The long awaited HTC Shift is now coming to you from Sprint, 140+ hands-on photos

I've been using an HTC Shift from Sprint for over a week now and as you can see in over 140 photos and screenshots found in my extensive image gallery I have had a chance to try out most all aspects of the device. I was planning to post my full review next Monday, 24 March, when the Sprint and HTC announcement will officially be made, but Amazon let the cat out of the bag and HTC lifted the embargo on us reviewers unexpectedly. I will be posting my full review with a video of the Shift in action later this evening/tomorrow morning, but wanted to get this image gallery and my bottom line thoughts up while the news is hot. Come back tomorrow for all the details where I explain my conclusions.

	Image Gallery:Here is an extensive image gallery with over 140 photos of the HTC Shift from Sprint.

Conclusions and summary of the great, good, bad, and ugly aspects of the HTC Shift from Sprint.

Great

• Keyboard is best UMPC/ultra portable keyboard I have ever tried
• Form factor is great, allows working on your lap or on an airport tray
• Mouse/trackpad is accurate and serves as a wonderful navigation method
• SnapVUE always-on capability is very good
• Quick resolution, communication manager, and SnapVUE buttons rock
• Stereo speakers rock!

Good

• Sprint EV-DO connectivity is a nice bonus
• Biometric scanner offers good security
• No bloatware loading of apps is awesome
• Integrated Secure Digital card slot is nice (when will Apple learn this?)
• Nice leather case included with device
• Included USB hub and ethernet is helpful
• Small A/C adapter is a thoughtful feature
• Origami Experience 2.0 is useful
• 1GB included RAM is adequate

Bad

• Stylus is poor since it doesn't stay extended when pulled out
• 1024x600 software resolution is fuzzy and not good for text entry or viewing
• Can't remove leather case if you want to travel a bit lighter
• Vista is too much for the device
• No recovery CDs are included
• No portrait mode for eBook reading, etc
• No storage card in SnapVUE, hyperlinks go nowhere, call support appears in menus, but are not supported while text nessaging is supported
• Skype is unusable, audio is shaky and video is virtually non-existent

Ugly

• Battery life with Vista is unacceptable for an ultra-portable
• 40GB hard drive, 19GB available out of the box is lame
• 800x480 default resolution on a 7 inch display is too low
• US$1499 is too much for the device. Then adding US$60/month for Sprint data makes the cost even higher
• Inking is virtually unusable since the display is larger and very sensittive to any pressure. No palm rejection technology is used and the slightest touch sends it off vectoring bad

I am sorry for these quick and dirty impressions, but my full review isn't quite done yet and I thought you may enjoy the photos right now. I'll flush out why I feel this way and take you on a walk around of the device tomorrow so come back to check that out.

If you have any questions for me, feel free to post them since I have the device for another few days and can test things out and answer your questions.