Popular mobile phone online retailer Expansys has opened up pre-ordering on a new HTC mobile, before the High Tech Computer Corporation has even publically announced it let alone confirmed it actually exists.
Brought to our attention by Cellpassion, the new phone known only as the HTC Iolite can be seen on the online shop’s site here. Often in these cases it can be pulled as soon as someone hollers about it, and just in case it does it’s still viewable through the wonders of Google’s cache here.
Don’t count on the product’s name being final though, as from experience Iolite does sound rather like an HTC internal product moniker than anything else. Coincidentally the mineral the phone is named after is used as an inexpensive substitute for sapphire. With Diamond being another of their company’s product brands this could hold some weight after all, and might even be a cut down version of that very handset.
The new mobile comes along with a 2.8-inch touch screen display with a QWVGA resolution, with a similar looking screen to the Touch 3G at this stage.
It’s powered by the same processor as their S740, S743 and Touch 3G, seen in the Qualcomm MSM7225 528Mhz beast. Whilst the spec’s show off it has Quad band capabilities with 3G, HSDPA, HSUPA, WIFI, GPS and aGPS are all present and correct.
As expected it’s still running Windows Mobile 6.1, with their ever increasingly popular TouchFLO 3D overlay to the OS. There’s a new addition we haven’t heard of before, highlighted as being called HTC Footprints which we’re intrigued to find more about.
Expansys has been known for being overzealous in the past with Pocket-Lint catching them out before, along with others in the past on different phones.
This fabulous leak must throw a huge spanner in the works of HTC’s plans over their announcements due either at CES later this week, or what they’re holding out on for Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
We’ve dropped a missive to HTC in a hope they can confirm or have the audacity to even denied its existence. To quote Stewie from Family Guy, let’s see if they have the ‘testicular fortitude’ to do the latter.
Either way, we’ll bring you an update when we know, what they know about what’s known on what needs to be known about knowing.
UPDATE: We thought the phone did look ripe for rebadging purposes, then we caught sight of the O2 XDA Guide which was announced only in Germany in the very last ticking seconds of 2008. If we’re not mistaken and we rarely are, it is the very same model indeed. Puzzle solved!