First off, the CDMA HTC Touch Pro2 is expected to arrive imminently on Verizon, hopefully with the 3.5mm headset jack as seen on its Telus counterpart.  The existing Touch Pro has dropped from $419 to $99.

Secondly, the BlackBerry Storm 2 is expected to be the next, big smartphone to land, though that’s not predicted to happen before November 2009.  The Storm 2 is tipped to correct many of the issues users had with RIM’s unique click-through capacitive touchscreen, as well as adding WiFi.

[via wmpoweruser]

For your premium price you get exactly the same handset: Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro, a VGA resolution touchscreen, slide-out QWERTY keyboard and integrated GPS.  Verizon do load on their VZ Navigtor app, together with their VZAppZone download store, but they’re probably not worth an extra $50. 

The Touch Pro has a 3.2-megapixel camera and WiFi.  All prices before are based on signing a new two-year agreement.  You can see our review of the AT&T HTC Fuze here and the HTC Touch Pro here.

In the box you will find a screen protector, extra stylus, charging cable, USB data cable, mini-USB to 3.5mm headphone adapter and the phone itself. Unlike the HTC Touch Pro, the HTC Fuze does not come with a belt holster. The full-QWERTY keyboard on the Fuze is a lot different than the Touch Pro. The first thing you will notice is the designated number keys have been replaced with symbol keys and relocated in a more traditional phone layout.

On the Fuze you will find a dedicated start key that the Touch Pro lacks. In addition you will find designated keys for the calendar, contacts, text, the email inbox and browser, but it doesn’t end there. There are many additional shortcut keys when you press the function (FN) buttons. They include AT&T music, SMS, IM, AT&T’s Cellular Vision service, shortcut to wireless communications options and T9 toggle.

The Fuze weighs in at 5.8oz, just .5oz  heavier than the Touch Pro, but hardly noticeable.  Both handsets have a 1340mAh Lilon battery but the Fuze is rated for longer talk time at up to 6.6 hours; the Touch Pro only has up to 4 hours of talk time. The 3.2-megapixel camera has no notable changes between the two phones, as far as taking pictures and recording video.

The basic UI in the Fuze is the same as the Touch Pro. TouchFLO 3D, however, does not respond as well in the Touch Pro as it does with the Fuze. Visually the Touch Pro looks a lot better with the dark background and bright pictures. The UI on the Fuze is very simple, with white and gray with orange highlights.  Another difference we noticed is the order in which the options are displayed when scrolling through the main menu.

Call quality, on both devices, through the headset and connecting via Bluetooth seems fairly equal between the two. The speakerphone in the Fuze was noticeably louder that the one in the Touch Pro, however the Fuze did not sound as full and rich in sound quality. The Fuze was very sharp in tone, requiring the volume to be turned down occasionally so not to hurt your ears. The Fuse also has the option to expand the memory with a microSD card. We are unsure if the device comes with a microSD card like the Touch Pro, but a card was not included in our box.

Physically, the Fuze is much different than it appears at first glance.  The back of the Fuze is the same as the Touch Diamond, with a diamond-like shape. The Fuze is also a lot more squared off than the Touch Pro, which is rounded. The sides and accents of the Touch Pro are shiny chrome, while the Fuze is all black. The phones are virtually the exact same size, width wise, but when it comes to length, the Touch Pro is two or three millimeters longer. Due to the body design of the Fuze, the stylus is squared at the end, the Touch Pro’s stylus is rounded to fit the contour of the body.

The speaker on the Touch Pro can be located on the top of the device, whereas the speaker on the Fuze is located next to the camera, on the top-left tip of the triangle. The keyboards on the two handsets are built the same, just with different functions. The selection button on the face of the Touch Pro is contoured to better fit your thumb than on the Fuze, whose button is just not as recessed. Another slight difference is the circular directional pattern around the selection button on the Fuze. The last physical difference that can be seen is the addition of the Push-to-Talk (PTT) button just below the volume keys on the left.

Again with the Fuze as with the Touch Pro, we felt that the responsiveness of the touchscreen while using the main menu fell short. We don’t exactly like having the messaging shortcut key take us to email and text messages, we prefer one or the other. Also the numeric keys on the QWERTY keyboard really need to be located along the top, as they have it in the Touch Pro.

Overall the HTC Touch Pro and HTC Fuze are very similar; it really boils down to personal preference, from the overall style of the handsets to the layout of the keyboard. We would have to say we enjoyed the Fuze more, but the numeric keys need to be back up at the top of the keyboard.

If we’ve been having fun, then it’s perhaps almost as much of a good time as ASUS must be having this week.  Impressive financial performance for the last quarter was in no small part aided by the Eee PC series, and ASUS took the opportunity to reveal their plans for a $200 netbook in 2009.  They’ll also concentrate on their 10-inch models – such as the new 10002HA – as well as giving the touchscreen desktop Eee Top a battery and wireless peripherals.

They won’t have it all their own way, though, not if rivals have anything to say about it.  Samsung’s NC10 has finally seen its first major review and come out smelling of roses, while the upcoming Dell Inspiron Mini 12 looks like to storm the sales charts.  Meanwhile, the HP Mini 1000 – sequel to the highly-esteemed Mini-Note 2133 – has arrived and is turning out to be equally as impressive.

Elsewhere, Microsoft’s Windows 7 pre-beta has been released – check out the overview here and the preliminary netbook build here – and the company’s research arm has been showing off their SecondLight dual-display modification of the multitouch Surface.  Meanwhile Google has released Google Earth for the iPhone and, some judicious investigation has revealed, is planning Street View functionality come firmware v2.2.  In fact it’s been a good week for iPhone software: Sonos released a controller app that lets you remotely operate their multi-room audio system.

Finally, we’ve seen a great mod in the shape of an Eee PC based carputer, the launch of Mitsubishi’s incredible LASERVUE HDTV, and the first confirmed unlocking solution for the T-Mobile G1 (complete with an opportunity to win a few codes of your own).  Oh, and we tested out Iomega’s StorCenter ix2, 1TB of RAID-1 storage with super-simple setup. 

Keep reading SlashGear for the full HTC Touch HD review, the BlackBerry Bold review and one or two more developments we’re not allowed to tell you about yet…

Included in the box there is the phone (of course), a 1GB MicroSD card with case, AC charger, USB data cable, an extra stylus, micro-USB headphone adapter, screen protector, belt holster and a wired stereo headset. The phone itself is a little thicker than previous HTC handsets, at 4.17 x 2.05 x 7-inches, however it only weighs 5.3 ounces, battery included. The display is the same 2.8-inch TFT-LCD VGA touchscreen from the Touch Diamond.

The keyboard is laid out perfectly, with designated number keys that don’t feel crowded in any way. The enter and shift keys are twice as wide as the rest, making them easy to locate, and there are shortcuts to the messaging applications. Overall the keyboard seems a little smaller than on other HTC smartphones, but with no drop in usability. The overall thickness of the Touch Pro is larger than that of the original Touch Diamond, but it still remains very handy and usable.

The Touch Pro has a 3.2-megapixel camera that also records video. Taking pictures is a breeze with auto-focus and built in flash; however there’s no dedicated camera shortcut key, just an option in HTC’s TouchFLO 3D user-interface. The Touch Pro is also capable of taking panoramic photos that are virtually seamless, and we’ve spent hours taking panoramic photos of everything in sight. Videos are of good quality in comparison to other smartphones.

The HTC Touch Pro is loaded with plenty of pre-installed applications such as the Opera Browser, Internet Explorer and Windows Live Messenger. In addition to Windows Live Messenger there is another instant messaging client that supports AOL Instant Messenger, Windows Live and Yahoo Instant Messengers. The Touch Pro also comes with Adobe Reader LE, Excel Mobile, Live Search, JETCET PRINT 5, OneNote Mobile, PowerPoint Mobile, RSS Hub, YouTube and Word Mobile to name just a few.

Unfortunately, the processor does not seem to keep up with Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro very well. More often than not scrolling was very choppy and animations were not smooth. TouchFLO 3D did not live up to its potential in the Touch Pro because of the lag that Windows Mobile often had. However when the phone responded the way it was meant to it was very quick and easy to navigate. GPS was slower than you would like; when driving around the phone would display where you previously were, rather than your current location. The only time we felt the Touch Pro accurately tracked our location was when walking down the street.

Using your phone as a modem is very simple. Just plug the Touch Pro into your computer via USB, opening Internet Sharing, select either USB or Bluetooth PAN and hit connect to use your phone as a modem. Connection speeds are relatively quick using both USB and Bluetooth. Video output is surprisingly very good, and it seems a shame that many customers may never know just how crisp the video output of the HTC Touch Pro really is, because you must buy an additional cable to use this feature.

The ability to swap memory cards is quickly becoming more popular among new handsets. Personally we would rather have the option of using a memory card than having the 4GB internal memory that the Touch Diamond had. These days, being able to swap your cards between handsets, and have whatever amount of storage space you like is more covenant than being limited to a certain amount of space that cannot be transferred.

For the most part the Touch Pro can be used with your fingers rather than the included stylus. While the general user interface can be navigated with your fingers without much trouble, some options on the Start menu were harder to select because of the size of the option. The onscreen keyboard was surprisingly easy to use with only your fingers. We found it very odd that the onscreen keyboard only showed up while the physical keyboard was slid out. There was also an onscreen SureType keyboard for use when the device is closed. It appears to be laid out more for the right handed population, with the actual letter input keys further to the left preventing your thumb from being cramped up.

An obvious improvement to the next-gen Touch Pro would be the processor speed. The phone’s processor never seemed to keep up with what was going on, whether it be instant messaging or just flipping through the main menu. Windows mobile did not seem to be the issue here, the phone itself was the under-achiever causing the Touch Pro to lag. More often than not, sliding out the keyboard would call for a 5+ second wait before the phone itself adapted to the change. Also we would like to see a designated camera button for quick photo opportunities. Having more control options such a touch and hold options would make this phone easier to navigate, even without multitouch. Overall, though, aside from the lag that we experienced, the Touch Pro is a fun and very stylish device that is capable of doing many different things. It all comes down to the keyboard, without it this phone would not be nearly as appealing.

We can see a lot of Instinct owners enjoying the Touch Pro. We recommend this phone to anyone who is looking for a device that is capable of doing a lot of useful tasks such as editing Word documents and receiving exchange email. The HTC Touch Pro is priced at $299.99 with a two- year contract , after a $100 mail-in-rebate and a $25-or-higher data add-on or Everything plan with data.

Other specs include GPS, A2DP stereo Bluetooth support and HTC’s TouchFLO 3D GUI that runs on top of Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro.  Although a stylus is included, TouchFLO 3D does make the smartphone much easier to navigate just using fingers.  Onboard storage is 512MB with a microSD card slot (supporting up to 16GB cards) to augment it; RAM is 288MB while the 528MHz Qualcomm processor keeps things running smoothly.

There’s also an accelerometer for automatic screen rotation, a custom YouTube app and Sprint’s Music Store for audio downloads; you can even run presentations direct from the handset, courtesy of a TV-out cable.  The HTC Touch Pro will be available on Sprint from Monday, October 26th, priced at $299.99 with a two-year subscriber agreement, after a $100 mail-in-rebate and a $25-or-higher data add-on or Everything plan with data. 

As the mockup above suggests, the handset would ostensibly be the same as the HTC Touch HD, complete with its 3.8-inch WVGA 800 x 480 touchscreen (complete with haptic feedback), 5-megapixel camera with autofocus and 3G HSDPA.  However heavy messagers and those less than impressed with on-screen keyboards would be able to take advantage of a hardware keyboard, flipping the smartphone into landscape orientation.

HTC have already done a similar thing to the Touch Diamond, taking the existing handset a couple of months after launch and adding a slide-out keyboard in the shape of the HTC Touch Pro.  Of course, in the process that adds weight and thickness; it’s unclear how much extra depth would be added to the Touch HD’s existing 0.47-inch thick casing.

Check out hands-on feedback on the Touch Pro and S740 after the cut

The Touch Pro, also fresh to Sprint, has the same super-speedy EvDO Rev.A data connection, together with a keyboard that is one of the better hardware QWERTY’s on the market today. In fact, having more time with the smartphone than we did with our initial hands-on, we take back the few criticisms we initially made – the Touch Pro is solid, this latest iteration of TouchFLO 3D does the best job yet of masking Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro, and there’s little lag or stalling in use.

As for the S740, this was perhaps HTC’s surprise device – surprising in that, while you might assume a Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard smartphone would pale a little compared to its touchscreen brethren, the S740 is actually a very nice handset. The design and feel is reminiscent of a B&O device, being sturdy and feeling high-quality; the keyboard slide is firm and precise, with no evidence of looseness in the mechanism, and the front panel buttons are tactile and responsive. Unfortunately HTC still don’t believe the market in the US is looking for a device like the S740, and so they have no plans to distribute it outside of Europe.

We’ll be taking a closer look at Sprint’s new handsets over the next few days, so keep reading SlashGear for the full reviews.

(Left: Eric Lin, Middle: Keith Nowak (formerly with Nokia, now with HTC Americas) and me.

The Sprint version of the HTC Touch Diamond was recently reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, who criticised Windows Mobile 6.1 but generally had good things to say about the HTC hardware.  As with other recent handsets from the company, both smartphones use the HTC TouchFLO 3D GUI, a more finger-friendly overlay that attempts to hide most of Windows Mobile’s native UI.

The HTC Touch Diamond will be available in September and will cost $249.99 with a two-year contract and after a $100 mail-in rebate. The HTC Touch Pro will be available in all Sprint retail channels beginning October 19, for $299.99 with a two-year contract and after a $100 mail-in rebate.

A cached page on Google shows information detailing a device called the HTC Fuze on the AT&T website! All the expected specs are there including a GPS, tri-band HSDPA, WiFi and more. But at the moment, there’s no word on when the Fuze will be released. Until then, though, you can enjoy the specs we can expect to see on this Windows Mobile-running device after the cut.

HTC FUZE™(touch screen)
HTC takes Windows Mobile® smartphone design to the next level with the introduction of the highly desirable and elegant HTC FUZE™. The multi faceted HTC FUZE™ is a 3G tri-band HSDPA Windows Mobile smartphone brought to you by AT&T, which allows you access to the world and to a world of features. Going on a trip? Whether it’s a spring break cruise to the islands or a business meeting in Hong Kong, AT&T has you covered with the HTC FUZE™. With the largest international footprint of any wireless provider and the powerful HTC FUZE™, only AT&T customers can make and receive calls in more than 200 countries and on 75 major cruise ships. The HTC FUZE™ for AT&T also offers e-mail and Web browsing capabilities in more than 145 countries. The world is your office with Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional and the HTC FUZE™. Get full access to your Microsoft Outlook mailbox, contacts, calendar, notes, and tasks; edit Microsoft Office documents or view Adobe® PDF attachments; or take advantage of support for multiple email applications including Microsoft Direct Push, Good™ Mobile Messaging, and Blackberry® Connect™.

The HTC FUZE™ is a powerful smartphone that features a large VGA touch screen that includes HTC’s one touch single handed operation TouchFlo 3D user interface for quick access to most used phone features. The HTC FUZE™ includes an AT&T defined 5 row slide out / slide away keyboard for quick text entry and ultra fast messaging. The HTC FUZE™ is one of the most integrated wireless smartphone on the market today. The HTC FUZE™ keeps you connected with email, text and instant messaging, Internet access, personal organizer, video, satellite radio, and more—all at broadband speeds. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS navigation, and Push to Talk round out the robust feature package making the HTC FUZE™ your “ultimate mobile smartphone”.

Get to your destination quicker using voice-guided directions and real-time traffic information from AT&T Navigator. When work is done, relax with AT&T’s Cellular Video (CV) service. Browse the web using a browser like the one on your desktop – zoom in and zoom out. Catch up on the most recent news or enjoy the latest music videos, HBO Mobile®, or sports on ESPN®. Download hot, new music with AT&T Mobile Music or stream XM Satellite radio.

Whether you’re a mobile professional or a professional mobile user, the HTC FUZE™ is the “ultimate mobile smartphone” that allows you to be in charge of your life at work and at play —virtually wherever you go

[via Windows Mobile PDAs at AT&T Wireless via Engadget Mobile]

This week, we discussed in random order a number of different products ranging from the new Motorola ROKR E8 to a new screen cleaner called Surface.  There’s a little bit of everything for everyone including a review of the ASUS Eee PC 901, Kyocera KR2/KPC 680, Toshiba Satellite Pro U400, and first look of the Samsung Z400 and T-Mobile @Home.  We also discussed the purchase of Helio by Virgin Mobiles for $39M.  This in my opinion is a sad thing because my friends will be out of a job soon.

Ashley was thrilled with the Voodoo laptop and really like the Wiimote concept.  I on the other hand got an exclusive first hand look HTC Touch Pro, but am not too impressed with its thickness.  It’s a big shame HTC ruined it by not slimming the handset down closer to the thickness of the HTC Diamond.  And speaking of being impressed, I was totally blown away by awesomeness of the Sony Ericsson C905 8.1 Cybershot 8.1-megapixel camera phone, Blackberry Bold and Nokia E71.

To an untrained eye, the HTC Touch Pro may look just like the Touch Diamond.  Other than the more rounded edges, they’re nearly identical.  I found that the keys on the Touch Pro are smaller than those on other HTC QWERTY smartphones like the T-Mobile Wing or the Tilt for AT&T, but they’re still usable and have a good feel to them.

Another difference between the Touch Pro and the Diamond is the lack of a glossy back surface, which I welcome because I can’t stand fingerprints.

The Touch Pro also has a microSD memory card slot located on the upper left hand corner underneath the cover.  To the right of the microSD memory card slot is the SIM card slot.

The battery was missing from the device; so I didn’t get to test-drive the TouchFLO 3D user interface or its performance in comparison to the Diamond.  If you love or think you love the Diamond, but can’t live without a QWERTY keyboard and don’t mind a thicker device, then the Touch Pro might be a great choice for you.

Click to view the entire image gallery of the HTC Touch Pro.  Enjoy the hands-on video below and make sure to click through to watch the video in high quality!