HTC to launch new smartphones in UK

Chinese telecommunications supplier HTC has announced two new handsets set to compete on the UK smartphone market.

Distribution partners Brightstar and Brightpoint will be bringing the HTC 7 Pro and the HTC Gratia to British stores from from Feburary 2011.

The HTC 7 Pro will run Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 and has an impressive 1 GHz processor, a 3.6 inch tilting screen and a full QWERTY keyboard. Aimed at business users, it also features Dolby Mobile and Microsoft Outlook as standard.

The more commercial HTC Gratia will run Google's Android 2.2 operating system, as well as being far more compact, weighing just 4.06 oz and featuring an ergonomic rubberised backplate. Aimed at younger, more social users, it features HTC's patent Friend Stream, designed to integrate social networks such as Facebook and Twitter into one interface. The phone also comes with an option of a white casing.

HTC Executive Director Jon French stated that “we are proud to be able to add two new phones to our already diverse UK product portfolio. Both phones offer the stand-out design and innovation for which HTC has become renowned.”

The smartphones are natural successors to HTC's 2008 G1, the first smartphone to use Google's pioneering, open-source operating system, a trend now followed by many of the products on the market. In the same spirit HTC developed the Nexus One with Google in 2010, using Android 2.2.2.

There have also been rumours that HTC will be releasing a tablet to compete with Apple's market-dominating iPad at some point this year.