exclusively in the UK.
source : http://www.guardian.co.uk/
No comments:
Post a Comment