HTC intros Snap phone with QWERTY, Inner Circle
updated 04:50 pm EDT, Wed April 1, 2009
HTC intros Snap smartphone
Demonstrating at the CTIA Wireless expo, HTC has introduced the Snap, a Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard smartphone with a BlackBerry-like exterior. Unique to the phone is the Inner Circle feature, involving a dedicated key which serves as a shortcut to e-mail messages from a group of pre-selected contacts. Filtered messages are brought to the top of the phone's inbox. The Snap's 2.4-inch, 320x240 display does not have touch functionality, instead necessitating a trackball to control the TouchFLO 3D interface.
The 12mm-thick phone uses a 528MHz Qualcomm CPU, with 192MB of RAM. Default storage is only 256MB, but can be expanded through a microSDHC card slot. Synchronizing e-mail, contacts and calendars with an Exchange server is possible via the phone's 3G connection, as well as over Wi-Fi; wireless options also include Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR.
The Snap otherwise sports a two-megapixel camera with video recording capabilities, and a GPS sensor that may be locked to provide only assisted GPS functions. A 1,500mAh battery is good for 8.5 hours of talk time on GSM networks, or 5 hours on WCDMA providers.
The Snap will become available in certain European markets during the spring, with other markets joining in the second half of the year. An unlocked US version of the phone with 850/1900MHz HSDPA network support will be released in the summer, though it will be called the S522. No pricing information for either version has been released.
