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HTC continues to impress. The smartphone specialist expects to ship its millionth Touch Diamond this month, putting it well on its way towards hitting its goal of moving a couple million of these devices by year's end.

The Touch Diamond's been available for less than months. Sure, that's not a million units moved in one weekend, as Apple recently achieved with the iPhone 3G. But unlike the iPhone 3G, which launched in 70-odd countries, the Touch Diamond is only available in select Asian and European markets. So the comparison isn't really fair.

Rumor has it the Touch Diamond, in both its regular and Pro configurations, should eventually become available from Verizon Wireless and Sprint, perhaps in couple of months.

Update: In related news, Telus - the first North American carrier to announce support for the Touch Diamond - has just revealed the launch date for the smartphone in Canada. That ship date will be August 14th, a week from today.

The Touch Diamond will go for $150 with a three-year agreement; $350 if you sign on for two years; and $450 a la carte.

More on Touch Diamond
So what exactly is the Touch Diamond?

It is a compact Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional smartphone 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.

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.

The tri-band GSM with UMTS/HSPDA 3G smartphone (a CDMA/EVDO cellular radio would have to be put in for Sprint, Verizon and Telus) includes 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.

There's 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.

The Telus edition adds GPS.

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.