HTC Shows off Touch Pro2 and Touch Diamond2

The duo of Touch handsets have been updated with fresh styling, new capabilities, and the potential to upgrade to Windows Mobile 6.5.

HTC’s Touch Pro and Touch Diamond may have just found their way onto U.S. carriers recently, but the Taiwanese company already has plans for sequels in the works. On Monday, HTC took the wraps off the HTC Touch Pro2 and Diamond2, which will sport a variety of upgrades and the eventual ability to run Windows Mobile 6.5 when it debuts.

Much like the originals, the Diamond2 will be the slimmer variant, while the Pro2 will get a full QWERTY keypad (and the extra bulk to go with it). HTC has kept the fairly angular look of the Diamond intact on its predecessor, but reworked the Pro2 with a more rounded-edge design, similar in some ways to the special version of the original phone sold on Sprint.

Both phones retain the same high 640 x 480 resolution they originally used, but the displays have been scaled up to 3.2 inches on the Touch Diamond2 and 3.6 inches on the Touch Pro2, making the latter larger in both size and resolution than the iPhone’s 3.5-inch display.

HTC’s TouchFLO interface remains, but has been tweaked to include a “single contact view,” which aggregates messages exchanged with a person over e-mail, IM, text and voice to show them all on one page. A new feature called Push Internet will also allow users to flag their favorite Web sites and have them pre-cached on the phone daily, eliminating the initial load time for viewing them.

Both handsets will be available on the European and Asian markets early in the second quarter, with availability elsewhere by the end of the year. Windows Mobile 6.5 should be available as an upgrade during the second half of 2009.