A Closer Look at the HTC Shift

Yesterday, the world got its first glimpse at the HTC Shift, an upcoming ultra-portable laptop running Windows Vista.

This UMPC is on display at the CTIA Wireless tradeshow, and Brighthand's Brian Beeler is there to get a close look at it.

Unfortunately, HTC has the Shift behind glass, so there is no way to test it out. At the very least though, this demonstration shows that the company has a functioning prototype of this computer, even if it isn't expecting to release it until the third quarter of this year.

However, HTC representatives warn that their company is still refining the final design of this device, and there will likely be some difference between the prototype and the shipping version.

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An Overview of the HTC Shift

This mini-laptop will have a tablet design with a QWERTY keyboard hidden behind its 7-inch touchscreen. When the screen is slid aside to expose the keyboard, it will flip up at an angle.

The Shift will function as a quad-Band GSM phone with GPRS and EDGE. It will also support the 3G cellular-wireless networking standards UMTS and HSDPA in the frequencies used in the U.S. and Europe.

For short-range wireless networking it will include Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0.

This UMPC-like device will run Windows Vista Business and come with Microsoft Office.

It will have 64 MB of RAM plus 1 GB DDR2 microDIMM for running application, plus 128 MB of ROM and a 30 GB hard drive for storage.

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