reseller Carphone Warehouse, according to the companies.
Featuring modified navigation buttons, the Needle appears to be nothing more and nothing less than a
Touch that went to the beauty salon. Its published dimensions and technical specifications mirror those of the original Touch exactly, including GSM/GPRS/EDGE cellular connectivity, WiFi, and Bluetooth.
Again, the Needle employs HTC's influential
TouchFLO user interface, which allows users to move from screen to screen by sliding their fingers on the display. It also offers the same 2.8-inch QVGA (320 x 240) display and 2 megapixel camera as the Touch.
HTC and Ted Baker put the original Touch (left) in a party frock (right)
As is sadly common among resellers of mobile phones, Carphone Warehouse does not state the processor used by the Needle. If truly identical to the original Touch, this would be a TI OMAP 850 SoC (system-on-chip) clocked at 201 MHz. However, perhaps in response to complaints that TouchFLO ran too sluggishly, HTC employed a 400 MHz Qualcomm MSM7200 in its updated, keyboard-equipped
Touch Dual, and may have done so for the Needle as well.
Features and specifications that are listed for the Needle by Carphone Warehouse include:
- Processor -- unspecified
- Memory -- 64MB RAM; 128MB flash
- Display -- 2.8-inch QVGA (240 x 320 pixel) 65K-color LCD touchscreen with backlight
- Camera -- 2.0 mega-pixel CMOS color camera
- Wireless Connectivity:
- WAN -- GSM/GPRS/EDGE Tri-band: 900, 1800, 1900
- WLAN -- 802.11b/g
- PAN -- Bluetooth
- Dimensions -- 3.9 x 2.3 x 0.5 inches (99.9 x 58 x 13.9 mm)
- Weight -- 4 ounces (112 g), with battery
- Battery:
- rechargeable 1100 mAh Li-Ion battery
- Up to 5 hrs talk time, 200 hrs standby time
Like the workaday Touch, the Needle runs Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6 Professional OS, and is equipped with Direct Push email as well as HTML email capabilities. Other bundled software is said to include Internet Explorer, Outlook Mobile, Office Mobile, Windows Live, and Windows Media Player 10.
The Needle appears to be available now, free to those who sign up for a contract with U.K. carrier Orange at the cost of 35 per month. More information is available from the Carphone Warehouse website,
here.
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