HTC Snap lets users into the Inner Circle

New handset can prioritise email from a pre-selected group

The HTC Snap offers an email feature called Inner Circle

HTC has unveiled its latest smartphone, the Snap, which bears a remarkable resemblance to the BlackBerry Bold.

The device is aimed at mobile professionals, and features a new system called Inner Circle which brings emails from a pre-selected group of people to the top of the inbox.

"Recognising that people are being overwhelmed by an avalanche of email, the HTC Snap introduces Inner Circle, an HTC innovation that makes it easy for people to prioritise messages from the most important people in their lives at the press of a button," said John Wang, chief marketing officer at HTC.

"The HTC Snap represents the latest step in HTC's mission to create a range of innovative smartphones, each with specific benefits."

The Snap's design might suggest that HTC took the original form factor of its S620 handset, and borrowed a few design elements from BlackBerry maker RIM. It has a 2.4in screen and a full Qwerty keyboard, as well as a trackball for navigation.

The device runs Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard on a 528MHz Qualcomm processor. There is 192MB of RAM onboard and a microSD slot for expanding the available memory. As with most smartphones today, the Snap supports 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth 2.0, and has a 2-megapixel camera.

It weighs around 120g including the 1500mAh battery, which offers a claimed eight and a half hours of talk time on GSM.

Pricing details are not yet available, but the HTC Snap is expected to be available in selected channels during the second quarter of 2009, rolling out in markets around the world throughout the second half of the year.

An unlocked version supporting HSDPA at 850/1900MHz for the US market will be made available during the summer under the HTC S721 brand.