The big brother of HTC Touch Diamond, namely HTC Touch Pro, has been officially announced today by the Taiwanese company and it will hit the market at the end of this summer.

Previously known as HTC Raphael, HTC Touch Pro is a slightly changed version of the Diamond though at a first glance the devices look exactly the same. The difference is that Touch Pro is a bit thicker and heavier, as it hides a full QWERTY keyboard that slides out whenever you want it to. Moreover, the new HTC brings TV-out and a more powerful battery: a 1340 mAh one, capable of providing a talk-time of up to 8 hours and a stand-by time of up to 7 days.

Aside from the mentioned differences, HTC Touch Pro brings about the same features as the Diamond: a 2.8 inch TFT touchscreen display with 480 x 640 pixels and 65K colors, Windows Mobile 6.1, the new TouchFlo 3D interface, Wi-Fi, A-GPS and GPS, GMS and HSDPA connectivity (the latter for data transfer speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps), a 3.15 Megapixel camera and so on. It seems that the Touch Pro doesn't have the 4GB internal memory of Diamond, but this problem can be easily solved with a microSD card.

Speaking about both Touch Pro and Touch Diamond, Peter Chou, president and CEO of HTC Corp., said: "The HTC Touch Pro and Touch Diamond have created a new generation of HTC touch devices that make the promise of the one-hand, one-touch mobile Internet a reality. HTC Touch Pro is for those customers that demand the ease of use and enjoyment of TouchFLO 3D and want the styling of the Touch Diamond but also need the powerful mobile business experience that HTC delivers."

The price of HTC Touch Pro was not yet announced. However, we assume the handset will be a bit more expensive than the Diamond (which comes for about $800), since it offers the advantage of a QWERTY keyboard.

The first markets to get the Touch Diamond will be Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Later in 2008, the Pocket PC will also hit North and South America.