HTC Shift Coming Soon to the U.S.

HTC finally began offering its first UMPC -- the HTC Shift -- last month, but the launch was only in Europe. This device still has not yet gone on sale in the United States.  However, thanks to the gray market, this will soon change.

eXpansys USA says says it will will begin offering this mini-laptop on March 30. Another grey-market retailer, Dynamism, is also taking pre-orders, but does not have a date for when these will ship.

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The wait will give potential buys time to save up some money; Dynamism's price for this model is $1,600, while eXpansys USA's is about $1,700.

An Overview of the HTC Shift

The HTC Shift runs Windows Vista Business, and includes something HTC is calling SnapVUE technology. This is sort of mini-operating system running alongside Vista on its own 400 MHz processor and memory but using the same display. It is there to provide immediate access to emails, calendar, SMS messages and contacts, without the need to fully boot up the device, which helps conserve power and extend battery life.

This mini-laptop has 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.

When closed, it is 8.1 inches wide, 5.1 inches tall, and 1.0 inches thick. (207 mm x 129 mm x 25 mm). It weighs 1.7 pounds (800 g).

The Shift runs Vista Business on an Intel 800 MHz processor. It has 1 GB of RAM and a 40 GB hard drive.

It offers Wi-Fi (b/g) and Bluetooth 2.0, as well as the 3G cellular standards UMTS and HSDPA.

Other Shift features include an SD slot, a GPS receiver, VGA out, a biometric fingerprint scanner, and a webcam.

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