HTC to sell Touch Dual via Best Buy

HTC today announced that they will be selling the Touch Dual, a version of their popular HTC Touch (review) device that adds a slide out QWERTY keyboard. Interestingly the phone won't be available via a particular carrier but will instead be sold at Best Buy. As a GSM device it will support both AT&T and T-Mobile's networks, however it's 3G functionality will be limited to AT&T.

The Touch Dual sports HTC's TouchFlo interface, which is supposed to improve the Windows Mobile experience when using your fingers to interact with the touch screen. In our review of the Touch we found that the improvement was minimal and the experience was still significantly short of what you get with better touch screen devices like the iPhone (review). It's interesting to see HTC move into the unlocked device space directly in the United States. This is a move they've made internationally but in the U.S. where carriers tend to be more powerful they have thus far avoided it.