HTC Legend Australia Announcement

Last night, we attended the tightly guarded HTC Legend event hosted by VHA (Vodafone and Three) and HTC Australia at the Australian Museum in Sydney. Besides munching on scrumptious morsels prepared by Chef Adriano Zumbo‘s team, we were given news of availability and pricing on the HTC Legend in Australia.

I know of a handful of people who have been waiting with baited breath for this bit of news for months!

In summary, the HTC Legend will finally be available at Vodafone stores from the 3rd of June and will be exclusively available (for three months) through Vodafone. To buy it outright will cost $599 RRP but if you’re looking for a contract option, you can have the phone for $49 per month with zero upfront payment. Unfortunately, the $49 cap plan only comes with a measly 50MB worth of data so don’t even think of checking Facebook multiple times a day. However, for only $9.95 per month you can boost your data to a whopping 1GB. Very reasonable pricing compared to the likes of Telstra.

Thanks to VHA and HTC for putting together the event and inviting us.

I was particularly chuffed to catch up with HTC Australia’s Sales and Marketing Director, Anthony Petts. It was exciting to hear his thoughts on the current HTC offerings and future phones. His opinion on the war between Android, iPhone, Blackberry and WinMo7 was also insightful. We both made our predictions of what will happen in the next couple of months. Let’s see…

HTC Legend Accessories Page

Here’s the HTC Legend Press Release

Sydney, Australia – 26 May, 2010 – HTC Corporation, a global designer of smartphones, today introduced the latest addition to its growing smartphone range – the HTC Legend™. The HTC Legend™ will be available from 3^rd June exclusively on Vodafone and 3 mobile.

“HTC Legend™ is the newest addition to our fast-growing Android family of devices that brings a fresh, innovative and unmatched level of personalisation for our users,” said Anthony Petts, Sales and Marketing Director ANZ, HTC Corporation.  “This device, launching on Vodafone and 3 mobile, allows users to create and define their own unique mobile experience through HTC’s user interface, HTC Sense. The HTC Legend™ also includes social media integration with Facebook™, HTC Peep for twittering and Friend Stream.”

“Exclusively on Vodafone and 3 we will be bringing customers the HTC Legend at a great price point, with all the benefits of our leading caps plans including unlimited free talk Vodafone to Vodafone or 3 to 3 within Australia.  It’s a highly anticipated mobile, combining great aesthetics with the evolutionary Android OS.  It’s a mobile we think our customers will love,” said Ross Parker, General Manager Devices and Pricing, Vodafone Hutchison Australia

HTC Legend™

Built around a newly enhanced HTC Sense, the HTC Legend™ boasts a unique design with a smooth, continuous surface, machined from a single aluminum block into a seamless compact frame.  To complement its looks, the HTC Legend™ includes a stunning 3.2 inch, AMOLED HVGA display, and an optical joystick that is surrounded by a narrow button to make phone navigation even easier.

Key Features

• Automatically lowers the ringer volume as soon as the phone is picked up
• Mutes the ringer when the phone is flipped face down
• Backs up certain data and settings to the microSD card automatically, such as SMS/MMS messages, bookmarks, and Wi-Fi passwords
• 3.5 mm stereo audio jack
• Social media integration including Facebook™, HTC Peep for twittering and Friend Stream
• News widget that combines news feeds into a single easy accessible place
• Photo sharing on Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter
• Video sharing on YouTube™
• Enhanced support for Exchange security features such as password protection and remote data wipe
• High fidelity experience with Adobe® Flash® support brings to life the vast video and gaming content of the Internet

HTC SENSE

HTC Sense is a user experience focused on putting people at the centre by making phones work in a more simple and natural way. This experience revolves around three fundamental principles that were developed by observing and listening to how people live and communicate. These core tenets of Make It Mine, Stay Close and Discover the Unexpected continue to be the key to the new HTC Sense experience.

The new HTC Sense experience continues to focus on improving your interactions with your most important people.  This begins with a new HTC application and widget called Friend Stream that seamlessly aggregates all of your social communication including Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr into one organised flow of updates. This simple aggregation makes it easier than ever to focus on what friends are doing as well as to view the images and links that they share.  In addition to Friend Stream, people can be organised into specific social circles, such as groups of friends, colleagues or any other way that makes sense.

The new HTC Sense experience also introduces broad improvements to applications including the browser, email client and others. In addition, the new version of HTC Sense includes a new newsreader application and widget, as well as a new seven-screen ‘Leap’ thumbnail view for quick and easy access to specific screens.