Hands-on with the Qtek 8310/HTC Tornado

Usually it takes at least a couple of weeks for a gadget to go from sketch rendered images to actual hands-on product shots, but no sooner did news of the Qtek 8310 (aka the HTC Tornado) leak out yesterday then Mobile Review hit us up with the some actual live shots of the new phone (it actually sounds like they were holding back until someone else broke the news first). They've also fleshed out the specs a bit more, confirming that this is indeed a tri-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE phone that runs on Windows Mobile 5.0 and has a 2.2-inch QVGA display, 200MHz OMAP processor, 64MB of RAM, 64MB of ROM, a 1.3 megapixel camera, Bluetooth 1.2, miniSD, and yes, even WiFi. No word on when the Tornado might starting tearing things up, but we're not expecting a US release anytime soon.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this one in]

[Scoobydoo @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

Actually, the article DOES state that it has EDGE.

[Sebhelyesfarku @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

I am a troll: [e-mail]

[phi @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

only triband now? not quad? hrmph.

[PauldG @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

considering this is HTC's more basic phone, i think it's awesome - only quad band would make me want to import it

[Bill @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

All that potential and no QWERTY? What a waste.

[Jayson Elliot @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

I'm a little confused now - is this running the full Windows Mobile OS, or the crappy Smartphone version?
When will I ever get a phone that runs a full Windows Mobile that I can acually put in a jeans pocket? (No, the Treo 670 is still not small enough)

[Pete Nice @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

Jayson

If you want a PocketPC verions of the software you need a PocketPC device. The closest things to a pocketable device running PocketPC are the JAM, the Wizard and the ETen M500.

Personally I think the Smartphone version is much more developed. It wasn't until WM5 that they released persistent storage for the PocketPC.

I know I'm getting one of these as soon as it is available...

[Michael @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

Looks like the perfect phone except that the miniSD card is still under the battery. If it has USB 2.0 this isn't an issue, so hopefully they upgraded that as well. Transfering over USB 1.1 blows.

[diem @ Dec 19th 2005 12:18AM]

windows mobile 5.0 is 1 OS to rule them all... from my understanding there will be no difference between the pocket pc + smartphone software when 5.0 hits the streets.

-diem