HTC who earlier this week slashed their marketing budgets in Australia for Windows Mobile based phones could well use next week’s launch of the HTC Touch Pro which is basically the HTC Touch Diamond with a slide out keyboard to show for the first time a HTC phone running the Google Android operating system.

For several months HTC has been working closely with Google to launch a new phone based on the long-awaited Google’s Android mobile phone platform in place of the clumsy and often slow Windows Mobile operating system.The Australian launch of the HTC Touch Pro is scheduled for September 23rd 2008.

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Earlier this week Google sent out invitations to US media inviting them to an event with T-Mobile USA. The invitations, which have been republished on various web sites state: ‘Hear from T-Mobile, Google and other company executives as they unveil the phone, and come experience the device first hand.’

The new HTC Touch Pro is basically the HTC Touch Diamond with a slide out keyboard. It has  2.8-inch VGA touch screen. In an effort to hide the poor performance of the windows Mobile operating system HTC has developed their own Graphic User Interface, yet despite this the phone is being labelled a “dog” when compared to the ease of use of the new 3G iPhone.

Several Telstra shop managers have said that by majority customers in the market for a smart phone are ignoring the new HTC Diamond Touch, instead they are investing in the new Apple 3G iPhone. 

 
The HTC TouchFLO 3D interface found on the new HTC Touch Pro is wrapped around Windows Mobile 6.1. It allows users to slide their fingers around a horizontal toolbar, opening and closing apps or reorienting the screen from portrait to landscape. However users are forced to snap out a keyboard with 5-rows of keys. It also has a 3.2-megapixel camera with auto focus and GPS, HSDPA, Wi-fi, Bluetooth and TV Out. It runs on a Qualcomm MSM7201A 528 MHz CPU.