Fridae

The HD2 boasts a 4.3-inch WVGA (480 x 800) capacitive touchscreen and is powered by Qualcomm's new 1GHz Snapdragon mobile processor, all while measuring just 11mm in thickness. It also offers an HTC Sense user experience, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, a 5-megapixel camera, a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack--the works.

With those kind of impressive specs and sexy looks, can you blame us for being disappointed when it was a no-show at last Wednesday night's Mobile Focus event? Well, someone must have heard our nighttime prayers because HTC America's vice president of sales and marketing, Jason Mackenzie, presented us with a surprise this morning: The HTC HD2.

Though it wasn't running final software, we were impressed with the phone's responsiveness, the customizable user interface, and then there's the screen, oh, the beautiful screen. Images and text absolutely pop and you can see so much more at a glance given the extra-large screen. Perhaps the best part? HTC has added multitouch capabilities so, like the iPhone and Palm Pre, you can pinch your fingers to zoom in and out of Web pages, photos, and emails.

When can you get your hands on this thing? Well, as SlashGear reported Wednesday, HTC CEO Peter Chou said the company is working on a US-compatible version of the HD2 for release in 2010. HTC America would neither confirm nor deny this, but Mackenzie added that the intent for the device is global distribution. When asked about possible US carriers, Mackenzie didn't get into specifics but did say that the good thing about the HD2 is that it wouldn't be hard to pitch, and we certainly agree.

So while we wait, you can check out some hands-on photos of the HTC HD2 below. We'll add more commentary and first impressions soon, but feel free to get the discussion going on your thoughts of the HD2.