14 DAY TRIAL // One of the mobile phones that will arrive on the market with Microsoft's new Windows Phone 7 operating system on board is expected to be manufactured by HTC, and a few details on it have just emerged into the wild. A leaked Windows Phone 7 ROM was spotted recently, with reference to an HTC Mondrian device that would run the upcoming OS, and now a series of photos and some specs of the mobile phone surfaced too.
The aforementioned leaked WP7 ROM didn't just name the forthcoming mobile phone from HTC Corporation, but it seems that it also contained specs of the device, unveiling the fact that it should land on shelves with a 4.3-inch WVGA Optrex touchscreen display, and that no physical QWERTY keyboard is included in the package. These details were extracted from the ROM by an xda-developers forum member, who presented them here (via mobiletechworld).
Another member of the community has discovered more info on the phone: “This device is based the QSD8650A/B (both are mentioned) chipset, which supports both CDMA and GSM, and is the only Snapdragon chipset which will get the new 1.3GHz Scorpion core. That is probably why HTC isn't using a GSM-only Snapdragon; if they did use the GSM-only QSD8250, then the device would have almost identical specs to the HD2.” Photos with the handset can be seen here.
Initially, the ROM was believed not to be legit, but it seems that it proved real in the end, and that the info extracted from it stands up. According to an xda-developers forum member, the 4.3-inch screen on Mondrian would indeed make sense, since HTC often reuses the same screen on multiple devices, and EVO 4G already includes this one, while other HTC phones come with 3.7-inch AMOLED WVGA screens.
For what it's worth, the HTC Mondrian, if real, seems to be shaping up as a pretty nice device with that large touchscreen display and with a 1.3GHz processor inside. Of course, nothing is certain until an official announcement on the matter is made, but we'll keep our fingers crossed for this to pan out. Keep an eye on this space for more info on this.