MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS
DON SAMBANDARAKSA
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| HTC’s Touch Viva entry level touch phone is aimed at university students, such as these two fashion design students from Thammasat University. |
HTC has launched the new Touch Viva phone in the Thai market aimed at students and buyers who would otherwise select a conventional phone.
Nattawut Woranopakul, country manager at HTC Thailand, said that since its launch, the original Touch has sold over ten million phones world wide and is second only to "a certain brand" in the touch-screen segment.
The Touch Viva follows on from the high-end Touch Diamond launch by offering an entry-level phone at a price point (12,900 baht inc. VAT) comparable to many high-end non-touch phones on the market while still offering the Internet access, communication and productivity tools that come with PDA phones.
To lower the cost, the phone does not have 3G and uses a slower processor, the venerable TI OMap clocked at 201MHz, and a lower resolution 320 by 240 2.8in. QVGA screen. This means that it cannot use HTC's new TouchFlo 3D user interface and has a new, simplified 2D user interface.
The other phone launched is the S740, a high-end smartphone modelled after the Touch Diamond with a slide-out qwerty Keyboard priced at 18,900 baht. This phone has GPS, 3G (900 and 2100) and Wi-Fi connectivity. It is based on a 528MHz Qualcomm MSM7225 CPU.
Asked about HTC's position on Thailand's frequency selection, Nattawut explained that of the 41 countries in Asia-Pacific, Thailand will be only the second or third country to use 850MHz. 850 is used by one operator in Australia, Telstra, and the Philippines is considering licensing that frequency.
He said that HTC has to build products for a world market and the vast majority are 2100/900.
However, in future, HTC plans to offer more phones that are tri-band 850/900 and 2100 when it comes to 3G.
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