It walks like an iPhone and quacks like an iPhone, but it isn't an iPhone.

It's an HTC Touch, a touch-screen wireless handset unveiled today that can access the Internet via GSM Edge and Wi-Fi networks, just like Apple's forthcoming iPhone.

The HTC, manufactured by Taiwan's High Tech Computer Corp., is scheduled to be available for sale within days through the Orange service provider in France and the United Kingdom. The device will be available in North America during the second half of the year, HTC said.

Like the iPhone, which is scheduled to debut in the United States on the AT&T Edge network June 29, the HTC Touch has a finger-sensitive touch screen. "With the HTC Touch, access to your most commonly used content, contacts, and features is only a simple finger flick way," said High Tech Computer CEO Peter Chou in a statement at the formal unveiling of the device in London.

The 2.8-inch backlit touch screen features 240 x 320 resolution with 65,536 colors. The screen uses HTC's TouchFLO touch-screen technology, which lets users launch an animated, three-screen, three-dimensional interface activated by a sweep of the finger. The finger-driven interface features touch scrolling and browsing of Internet pages, documents, and contact lists. The three screens are contacts, media, and applications. The screen also responds to a stylus.

The HTC Touch contains a 2.0-megapixel digital camera and a 1-Gbyte microSD storage card. The device operates on Windows Mobile 6 and features Microsoft's Outlook for e-mail and a mobile version of Microsoft Office.