HTC Touch2 To Be World's First WinMo 6.5 SmartphoneHTC Touch2 To Be World's First WinMo 6.5 Smartphone

HTC decided to step on Nokia's toes today by making a fairly weighty announcement of its own. The HTC Touch2, which will be available next month, will be the first smartphone to run Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6.5.The Touch2 is the latest in HTC's Touch series of phones. It is the now-familiar candybar shape and features a large touch screen for interacting with the device.

Windows Mobile 6.5 will give the Touch2 a leg up on the WinMo 6.1 competition when it is released next month. It will come with Microsoft's Marketplace for Mobile and MyPhone services tightly integrated with the operating system. It will also run HTC's TouchFLO user interface on top of WinMo 6.5 Professional.

Internet Explorer 6 will be on board with full support for HTML Web sites and Flash. Yes, Flash support! That means browsing the Web will be far superior on the Touch2 when compared to today's WinMo 6.1 phones.

The rest of the specs of the Touch2 are pretty impressive. As far as radios go, it will have quad-band GSM/EDGE and support for 900/2100MHz European 3G networks. No support for North American 3G networks has been announced, but HTC is always willing to work with U.S. carriers to make them happy. Let's not forget about Wi-Fi, stereo Bluetooth, GPS.

It also has a 3.2 megapixel camera with fixed focus, a 3.5mm headset jack, and microSD memory card slot.

HTC didn't say exactly where the device will be launching, but given the support for Euro 3G, I'd say somewhere in Europe.