While most of us have to kill in order to get a Touch Diamond or a Touch Pro from HTC, the Asian company already announces a new Diamond inspired smartphone for this fall.

The new HTC S740 is an interesting combination between the usual slide-out design and a candy bar phone, coming with a numeric keypad on front and QWERTY on the slider. The S740 will be among the first devices to run Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard edition out of the box but I must say the form factor is quite weird. Instead of integrating a touchscreen, they simply attached a sliding QWERTY keyboard. Anyway here is a list with the detailed specs from the press release:

- Size: 116.3 x 43.4 x 16.3 mm
- Weight: 140g with battery
- Networks: WCDMA/HSDPA: 900/2100 MHz for EU and Asia
- GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
- Maximum speed: UL = 384 kbps; DL = 3.6/7.2 Mbps
- Display: 2.4-inch QVGA screen
- Camera: 3.2 megapixel with fixed focus
- Internal memory: 256 MB flash; 256 MB RAM
- Memory card: microSD
- WLAN: 802.11b/g
- Bluetooth: 2.0 with EDR
- GPS: GPS/AGPS
- Interface: HTC ExtUSB (mini-USB and audio jack in one; USB 2.0 High-Speed)
- Battery: 1000 mAh
- Talk time: WCDMA: Up to 320 minutes / GSM: Up to 380 minutes
- Standby time: WCDMA: Up to 400 hours / GSM: Up to 280 hours
- Special features: Sliding QWERTY keyboard, FM radio, Google Maps, RSS Hub
- Chipset: Qualcomm MSM7225, 528 MHz

HTC didn’t care to disclose availability and pricing info for the time being, but I’m sure this stuff will soon be leaked.