PPCGeeks - Touch Pro 2/ Diamond 2 to get 6.5 for sure

HTC, the leading Windows phone firm announced major extensions to Windows Mobile 6.1 and 6.5 that make it much easier to see who a user has contacted, and when; a way of pre-caching Web pages for extra speed; and two new smartphones that are almost sure to come to U.S. carriers in 2009.
http://www.pcmag.com/images/pcm_spacer.gif http://www.pcmag.com/images/pcm_spacer.gif SLIDESHOW (9) http://www.pcmag.com/images/pcm_spacer.gif http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/...=231386,00.jpg Slideshow | All Shots http://www.pcmag.com/images/pcm_spacer.gif HTC has been tweaking Windows Mobile for two years now; their TouchFLO 3D interface, seen on several of their smartphones, replaces the traditional Windows Mobile 6 home screen with a carousel of large, interactive icons. HTC's new software takes the changes much deeper into Windows Mobile.
A feature called "People-Centric Communication," according to HTC, enhances a phone's address book application so a user can smoothly slide over to see all of the e-mails, text messages, or phone calls you've sent to a particular person without leaving the contact book. You can then jump to a specific message without having to go through Windows Mobile's several levels of menus.
"Today we try to fit our life into silos of applications," said John Wang, HTC's chief marketing officer, in a press conference here. "We have an address book application, a calendar application, a phone application ... since when did our lives become applications?"
Another feature, dubbed "Straight Talk," kicks business calls up a notch. That software lets you call people directly from emails, create conference calls immediately from mass emails, and call into conference bridges very easily from a calendar alert.
"Ten minutes before the conference call, a huge green button just shows up on the screen with the conference bridge number already embedded," Wang explained. "And wouldn't it be great if it has the PIN code and the agenda information embedded? They are!"
HTC's "push Internet" is a way of pre-caching Web pages so you can view them without downloading them on demand. According to Wang, you can tell a new HTC phone to download your favorite Web sites on a set schedule, and then view the pre-cached versions extra quickly. HTC didn't give many details, such as whether you can cache several layers of pages.
Together, these three technologies take HTC's version of Windows Mobile way beyond the standard Windows Mobile experience.
HTC showcased them on two new phones, the Touch Diamond2 and the Touch Pro2, both new versions of popular phones from US carriers.
The Touch Diamond2 is a slab-style, all-touch-screen Windows phone with a 3.2-inch, 800x480 touch screen. It's running a 528 MHz Qualcomm processor, and has 288 Mbytes of RAM and a MicroSD memory card slot supporting up to 16-GB cards. It connects to the Net using Wi-Fi 802/11b/g, Bluetooth or 3G cellular. There's a 5-megapixel camera on the back, a VGA camera on the front and an FM radio. The phone also has 50 percent longer battery life than the existing Touch Diamond, Wang said.
The model that HTC announced today is technically not for the U.S., but considering the success of the Touch Diamond on Sprint, we're pretty sure a version of this will come to the U.S.
The Touch Pro2 is even more sure to come to the US -- AT&T, Sprint and Verizon all have versions of the original Touch Pro. This Windows phone has a 3.6-inch, 800x480 screen that tilts up for better viewing and a large slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Like the Touch Diamond2, it's got 288 MHz of RAM, a memory card slot, an FM radio, a Qualcomm 528 MHz processor, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The camera here is only 3.2 megapixels, though. When you place the Touch Pro2 face down on a table, it becomes a conference speakerphone with dual speakers and a big mute button on the top.
Annoyingly, neither phone has a standard headphone jack.

The Touch Diamond2 will appear in "early Q2," according to Wang, and the Touch Pro2 will come "in the end of Q2." Both phones will come out with Windows Mobile 6.1, but 6.5 will be a free upgrade for both devices, HTC chief executive Peter Chou said.
Windows Mobile was in fine form at HTC, but Android was nowhere to be seen. Chou said that HTC was still committed to Android and would possibly have more news later in the show.