HTC debuts new Touch Cruise phone with ‘Footprints’ geotagging

Fri, Jan 23, 2009

Filed under: Handsets, HTC, Windows Mobile, GSM, EDGE, HSDPA

touch cruise 2 1 HTC debuts new Touch Cruise phone with Footprints geotagging

HTC’s got an all-new version of its GPS-centric Touch Cruise handset, with a thinner, slicker design and a new HTC Footprints app for integrating that location data with photos and notes. Of course, the phone doubles as a traditional in-car navigation system, cradle included, with GPS and a-GPS, but there’s plenty else to love here, including quad band GSM, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, a microSD slot and a 3.2 megapixel camera. The 2.8-inch QVGA screen betrays this phone’s consumer-bent, but the truly notable functionality here is actually in the software: HTC Footprints takes geotagging a step further, allowing to to take notes and audio clips and embed them in a “postcard” of sorts, all still tied to that GPS location data — the cards are even auto-named by their location. Footprints also works outdoors and indoors, which isn’t quite explained, but we’re guessing it just remembers where you were when you lost a signal. There’s a world-friendly WCDMA / HSPA 900 / 2100MHz version, of course, but us North Americans will be getting the 850 / 1900MHz flavor as a unlocked handset for $500 to $600 in Q2. Check out the read links below for the full PR and some early hands-ons, and there’s video after the break.

Gallery: HTC’s new Touch Cruise