The Government has offered Australia's three mobile operators, and vividwireless, renewal of their existing spectrum allocated on 15 year licences in the late 90s and early 2000s at set prices, while the Government expects to rake in $3 billion.
Other features of the Shift include fingerprint sensor, mouse buttons and microPad (basically a small touch pad for mouse control) and Bluetooth 2.0 and USB 2.0 connectivity.
One of the other big concerns about the HTC Shift is the price.
It has an RRP of AUD $1,999, which makes it exactly four times more expensive than the ASUS Eee PC which runs Linux at AUD $499, and obviously slightly less than four times more expensive that the Windows XP equipped ASUS Eee PC at AUD $579.
Still, the Shift promises to be even more portable, offers inbuilt connectivity once you insert your own HSDPA SIM card, and has the ‘SnapVUE’ mode which is meant to stay on and keep you informed without running the battery life down to zero before you need it or know it.
In theory it means the Shift will be more portable and offer more functionality that the ASUS Eee PC, but whether it's worth an extra $1500 is the big question - certainly for business users the price won't be anywhere near as much of an issue as it would be for some consumers.
But on the topic of pricing, the HTC Shift will interestingly be available from a range of mobile phone retailers, likely on some kind of plan, also changing the way that ‘mobile computers’ are sold.
Computers are usually sold either at full retail price, or via some kind of ‘RentSmart’ plan which lets you rent/lease a computer.
But the Shift, if sold on a plan, would simply be part of your mobile phone bill... how this will play out will be very interesting to watch.
So, all we await now is the HTC Shift to arrive. It’s been so long in coming that it’s a bit odd to realise that it has arrived at last.
It obviously isn’t meant to replace your existing desktop or notebook computer, while still giving you access to standard Windows software such as Office, Outlook and plenty more, so reviewing it should prove both interesting, and hopefully, lots of fun.
Check back early next week once we’ve had a play, where we’ll report on just how moving the HTC Shift is... or isn’t!
David Bass
| ComOps, a leading Australian provider of business software products and services, has won a competitive tender to deploy its Salvus safety, r…
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