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HTC's long-rumored follow up to the HTC Touch is now official. Today, the smartphone company debuted the HTC Touch Diamond, a compact Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional handset with a new, enhanced, edition of the company's touch screen interface, which runs on top of Microsoft's mobile-device operating system.

Called TouchFLO 3D, HTC says the new interface is animated to provide quicker and easier access to people, messaging, email, photos, music, weather and more. With the Diamond, HTC is also introducing a touch-sensitive control to allow you use TouchFlO 3D with the full features on the device, something not necessarily true of current version of TouchFLO.

“Today we mark a new era in mobile phone evolution, an era where beauty and size integrate with uncompromising innovation at broadband speeds,” said HTC president & CEO Peter Chou in a statement. “The HTC Touch Diamond will make browsing the Web and using Web-enabled applications just as practical and easy to use as making calls.”

The Touch Diamond is designed to fit in the hand and is composed of black geometric facets and metal. At 3.9 x 2.0 x .42 inches (99 x 51 x 10.7), it is smaller than the original Touch model. It weighs only 3.9 ounces.

According to HTC, it'll be available to customers across all major European carriers in June, followed by markets in Asia and the Middle East. The North American and Latin American versions of the Touch Diamond won't ship until the second half of 2008.

The tri-band GSM with UMTS/HSPDA 3G smartphone include an Opera-based web browser and a version of YouTube, as well as an edition of Google Maps that integrates with the Touch Diamonds integrated GPS. Turn the Touch Diamond horizontal from vertical and, like the iPhone, the browser will do the same.

It sports a higher-resolution, 2.8-inch VGA (640 x 320 pixel) resolution touch display over the original Touch models and ups the camera to 3.2 megapixels from 2. The smartphone also integrates Bluetooth 2.0, with support for wireless stereo headsets, and Wi-Fi.

Video of Touch Diamond In Action.

There' will be 4 GB Internal Storage, 256 MB flash, and 192 MB RAM. The Touch Diamond will likely sport an expansion slot for additional storage as well.

HTC's shipped over 3 million units of the original Touch since its introduction a year ago. It expects to do even better with its latest iPhone challenger.