[PaulOBrien]

Welcome to our coverage of the 01/10/07 HTC launch event in London!

We (myself and Monolithix (MVP) aka Chris) will be at the event, liveblogging, taking pics and maybe even streaming the event (if we get the setup working)

You'll find our FlickR stream of pics from the event below, alongside our uStream.TV live coverage, followed by the text liveblog (you might want to open the uStream page in a seperate window. Note, if the stream isn't running when you open the page, it won't auto start when we come online!)

News page readers, you'll need to view the full topic to see the liveblog!

The fun starts just before 11:30 am BST!

P

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[PaulOBrien]

Paul's Liveblog

01/10/07, 9am:

If you're reading this, greetz from the train to London, and yay, my new liveblog tool works.

Entertain me on the train by popping in and saying hi in Palringo (.com - channel 'modaco') :-)

So let's get some conversation going... what excites most? Touch slide or Wings?

9:30am: No sign of the trolley service yet. I need tea! :-)

11:30am: We've arrived! The uStream is on (sans sound) while we wait for the event to start. Apologies for the quality, but hopefully you'll be able to see and hear something interesting once we get going. I'll be liveblogging it here too.

Now to sip bucks fizz while we wait for the action to start

11:50am: Hopefully it'll be starting soon! We're also recording the event with a camcorder, which we will have online later this afternoon, in better quality one would hope If it doesn't get started soon, we're gonna need more booze. Hang on, it's not even midday yet, what is wrong with us. Oh, Chris is on Orange Juice. It's just me then

Update, kickoff will be at midday!

Not sure if the sides are going to be visble using the live stream, we'll grab these from the camcorder video if not. Broadcasting form a MacBook using a Logitech PC camera, as the iSight camera on a MacBook isn't rotatable. Damn und blast :|

12:00pm: We're being herded into the event hall, looks like the fun is about to start!

A quick hello from Rafe (allaboutsymbian) on the broadcast there. What's he doing here?

We're GO! Peter Chou, president of HTC is on stage!

New products! No kidding

Core area of HTC's strategies - Perfect match - device design and diversity.

Technology innovation - HTC's 'firsts' now on screen. PPC 200, 2002, Smartphone, 3G PDA, Triband 3G etc.

HTC first to ship Qualcomm 7xxx chips, including to the US. Significant re: patent dispute?

Listening to the customer. Combining customer feedback with technology. TyTN II touted as an example. Devices on screen - Shift, Advantage, TyTN II, Artemis / Love, Panda, Vox, Excalibur and Touch.

HTC Touch - a success. 3 major innovations - form factor, TouchFlo, HTC differentiate with software for the first time. New UI.

150 stream viewers, featured on uStream home page, nice!

Woah, firefox is using 100% CPU, way to hammer the battery!

Since June, HTC shipped 800,000 units of the HTC Touch across Europe and Asia.

Peter is showing the Touch Slide in has hand, and inviting Florian Seiche, VP, on stage.

Time for detail on the products!

HTC Shift, HTC P6500 and HTC S730 on the slide.

HTC P6500 first, 'the solution to your mobile enterprise needs'. On the screen we can see WM5 (?), a fingerprint reader... looks like a swipe at Motorola / Symbol to me!

Ah...

- WM6 Pro
- HSDPA
- 3MP Cam
- 2D barcode reader (we like those!)
- Fingerprint reader
- 'Open platform for industry applications'

HTC Shift, yummy yummy, is the next device.

'It's a replacement to your notebook' says Florian. 1/3rd of the size, 800g, instantly connected... thi is what the Shift is going to give you!

- SnapVUE
- Always on push mail
- Vista
- HSDPA and WiFi
- Slide and tilt QWERT 7x129x25mm
- 207x129x25mm as a whole
- 2 days standby battery life

Snapvue means you just open the screen and instantly you have push mail and other info at your fingertips. No need to power up Vista. Mobile execs, mobile business users are the target market.

Someone's phone just rang, didn't sound like a HTC device, bad show

HTC S730 is on screen, the much waited for 'Wings'. S710 successor, targeted to heavy email / messaging user.

HTC pleased with S710 success, adopted well in business and mobile consumer spaces.

- QWERTY
- WM6
- 'HTC Home' plugin for Smartphone!
= Worldwide 3G (whatever that is!)

What about GPS Florian!

Now, to talk about the Touch Slide and expacting the HTC Touch Family. Florian bigging up HTC's great Q4 linep!

2007, change of consumer behaviour towards touch came true says Florian - no kidding! And who is responsible for that?

New products on HTC website

Woah! Touch Dual - it has the option of either a regular keypad or SureType. 3G / HSDPA of course. So TWO new Touch devices essentially.

On screen demo of TouchFlo cube UI thang.

Demo of 'Richer TouchFLO' - view slideshows of photo using on screen controls, including touch driven zooming and rotating. Full size soft keypad is a key feature, which WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE TO EXISTING TOUCH USERS as a download. Mental note, grab pics of that when I get a hands on!

Paul says - they are nice.

Another announcement - Touch original device available in Arctic Silver.

Video! Chris is recording with the camcorder, it'll be online later!

Demo of new bits of UI, looks pretty cool, rotate thumb to rotate pic etc. Demo of 20 key keypad, we like!

Touch Dual available from late October in Europe, first pan-Europe operator partner will be Orange. There will be many other operator partners however.

Full screen virtual keypad available as a download - no date specified.

'Alex Reeve' from MS on stage...

11 million WinMo devices last year, growing faster than all of their competitors.

MS having a bit of a love in at this point with HTC, 'this is an example of how they're a great, innovating hardware partner'. Talking about the Canary now, ah, those were the days

'I think we're going to see explosive growth in WinMo'.

Time for Q&A with Florian and Peter!

The questions...

- What is HTC Home? (the nice homescreen plugin)
- 9 key keypad - is that an admission people don't like on screen keyboards? HTC - no, it's about choice!
- Shift availability? HTC - end of October.
- Shift through carriers? YES!
- What does it say about WinMo when you have to improve it yourself? HTC: "Devices are HTC's experience with MS' great platform'.
- Does P6500 have GPS? HTC: Yes.
- Samsung etc coming onboard, how will HTC respond if they agressively go WinMo with low prices? HTC: Wooly answer! 'Our product innovation, design etc. will mean we are leaders'

Ooh, Mono has raised his hand to ask a question! He's being ignored tho

Jacek (MSMobiles) is asking a question - when is it coming in Pink? HTC: You won't get it in Pink, but you'll get it in another colour (think Purple Ted Baker).

- Mono's question: Do the S730 and Touch Dual have GPS? HTC: No...

- What price for the shift? HTC: ¢1199 euros, vast majority sold by networks!
- Toshiba launching devices, thoughts? HTC: Good for them
- Sony Ericsson rumours - any comment? HTC: We don't comment on rumours, ask them
- All devices 3G / HSDPA, are 2G devices dead now? Touch is EDGE and is selling extremely well.
- In use battery life of the Shift? HTC: depends on mode. 3-4 hours in Vista mode!
- XP on shift? HTC: Vista or XP, yes!
- Targeted devices for music, gaming etc? HTC: Non commital
- Media focused specific device? HTC: Not planned, Touch Dual is very good at video recording.
- How effective is HTC's campaign for brand awareness? Going very well, brand awareness high.

They're talking very quietly now, doh! For next livecast - better camera / mic setup methinks. We did decide on this somewhat last minute

That's it, we're done! Hope this has been useful, camcorder video of the event, more pics etc. coming up later, and we'll get hands on pics too.

P

This post has been edited by Paul (MVP): 05 October 2007 - 09:37 PM

[Monolithix]

Monolithix's Liveblog

I'll be leaving shortly to meet Paul at the event. I'll be on Palringo too so see you there!

1133: well here we are waiting for the event to kick off. Theres a few HTC bods around meeting and greeting outside and we're waiting in the conference room for the interesting stuff top get started. Lots of HTC Green around but no sign of any devices yet

12:02 - looks like we're about to kick things off. Everyone is in and the chilled background music is fading out...

12:13 - HTC CEO Is giving us a run down of HTCs background. Explaining the versatility of qwerty keyboards.

12:16 - moving on to the success of the Touch and its small form factor. We're filming this too if you're struggling with the live stream! Apparently HTC have shipped 800000 Touch's in Europe and Asia since June!

12:21 - A quick glimse of the Touch slide! More to come soon. Looks like its as we expected, the 'Nike' 'Wings' and 'Shift' are launching today.

12:23 - That was the enterprise orientated p6500. Now the more commercial Shift. An 800g UMPC with HSDPA and 'snap view' push email without necessarily having an exchange account.

12:27 - The S730! A 3G S710, everything is confirmed but no word on GPS

12:28 - The new Touch Dual! available with a 10 or 20 key slideout. Sporting touchflow too with new features. A photo flow and full size touch keypad also to be available to existing touch owners!

12:33 - A new silver touch is being launched for xmas

12:34 - Orange will have the Touch Dual from mid October

12:36 - The Microsoft bod is giving a speech on the benefits of the Windows Mobile platform

This post has been edited by Monolithix (MVP): 01 October 2007 - 11:37 AM

[furby]

Paul (MVP), on Sep 30 2007, 20:04, said:

Paul's Liveblog
01/10/07, 9am:
So let's get some conversation going... what excites most? Touch slide or Wings?

Oo Fancy Live Blogging,

The Wings is a more interesting prospect. I had (well, had the use of) an SPV M2000 and never used the keyboard. Slid out it felt ridiculously big and disconnected from the phone. I don't think there is a much value to having a physical keyboard on a touchscreen device this size but maybe that's just me

[yoda6]

Hi Paul,

With regards to which device I'm most excited about, I'd have to say the Touch Slide. I'm a T-Mobile customer and have been waiting for the Vario III to arrive. Now it has I'm almost tempted to wait and see how the Touch Slide compares. I think I can live without the full qwerty keyboard of the Vario III and, having looked at the Touch in store at the weekend, I have to say that the size and flush screen of the Touch are stunning in the flesh, pics just don't do it justice. So I'm looking forward to hearing about the touch UI enhancements and the launch date. Some launch carrier info would be great too, (Please T-Mob, pick this one up!)

[creamhackered]

Yey, hope you can get the streaming working Looking forward to hearing the specs of the wings and when it'll be out etc

[Paulfo (Microsoft)]

Looking for UK spec details of HTC Shift

[awarner]

Have fun guys
Streaming working well atm

[porkpie]

Is it me or is there no sound on the live video?! Exciting none the less!

Oli

[revo2wheels]

porkpie, on Oct 1 2007, 10:38, said:

Is it me or is there no sound on the live video?! Exciting none the less!

Oli

Sound was switched of by the guys whilst setting up - hopefully back for the presentation :-)

[Jakob]

Sigh..
Can´t connect from Denmark..

Connecting.. .. .. ... .. .. ..
Connection closed, Please stand by while I try to reconnect...

/J

[creamhackered]

Is the live stream working for anyone else?

[yoda6]

creamhackered, on Oct 1 2007, 11:45, said:

Is the live stream working for anyone else?

Not for me, but I am behind a firewall at work... <_<

[awarner]

Working fine here creamhackered

[creamhackered]

yoda6, on Oct 1 2007, 11:48, said:

Not for me, but I am behind a firewall at work...

Looks like that's the problem for me too

[revo2wheels]

creamhackered, on Oct 1 2007, 10:45, said:

Is the live stream working for anyone else?

Yeah - although should have stream as popup - as its hard to post and view on same page ;-)

http://www.ustream.t...bmVyZs1EGo5.usc

[Paulfo (Microsoft)]

Yeah stream works fine on open broadband but not behind corporate firewall.

[PaulOBrien]

Click the 'uStream Live TV Coverage' in the first post to open it in a new window

P

[PaulOBrien]

Use use this link to open my Liveblog post in a new window too

P

[Jakob]

yoda6, on Oct 1 2007, 12:48, said:

Not for me, but I am behind a firewall at work... <_<

Firewalls suck.

Found an unsecured wireless connection in the neighborhood.. ho ho..

/J

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