Working together with Nokia in an extremely tight fashion definitely pays out for carriers. Hutchison Whampoa originally was a fan of Windows Mobile (went as far as to hold multiple events in their home country together with Microsoft), but switched to S60 for reasons I can not 100% confirm as the responsible product manager is no longer in my reach.
However, the excellent partnership pays – as the carrier is the first one in Austria to unveil the handset – the branding on the picture below is done by Hutchison’s never-lazy press team and will not be like this on final devices (see our HTC Touch 3G review for an example):
Their price structure is somewhat confusing – the device starts at 99 Euros on a two-year contract which sets you back about 40 Euros a month. Cheaper plans see the device cost raise up to 550 Euros…further information can be had at the URL below:
http://www.drei.at/webshop/prepareSelectionHandyDetail.do?mobileId=26830
P.S. Other Austrian carriers are unlikely to pick up the device due to its included Skype client…
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