Hasta La Gadget!

HTC has announced the Touch Cruise, a new TouchFLO-enhanced Windows Mobile smartphone featuring HTC Footprints, a new geotagging feature that lets users tag photos with GPS location data and audio clips. The Touch Cruise also includes a car cradle that, when docked, automatically switches the device to a turn-by-turn navigation mode—a useful feature for anyone who has struggled with their handset’s UI and tiny buttons when getting in and out of the car.

The Touch Cruise comes with Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capability, a microSD card slot, and—oddly, for a TouchFLO device—just QVGA (320-by-240-pixel) resolution instead of full VGA mode. HTC will sell the device in the U.S. unlocked as a dual-mode (850/1900 MHz) HSDPA phone, with HSDPA 7.2 and 2100 MHz capability overseas.

I’m not a huge TouchFLO fan, since it sits somewhat uneasily on top of the usual Windows Mobile UI. But I look forward to checking out HTC Footprints and the Touch Cruise’s improved voice navigation mode. Expect it to hit stores in Spring 2009 for between $500 and $600.