T-Mobile MDA Vario IV (HTC Touch Pro)

Expected Q3/Q4 2008
4th June 2008
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Take the HTC Touch Diamond (or T-Mobile MDA Compact IV) and add a QWERTY keyboard and a few other things, and you have the T-Mobile MDA Vario IV.

The Vario shares almost all the features of the Compact, including a large 2.8" 640 x 480 pixel display, a 3.2 megapixel camera, GPS, HSDPA and WiFi. The immediately obvious difference is the slide-out QWERTY keyboard (the one pictured has a German QWERTZ variant). The operating system is Windows Mobile 6.1 with what seems to be a TouchFLO-derived interface on top, and all the usual goodies that you would expect to see in a Windows smartphone.

It is also substantially heavier than the Compact at around 158 grams. This increase in weight is mainly due to the slide-out keyboard and the larger capacity battery - the cell on the Vario IV is a 1340 mAh unit compared with the rather puny 900 mAh one in the Compact.

According to T-Mobile, the Vario IV also has more operating RAM (256 MB), and comes with microSD expandable memory. The processor is the same 528 MHz Qualcomm MSM module found in the Compact and Touch Diamond.

We think that the keyboard on the Vario IV will appeal to a lot of users, but the overall "flat slider" layout is perhaps not as ergonomic as the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 or the Nokia E90. The E90 and X1 phones have a higher resolution display too.

If you want a fully featured Windows mobile device then the MDA Vario IV is impressive, and at the moment it appears to be exclusive to T-Mobile. When it comes out later this year (T-Mobile say in the Summer/Autumn), then it will be competing directly against the X1 and "iPhone II". But even against the tough competition that it will face, it is likely that the Vario IV will remain a highly desirable mobile phone.

Note: this device is also available as the HTC Touch Pro on networks other than T-Mobile.