HTC introduces the Touch Cruise – a new GPS enabled Windows Mobile handset

HTC introduced their latest Windows Mobile handset with built-in GPS functionality last week called the HTC Touch Cruise. This latest smartphone from HTC features a more compact design than previous models, and a new application called HTC Footprints. Footprints allows you to capture small digital postcards of all the places you go with the Touch Cruise – yes, a digital diary of sorts. Once you’ve captured an image, you can take notes, or add in a sound byte through an audio clip and associate it to the Footprint. Of course, since we’re talking about a GPS enabled phone, Footprints will geo-tag your postcard – providing location information – as well as auto-name it with the general location or area it was taken in.

The Touch Cruise can also be used as an advanced in-car navigation system. Simply place the unit in the accompanying car cradle, and use the Touch Cruise’s one-touch user interface for turn by turn directions.

Features and specs of the Touch Cruise include the following:

2.8 inch touch-sensitive QVGA display
HTC TouchFlo interface
Support for WCDMA/HSPA: 900/2100MHz. HSDPA 7.2 Mbps
Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional OS
4 way navigation wheel
3.2 megapixel with fixed focus lens
512MB ROM, 256MB RAM
microSD slot
Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR
802.11 b/g Wi-Fi
Built-in GPS
miniUSB 2.0 and audio jack in one
Audio format support includes AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR, AWB, QCP, MP3, WMA, WAV, MIDI
Video format support includes WMV, ASF, MP4, 3GP, 3G2, M4V, AVI
Qualcomm MSM7225 528MHz processor

Expect the HTC Touch Cruise to come out in the Spring of this year. DigiTimes reports that O2 will market the Touch Cruise under the O2 XDA Guide name.