Sprint on Wednesday said it will start selling next month the HTC Touch, a full touch screen smartphone running Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6 operating system.

Touch has been tagged as yet another "iPhone killer" when first introduced by HTC in June in the United Kingdom, since it has integrated TouchFLO technology, developed by HTC, for navigating through the phone's menus with a finger swipe.

Sprint's HTC Touch has a full touch screen, multimedia capabilities, and it runs on Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6 operating system.
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The smartphone has plenty of entertainment features, although it's best suited for mobile professionals. It uses Windows Mobile 6 with Outlook Mobile, which allows IT departments to easily integrate the phone with their Microsoft Exchange servers for "push" e-mail. Touch also comes with Office Mobile, Windows Live, and support for thousands of third-party applications. The phone's home screen features one-touch access to e-mail, text messages, calendar appointments, and contacts.

"The Sprint Touch is the result of the strong relationship between Microsoft, HTC, and Sprint and offers customers a fun user experience, the power of Sprint's network and the ease-of-use of Windows Mobile which makes it easy to browse the Web, send email or enjoy your digital entertainment," said Pieter Knook, senior VP of Microsoft's Mobile Communications Business.

Sprint said it will offer content on the Touch specific to its network, including the Sprint Music Store for wirelessly downloading full-length songs directly to the phone, Sprint Exclusive Entertainment for sports and entertainment video programming, Sprint TV for live and on-demand video and audio offered on over 50 channels, and Sprint Radio.

Since Touch has been so closely linked to the iPhone, here are some features it has that the iPhone doesn't: A microSD card slot that supports up to 4 Gbytes of expandable memory, stereo Bluetooth, and high-speed data access via Sprint's 3G EV-DO cellular network.

The smartphone costs $250 with a two-year subscription to Sprint and a $100 mail-in rebate. As yet another point of comparison, the 8-Gbyte iPhone costs $400 with a two-year subscription to AT&T.