htc

And another HTC device: the Touch Pro 2. It should be available worldwide early this summer, and will integrate the following features:

• 3.6" WVGA display;
• Sliding QWERTY keyboard;
• Improved battery life;
• Expandable memory;
• 2 speakers;
• 2 microphones;
• touch-sensitive zoom bar;
• gravity, ambient light and proximity sensors;
• Straight Talk function

Nice! Looks like a potential winner if you ask me.

The Mobile World Congress 2009 has begun today, so let's see what phone manufacturers have prepared for us, shall we? First stop - HTC with its newly-unveiled Diamond 2. Here are some of its features for you to compare with the ones of the previous version:

• Longer battery life (about 50% more);
• 3.2" WVGA display (800 x 480);
• 5Mpix autofocus camera;
• Gravity sensoer;
• Ambient light sensor;
• 13.

If you own an HTC Touch Pro, click here to donload the official pre-alpha version of the Mozilla Fennec browser for your handset.

Australian carrier Optus will soon be launching T-Mobile's G1 in its homemarket as the HTC Dream. It'll launch on February 16th on plans beginning at AU$59 (about $38) per month.

"Dream" is a good choice for a custom name, as this is how the G1 was called before its official announcement.

Below you can see a video of the HTC S743 being unboxed with all due comments. In case you forgot, the S743 is a nice new smartphone for the U.S. market, equipped with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a 2.4" QVGA display, and running Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard.

Folks over at xda-developers have built a new beta ROM containing a version of Manilla2D with Footprints for HTC Touch smartphones from Alltel, Bell Mobility, Sprint and Verizon Wireless. As you understand, the ROM isn't official, so flash at your own risk, and remember to back up your data before you do so.

UMA-compatible phones are always welcomed at the market, and T-Mobile pleased its customers today by releasing two of such handsets, including the revised version of the HTC Shadow, as well as the stylish 7510 flip from Nokia.

The new Shadow is apparently the first Windows Mobile device to support HotSpot calls over Wi-Fi.

WMExperts are reporting that the Firefox Mobile browser, codenamed Fennec, could become availailable for testing on the HTC Touch Pro. The device runs Windows Mobile, and all the browsers released for this platform turned out to be superior to the default Internet Explorer.

We'll see whether Fennec will be a good competitor to Safari or Opera.

Thanks to some PPCGeeks.com forum members, a couple of HTC's CDMA smartphones, such as the HTC Touch and the HTC Touch Pro can now run a hacked pre-release version of Windows Mobile 6.5. The new ROMs are now available for download at PPCGeeks.com forum, so if you're willing to risk bricking your handset, feel free to try the new OS.

XDA-Developers have managed to install Windows Mobile 6.5 on the HTC Raphael/Fuze. They say there's still much work to be done, and a number of bugs to be fixed. Anyway, it's great news, and we'd definitely try it once the final biuld is released.