I woke up this morning to a Bloglines list full of the
HTC Shift and, man that looks good!
HTC are best known for making Windows Mobile devices such as the TyTn/Hermes aka my Vario II but we have recently seen a shift (pun intended) towards a larger form factor with the 5" screen Advantage as it's now called - a super-sized Windows Mobile device.
Well, HTC are now going one stage further with a proper UMPC that runs Windows Vista with Aero and everything. The HTC Shift will have a 7" touch screen which flips up, a slide out keyboard, 1GB of RAM, 30GB hard drive and a rumoured 1.2GHz Via processor.
The screen slide-and-tilt mechanism is very reminiscent of HTC's upcoming TyTn/Hermes replacement - the HTC Kaiser - so this seems to be flavour of the month.
I'm a fan of the UMPC form factor but, although I love using the stylus, I'm a sucker for a keyboard. Consequently, a number of the current UMPC offerings wouldn't really suit me. The HTC Shift, however, looks right on the money and, with HTC's consistently high styling, looks the absolute business.
This needs to come in at a realistic price point, and I need to win the lottery ;)
See more news about it here: