HTC Touch 3G Phone

The bottom line: The HTC Touch boasts an innovative touch screen and sleek interface, but the lack of a sizable keyboard really limits the usability of this device.

Editor’s note June 2008: Read our review of the US version of the GSM unlocked HTC Touch Dual which has a side-out keyboard, faster CPU, more memory, Windows Mobile 6.1 and other improvements: HTC Touch Dual review.

The bottom line: The HTC Touch cell phone for Sprint boasts an innovative touch screen, a sleek interface, and a nice set of features, but the lack of a sizable keyboard really limits the usability of this device.

The Windows Mobile 6 smartphone has integrated Bluetooth and a 2-megapixel camera.

The interface is much better than that of previous HTC and Windows Mobile models.

The remarkably small Touch has WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, a 2 megapixel camera and a standard QVGA resolution display.

And despite the beautiful hardware, the Windows Mobile smart phone lags in performance and needs a bit more tweaking before we’re ready to snatch one up.

Successor of the Touch, HTC Touch Diamond is also Windows Mobile Professional smartphone in candybar design.

It’s EV-DO capable and works with the Sprint Music Store and Sprint TV.

Other new UI elements include HTC’s separate suite of finger based menus.

This is a very high end PDA phone, with a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, 4 gigs of flash storage and a 528MHz processor with plenty of RAM.

The Sprint HTC Touch Diamond and the US unlocked 3G HTC Touch Diamond.

TouchFLO 3D, HTC’s elegant and attractive interface on top of much of Windows Mobile, is functionally the same as the original Diamond, and in terms of performance and usability, nearly identical to the Sprint Diamond.

Packed with advanced connectivity, the HTC Shift features high-speed global connectivity with Tri-Band UMTS/HSDPA, Quad-Band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, Bluetooth 2.0 and Wi-Fi.

Along the right side, you’ll find a camera activation key and the SIM card and microSD slots, which are protected by an attached cover.

On the outside, the Touch features an impressive 2.8-inch QVGA screen with a 320×240 pixel resolution and a 2-megapixel camera.

To control the Touch like the iPhone, there are certain ways for you to swipe your index finger across the screen.

The bad: The Touch’s onscreen keyboard is improved, but it’s still not the best for text entry, and the TouchFLO feature doesn’t work in landscape mode.

The only real downfall of the Touch as a media player is the damned 2GB limit on MicroSD capacity at least they give a 1GB card in the box to start with.

Last night I had the pleasure of meeting HTC’s Touch , the Windows Mobile 6 Professional device the company launched.