HTC Touch HD To Be Exclusively Distributed By Orange

France Telecom Mobile arm, Orange, has been chosen as the exclusive partner for the release of the HTC Touch HD handset which is set to go live as from early November and will cost interested parties nearly £800.

At £40 per month on a 18 month contract plus an initial outlay of £80, the Touch HD is more expensive than the Apple iPhone, for which you need to pay only £459 on the cheapest contract.

The Touch HD comes with a huge 3.8-inch screen (bigger than anything else on the market), a 5MP digital camera, HSDPA compatibility, a proper 3.5mm earphone jack, HTC's own Touchflo User Interface system and Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system.

With O2 already tied with the iPhone, don't expect great internet browsing data transfer as Orange is said to offer 250MB only which is really a shame given that the smartphone is made for the web.

No news as to whether the phone will be available unlocked although it looks as if the exclusivity will last only a couple of months.

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Francois Mahieu, director of devices at Orange UK, stated that: “We are very pleased to launch this state of the art mobile internet device exclusively on the Orange network. It is a great phone but also a wonderful multimedia handset which paves the way to even more innovations from Orange next year in the mobile internet space."