HTC announced the European launch of the HTC Touch Dual, a new pda phone of the Touch family that integrates 3.5G wireless connectivity with a sleek and innovative sliding keypad design. Taking a design cue from the stylish HTC Touch, the HTC Touch Dual adds high speed 3G/HSDPA connectivity and a slide out keypad into a thin and narrow device designed for easy typing.

The HTC Touch Dual is the second device to feature HTC's TouchFLO, the same gesture-recognition technology as that in the HTC Touch, but now with new functionality including the ability to view photo slideshows using on-screen controls and to zoom and rotate images with only one hand. TouchFLO also allows enhanced finger touch scrolling and browsing of web pages, documents, messages and contact lists.

The HTC Touch Dual with Windows Mobile software offers a rich and familiar experience that will enable users to stay connected and access the people, information and entertainment.

The HTC Touch Dual will be available to customers across Europe later this month. The HTC Touch Dual will launch with either a 12 or 20-key keypad across Europe, depending on country and operator choice.

The first pan-European operator partner to launch the HTC Touch Dual will be Orange, which will launch it in the UK, France, Romania and Poland as part of its Signature Series, and in Switzerland as a non-Signature device.

Separately, HTC today also announced an additional colour variant and a free, full-screen virtual keypad download for the original HTC Touch. From October the HTC Touch will be available in stylish Arctic Silver in addition to the black version launched in June. The virtual keypad will be available via download from the HTC website at www.htceurope.com .

Key features of HTC Touch Dual

• Size: 107 x 55 x 15.8 mm
• Weight: 120 grams
• Connectivity: WCDMA/HSDPA: 2100 MHz/GSM/EDGE: 900/1800/1900 MHz
• Operating system: Windows Mobile 6 Professional
• Display: 2.6-inch QVGA flat touch screen
• Camera: 2 megapixel plus front facing camera for video calling
• Internal memory: 256 MB flash, 128 MB RAM
• Removable memory: microSD slot
• Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR
• HTC ExtUSB (mini-USB and audio jack in one; USB 2.0 Full-Speed)
• Battery: 1100 mAh
• Talk time: WCDMA: up to 240 minutes, GSM: up to 360 minutes
• Standby time: WCDMA: up to 150 hours, GSM: up to 250 hours 
• Chipset: Qualcomm MSM7200, 400 MHz