HP's rumored touchscreen handset has showed up in the for of the iPaq Data Communicator, a pop-out QWERTY Windows Mobile handset, with a solid but predictable spec sheet. You'll find a full range of 3G capabilities, Wi-Fi, a-GPS, a 3.1MP camera with autofocus and flash all behind a 2.8in, 320 x 240 screen, controlled with a 5-way "optical navigation" key.
It measures in at the same respectable 1.7cm thickness as the T-Mobile G1 — a little thinner than its clear competitor, the HTC Touch Pro. For the old-fashioned types, you can find most of the same guts in the Voice Communicator, a sleek, half-qwerty candybar phone
HP's choice to use Windows Mobile here is an expected one, but it's still unclear how they plan to differentiate these handsets from the existing crowd of nearly identical hardware running the aging OS.
In a best-case scenario, HP expands their TouchSmart brand downward, adapting their impressive PC touch interfaces to phones, hiding Windows, as HTC has for years, under a slick, modern shell. There's no mention of such software on HP's spec pages, we can hope, right? The Voice and Data Communicators are only available in Europe now, for €399 and €499, respectively.
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