14 DAY TRIAL // Slated for a Christmas release in the UK, HTC 7 Pro was delayed and its launch pushed back with a few weeks, but the Windows Phone 7 smartphone is now available for purchase from online retailers Clove and Expansys.
Clove UK is retailing the device for £432 (including VAT) contract free, while Expansys UK is offering the HTC 7 Pro for £440 SIM-free or free with a Vodafone contract, starting at £30.65 monthly.
Unlike Expansys, Clove UK is also throwing in a £30 HTC BH M300 Bluetooth headset as a bonus for customers who purchase the smartphone.
For those out of the loop, HTC 7 Pro is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8250 1 GHz processor and runs on Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 platform. It comes with a 3.6-inches capacitive touchscreen with 16 million colors and 480 x 800 pixels resolution.
In addition to its full slide-out QWERTY keyboard, the device features accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate, proximity sensor for auto turn-off and multi-touch input method.
The phone sports a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus, LED flash, geo-tagging, face detection and video recording capabilities (720p).
Other key features of the slider include GPRS and EDGE Class 32, HSDPA 7.2 Mbps, HSUPA 2 Mbps, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n connectivity, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP support, Dolby Mobile and SRS sound enhancement, 3.5 mm audio jack, 8 GB (or 16GB) internal memory, 448 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM, as well as GPS with A-GPS support (Bing Maps).
The smartphone embeds a Li-Ion 1500 mAh battery which is rated by the manufacturer for up to 360 hours (up to 420 hours for 3G) of standby time or up to 5 hours 30 minutes (up to 7 hours for 3G) of talk time.
As a side note, the second Windows Phone 7 slider that was expected to be released in November, Dell Venue Pro got delayed once again and is now slated for an early March release.