Lifted high up in the sky by the success of its Touch Diamond and Touch Pro Pocket PCs, the Taiwan-based HTC has announced today a new device that brings obvious design similarities with the two mentioned handsets.

The new phone is HTC S740 and, at first sight, it looks like an elongated Diamond. Which it actually is, as HTC has added an alphanumeric keypad to the case of the Diamond and there we have it - the S740. HTC has also packed a full QWERTY keyboard in the new handset, à la Touch Pro.

Unlike the Diamond and the Touch Pro, the S740 has a non-touch display (2.4 inches, 65K colors and 240 x 320 pixels), running on Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard (hence it's a smartphone and not a Pocket PC).

While the overall appearance of S740 is clearly not a usual one (and some users might not even like it), its functionality seems to be excellent. Two hardware keypads are surely the dream of every smartphone owner, and it looks like the keypads of S740 are very user-friendly.

The full list of features that the new HTC offers includes quad-band GSM connectivity (850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz) with GPRS and EDGE, dual-band HSDPA connectivity (900 / 2100 MHz), Wi-Fi, internal GPS, Google Maps, a 3.2 Megapixel camera with fixed focus and video recording, front-facing camera for video calls, Pocket Internet Explorer, Pocket Office, Music and Video players, FM radio, RSS Hub, 256MB of flash memory and microSD card support.

HTC S740 weighs 140 grams and, when its QWERTY keyboard is not slid, it measures 116.3 x 43.4 x 16.3 millimeters.

Talking about the new handset, Dr. Florian Seiche, vice president of HTC Europe, said, "Demand for high-performance, smart, mobile devices continues to see strong growth globally and HTC is well positioned to meet the varying needs of our diverse customer base. The HTC S740 combines a powerful, premium phone with a full slide-out keypad in a compact and sleek form factor. Clearly, one size does not fit all and the S740 will play an important role in expanding our growing portfolio of devices."

Although the release of S740 is not at all far (the handset should hit the market in September), HTC has not unveiled its retail price yet.