Just Geeky

HTC and Apple smartphone segments to cross in NovemberDaniel Shen, Taipei; Steve Shen, DIGITIMES [Friday 19 October 2007]

High Tech Computer (HTC) and Apple will cross one another’s market segment for touch screen controlled smartphones in early November when HTC begins to push sales of its HTC Touch in the US and Apple starts selling its iPhone in Europe, according to sources in Taiwan’s handset industry.

HTC and Sprint Nextel have jointly announced that they will start marketing on November 4 the CDMA-version of the HTC Touch through Sprint’s channel in the US.

On the other hand, the iPhone is to debut in the UK, France and Germany starting at the end of this month or in early November, roughly a half-year after HTC began selling its HTC Touch in Europe in June.

O2 of the UK and T-Mobile of Germany are scheduled to start selling the iPhone on November 9, while Orange of France is to begin iPhone sales on November 29, according to a Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN) report.

Operating on the Sprint Mobile Broadband network, the HTC Touch will bring together email and other business applications with Sprint’s exclusive multimedia content, including over-the-air music downloads and live TV and more, the companies said in a joint press release.

Through Sprint’s sales channel, the HTC Touch will be priced at US$249.99 with a two-year subscriber agreement, according to the press release.

The HTC-Sprint pricing is competitive compared to the US$399 for a two-year subscriber contract for the 8GB iPhone from AT&T, contended market sources in Taiwan.

Furthermore, the HTC Touch supports 3G, while the iPhone supports only EDGE technology, the sources pointed out. However, the built-in memory of the HTC Touch, at 256MB ROM/128MB RAM, is lower than the iPhone’s 8GB memory, the sources noted.

Motorola’s MOTO Q 9h (available exclusively with Rogers Wireless in Canada) is a 3G-powered smartphone operating on Rogers Wireless’ High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) network that can up- or download Web content in “as fast as 3.6 megabytes per second.” The MOTO Q 9h comes with a built-in QWERTY keyboard, GPS, a 2.0 mega-pixel camera with flash, and a 15 frames-per-second movie mode. There’s also a microSD memory card slot.Motorola and Rogers expect a wide demographic to be interested in the new phone. “The MOTO Q 9h is not simply the domain of corporate enterprise professionals,” says Jim Madigan, Director, GSM Sales. “It will be used as a tool to organize work and social lives, IM friends, capture, store, and playback video, update Web pages and blogs via mobile Web, and listen to music wire-free with compatible stereo Bluetooth enabled devices. As download speeds increase and high speed network coverage expands, we’re going to see even more people exploring the vast capabilities smartphones like the MOTO Q 9h have to offer.”

As one of the first all-in-one devices to feature Windows Mobile 6, the Moto Q 9h offers Windows users a familiar interface. E-mails are delivered in their original HTML format and displayed as they would be on a PC; Word and Excel files can also be viewed and edited in their original formatting. Windows Mobile 6 also offers a valuable set of important device security and management features that include the capability to remotely wipe all data from a device should it be lost or stolen.

The MOTO Q 9h includes Direct Push Technology for e-mail delivery and automatic synchronization of Outlook calendars, tasks and contacts through Microsoft Exchange Server. With POP3 email support, the MOTO Q 9h can manage up to eight different personal e-mail and messaging accounts with no added fees. Customers can also communicate with friends and family via SMS and MMS messages, and IM using such popular platforms as Windows Live Messenger, which is pre-loaded on the Moto Q 9h, or AOL and Yahoo! via a download. In addition to e-mail, business users will be able to access TeleNav GPS Navigator for GPS-enabled turn-by-turn voice and on-screen driving directions, including traffic delay alerts and re-routing for use in vehicles or on foot.

The MOTO Q 9h will be available for $249.99 exclusively through Rogers Wireless retail locations or via www.rogers.com/q9h or rogers.com/q9h-fr. For additional information, please visit www.hellomoto.com.