14 DAY TRIAL // Expected to be released this week in Germany through O2, the HTC 7 Pro smartphone has just hit the shelves and can be purchased for €29 (roughly $39) on a new €22.50 (about $30) per month, 2-year contract.
The smartphone is also available unlocked for those who don't want to be tied to long term contracts, but they will have to pay upfront €599 (almost $800).
The HTC 7 Pro launch in Germany marks a premiere, as the device hasn't been made available on this market until today. The smartphone is a quad-band GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 and dual-band HSDPA 900 / 2100, which makes the device fully compatible with all major European carriers.
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 packs 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.