HTC Touch Pro2

Discontinued
16th February 2009

The big brother to the HTC Touch Diamond2, and the replacement for the HTC Touch Pro, the new HTC Touch Pro2 is a highly advanced Windows Mobile device with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a very large display.

The Touch Pro2 has had something of a radical makeover from the old handset. Going against conventional mobile phone design, the Touch Pro2 is actually significantly larger and heavier than the original Touch Pro, and with good reason.

The biggest change is the screen, now a big 3.6" 800 x 480 pixel touchscreen panel, compared to the much smaller 2.8" display on the old Touch Pro. The keyboard is also larger and has good spacing between the keys. Another unusual feature is the inclusion of a conference-quality speakerphone system called "Straight Talk". The idea here is that the Touch Pro2 can be used for audio conferences in a meeting room, while maintaining the sort of quality you would expect from a fully featured conference phone.

For some reason, the 5 megapixel camera from the Touch Diamond2 did not carry over to the Touch Pro2, so we're stuck with the same 3.2 megapixel device as before. And the navigation key has been removed from the front of the phone in order to fit the large screen.

Underneath the screen is a touch-sensitive slider which acts as a zoom control, although with a screen this large you may not need it very often.

The TouchFLO interface on the Touch Pro2 has been enhanced for finger control, and TouchFLO is now much more widely used throughout the phone.. you will rarely come face-to-face with the standard Windows interface unless you need it.

This is a big device, almost up to the size of the Nokia E90 Communicator. In fact, the Touch Pro2 is one of the few phones that can outcompete the E90 in terms of keyboard and screen quality. The Touch Pro2 also has a passing resemblence to the upcoming Nokia N97, but beats the N97 when it comes to screen resolution.

Other features in the Touch Pro2 include GPS, a versatile multimedia player, FM radio, the comprehensive software suite you would expect with Windows Mobile 6.1, stereo Bluetooth, WiFi, dual-band HSDPA and HSUPA plus quad-band GSM. Internal RAM is a very useful 288MB.

Audio output is via the hated ExtUSB port that HTC insist on putting in everything. Another downer is weight - the Touch Pro2 weighs a stonking 175 grams and measures 116 x 59 x 17mm. Before you complain about the massive size of the Touch Pro2, consider how feature rich this phone is.. and even at this size it is still a lot lighter than the E90.

At Mobile Gazette, we like phones like this a lot. The 800 pixel wide display is absolutely ideal for web browsing, and the large QWERTY keyboard makes text input very easy.

HTC say that the Touch Pro2 should be out in the summer, but did not give any guidance on price. Our guess is that the Touch Pro2 will retail for around €700 to €800 when it comes out.