HTC revealed a few more details on it’s upcoming smartphone devices, the Diamond Touch 2 and the Touch Pro 2. Among the various technical and software details was one piece of info that has caused a collective wince – the price.

The pricing details were only for the Singapore launch, but it gives us an idea of what to expect for the global launches. The Diamond 2 will exchange hands for the princely sum of 555 euro, while the Pro 2 comes in at 675 euro.

What are you getting for that?

The handsets have the newest version of HTCs TouchFLO user-interface installed. Complaints that the previous version was only visible on the surface level, and that once you got into the menu system it was a user-hostile experience, must have made an impact on HTC. The new version is apparently integrated much deeper into the menu systems of the phone.

The phones have introduced a new Push Internet technology, which sounds much like the push capabilities of iPhone 3.0 – allowing faster mobile web browsing.

For the Diamond 2, it keeps all the functions of the original and improves on them slightly. The camera is bigger, the screen is higher res.

The Pro2 is designed for businessmen. The main feature seems to be the new Straight Talk function that allows email, voice and speakerphone to be accessed at the same time. HTC claims that the Pro2 allows conference calls from any location by having advanced speaker and microphone capabilities – simply turning the Pro2 face down on a surface will automatically turn into a speakerphone.

The HTC Diamond Touch 2

What we think?

Hoo boy, that’s a big price tag. It’ll be interesting to see what the prices are like when those devices get a US and European launch. High prices proved no barrier for the iPhone, but that was a first of it’s kind. Even for the Pro2, you can understand why they might ask that much – after all, it is an enterprise class device. But for the Diamond 2, a consumer device, I just can’t see how a price tag of over 500 euro is going to do well.

NewsDesk for week-ending 27/03/2009: Telefonica and Vodafone agree to share their network infrastructure; plus thinking outside the iPhone box; touch technology like you’ve never felt before and Google’s Street View caught with its pants down!

Participants:
Camille Mendler, VP Research, Yankee Group
Charlotta Falvin, CEO, TAT- The Astonishing Tribe
G. Craig Vachon, SVP/GM – Touch, Immersion

Name: Camille Mendler, Charlotta Falvin, G. Craig Vachon
Title: VP Research, CEO, SVP/GM – Touch
Company: Yankee Group, TAT- The Astonishing Tribe, Immersion
Recorded: 27/03/2009 – London, England