Sprint, the third largest mobile carrier in the US, has cut $100 from the prices of HTC Touch and Samsung Ace. Both handsets had an original price of $199 (with a contract agreement for 2 years) and can now be acquired for only $99.

This move comes not only because Sprint has recently released its mega-hot Samsung Instinct (priced at $129), but also after AT&T launched the iPhone 3G for $199 (the 8GB version). With new handsets like these on the market, the HTC Touch and Samsung Ace would have appeared as "bad deals" if Sprint had kept their original prices.

HTC Touch and Samsung Ace both run on Windows Mobile 6.0 but besides this, they have only few things in common.

Released last year, HTC Touch is, as its name suggest, a full-touch Pocket PC. Its features include a 2.8 inch TFT touchscreen display with 240 x 320 pixels, 65K colors and handwriting recognition, a TouchFlo User Interface, Wi-Fi, advanced Web and email capabilities, document viewer and editor, Media player, Bluetooth, a 2 Megapixel camera with video recording, speakerphone, Sprint TV and Sprint Music Store and so on. The handset measures 4.0 x 2.4 x 0.6 inches (101.5 x 61 x 15 millimeters), weighs 4 ounces (113 grams) and packs an 1100 mAh battery that can provide up to 4 hours of talk-time.

Sprint's HTC Touch can be bought from the carrier's official website, found at this address.

Samsung Ace is a non-touchscreen smartphone that measures 4.65 x 2.32 x 0.46 inches (118 x 58.9 x 11.6 mm) and weighs 3.9 ounces (110 grams). The handset brings a full QWERTY keyboard, a 2.3 inch TFT display with 320 x 240 pixels, Web browser, email, Pocket Office, a 1.3 Megapixel camera with video recording, Music player, Bluetooth, Sprint TV and expandable memory.

In order to buy the Samsung Ace, users can visit Sprint's website or look for the handset in the carrier's stores from across the US.