HTC Touch Cruise 09 (HTC Iolite)
Discontinued 22nd January 2009
  
It's one of the oddest sounding phones that we know
of: the HTC Touch Cruise 09. This is the second
phone in HTC's line-up to feature the "Touch Cruise"
name, the original
version (perhaps it should be called the HTC
Touch Cruise 07?) was a clunky looking device, but the
Touch Cruise 09 is significantly sleeker and more elegant.
Mobile Gazette readers may recognise the Touch
Cruise 09 as O2 announced it late last year under the
name O2
XDA Guide. This particular phone is also known as
the HTC Iolite, which was its codename during development.
What we have here is a compact Windows Mobile 6.1
smartphone with a 2.8" 240 x 320 pixel touch-sensitive
display, HSDPA and UMTS support with a maximum download
speed of 7.2 Mbps, WiFi, built-in GPS, a 3.2 megapixel
camera, microSD expandable memory and Bluetooth.
The
"Cruise" part of the name relates to the phone's
A-GPS receiver. Although you can use the Touch Cruise
09 with your favourite personal navigation software,
it also comes with something called "HTC Footprints".
Footprints works by allowing users to take a "digital
postcard" comprising of a photograph, audio clips
and accompanying text which is then geo-tagged with
the location. Not only does the geo-tagging include
the GPS coordinates, but the Touch Cruise 09 also looks
up the name of the location and stores it.
The GPS unit can then trace your way back to when
the postcard was saved, which is something that seems
to be unique to HTC Footprints. Another interesting
feature is that the geo-tagging works indoors as well
as outdoors, which other devices struggle to manage.
Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional comes with all the
usual software that you would expect, plus HTC's TouchFLO
interface which makes it a much nicer experience.
Considering how much technology is in the Touch Cruise
09, the phone itself it a relatively lightweight handset
weighing just 103 grams. Inside is a 528 MHz Qualcomm
MSM7225 processor with a useful 256 MB RAM. Talktime
is a maximum of 6 hours with up to 14 days standby time.
HTC say that the Touch Cruise 09 should be available
sometime during the Northern Hemisphere's spring. Bearing
in mind that the O2 version of this is due in February,
we suspect that the HTC version may be out in early
March.
HTC have a couple of demonstration videos here
and here.
|
HTC
Touch Cruise 09
|
Available:
|
Now
|
Network:
|
GSM
+ UMTS 900 / 2100
|
Data:
|
GPRS
+ UMTS (3G) + HSDPA
+ WiFi
|
Screen:
|
240
x 320 pixels
|
Camera:
|
3.2
megapixels
|
Size:
|
Medium
PDA-style device 102
x 54 x 15mm / 103 grams
|
Bluetooth:
|
Yes
|
Memory
card:
|
microSD
|
Infra-red:
|
No
|
Polyphonic:
|
Yes
|
Java:
|
Limited
|
GPS:
|
Yes
(A-GPS)
|
Battery
life:
|
6 hours talk / 14 days standby
|
|
|