HTC today announced the HTC Touch Cruise, a mobile phone that is optimized to run as a personal navigation handset with its inbuilt GPS and ability to geotag places you go with a photo and audio notes. The new HTC Touch Cruise is an update to last year's popular HTC Touch Cruise model, but it sports a more compact design and several new features.
Of particular note is HTC Footprints, an application that enables you to chronicle places you visit by capturing "digital postcards" on the phone that includes a 3.2MP photo, along with the ability to attach notes and an audio clip to remind you of the location's significance. Footprints will automatically geotag the specific GPS coordinates, and even auto-names each "postcard" with its general location or area.
The HTC Touch Cruise can also be used as an advanced in-car navigation system. Just stick it into its car cradle and the HTC Touch Cruise automatically transforms its user interface into an easy-to-use, one-touch interface with turn-by-turn directions.
It sports a decent 2.8 inch QVGA display along with HTC's TouchFLO technology. Because it's only QVGA, tt's not TouchFLO 3D, but rather TouchFLO 2D. Still, the TouchFLO 2D UI for Windows Mobile 6.1 is an improvement over the regular UI. It also has a built-in good quality 3.2MP camera, Bluetooth, 512 MB flash ROM & 256 MB RAM, and a Qualcomm MSM7225 processor running at 528 MHz. No slide-out keyboard though. Personally, I'd like to see HTC build the HTC Touch HD with a slide-out keyboard. There are rumors that HTC is building the HTC Touch HD Pro with a slide-out keyboard.
HTC Touch Cruise Specifications
- Size: 102 x 53.5 x 14.5mm
- Weight: 103 grams
- Connectivity: WCDMA/HSPA: 900/2100MHz. HSDPA 7.2 Mbps
- Operating system: Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional
- Display: 2.8-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with QVGA resolution
- Control panel: HTC TouchFLO™, 4-Way navigation wheel with Enter and HTC Footprints™ buttons
- Camera: 3.2 MP, with fixed focus
- Internal memory: 512 MB flash ROM, 256 MB RAM
- Expansion Slot: microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
- Bluetooth: 2.0 with EDR
- Wireless: Wi-Fi 802.11b/g
- GPS: GPS/A-GPS
- Interface: HTC ExtUSB (mini-USB 2.0 and audio jack in one)
- Battery: 1100 mAh
- Talk time: GSM: up to 400 minutes
- Standby time: GSM: up to two weeks
- Chipset: Qualcomm® MSM7225™, 528 MHz
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It seems like today's new cellphone's are only about cool features and people who sit on their desk all day with a charger. It is retarded that they reduced the battery power of the first Touch Cruise that barely gets you through the day. OK, imagine you don't sit at your own desk all day long. (CEO's, CIO's consultants, sales force, system engineers and all the other people who make enough money to afford this phone.)
If you speak with your secretary, customer support, other sales people, conference calls and so on. At 4:30 - 5:00 PM your phone is Guaranteed dead. Now you are stuck at an airport and you just missed your flight and you have to call your travel agent or airline for half an hour. Well, your wonderful phone is already in the red area, have fun. Oh, then you get to the place you want and take a footprint. At this time I am just laughing at HTC and all the other companies that come out with smaller and smaller batteries. What are you stupid? Start thinking and develop phones that people can actually use not just show to their friends and say cool. Oh, sorry I forgot, once you get to your friends, your phone is already dead.
HTC what were you thinking, come on, for real business people this is no phone. Are you wondering why people hold on to their old blackberries? Just start thinking battery and you get to the solution very fast.
I looked at the phone and was very excited to upgrade my old Touch Cruise to the new one. Not with this battery disaster. I feel companies go more and more from Usability to cool features and that is completely not the way to get people excited about your new phones.
HTC please explain to me who you develop these phones for? How are they supposed to work for me when it is dead at 5:00 PM on a normal busy day and earlier on real busy days?
The Dark Lord.