Click to View

Windows Mobile device juggernaut HTC this week introduced its latest smartphone, the Touch Cruise, a new model closely related to the Touch and the HTC Touch Dual.

Like those smartphones, the Touch Cruise sports HTC’s proprietary TouchFLO technology, which essentially grafts an advanced touch interface onto the Windows Mobile GUI to challenge Apple's iPhone at its own game.

As a result, the Windows Mobile 6 Professional (formally known as Pocket PC Phone) smartphone is capable of recognizing and responding to the sweep of a finger across the Touch Cruise's 2.8-inch, 240 x 320 pixel (QVGA) touch screen..

TouchFLO is even supposed to be intelligent enough to distinguish between finger and stylus input and then respond accordingly. Sweep your fingers across the display to launch an animated, three-dimensional interface comprising three screens: Contacts, Media and Applications.

The interface can be spun by swiping a finger right or left across the display, providing what appears to be easier access to these features for consumers than a normal Windows Mobile interface for most.

TouchFLO also delivers finger touch scrolling and browsing of Web pages, documents, messages and contact lists.

The Touch Cruise measures 4.3 x 2.3 x 0.6 inches (110 x 58 x 15.5 millimeters) and 4.6 ounces (130 grams).

With it, HTC bumps the integrated camera, for picture and video, up to a higher resolution 3 megapixel over its first two TouchFLO models, which sported 2 megapixel shooters.

There's also Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, support for 3G UMTS/HSDPA cellular-data networking, and GPS in the GSM smartphone.

HTC bundles TomTom Navigator 6 software and maps to support the device’s GPS receiver. You only get data for a single city, however. Location-based information for additional areas costs extra.

The Touch Cruise runs on a 400MHz, 128MB of RAM, 256MB of ROM and a 1350 mAH battery. A microSD card slot is available to greatly increase available storage.

HTC plans to launch the Touch Cruise later this month in Europe for an unspecified price.

HTC has not said when or even if the new smartphone will ship in the U.S. Since its a quad-band smartphone with support for a couple of U.S.-friendly GSM bands and 3G UMTS/HSDPA 3G bands (see full device specs here), there's a good possibility the Touch Cruise will eventually make it to our side of the pond, however.