For those who feared that the HTC Touch Pro 2 might go the way of the HTC Touch HD and never see the light of day in the United States, you can breath a collective sigh of relief. Shortly after the Mobile World Congress closed its doors, the company said via its Twitter feed:

"To answer the big question on everyone's minds, the Touch Pro2 will be broadly available in all major markets, including North America. We have not announced a launch date for the Touch Pro2 in any country yet. But we did announce we will start to roll it out late Q2."

One can only hope that the same will hold true for the Touch Diamond 2 and that "late Q2" holds true. And that this isn't some prank and that we'll have to gaze longingly at our Canadian neighbors.

[Read: Engadget.com]

Every time I see the Touch Pro 2, it seems to get better and better. I finally got my hands on it for real yesterday and, well, it's a solid, incredible piece of hardware. Every time HTC iterates their slider design I always think to myself "Well, they've pretty much perfected this form factor" and every time a new one comes out I realize they're better at design than I am.  Ahem.

The Touch Pro 2 feels great in the hand and though it's a tad hefty, it's a good kind of heft. The tilting slider hinge is back and feels solid. You may not actually want to tilt it all the way up during normal use as it does block the number row (yes, a full number row) of the keyboard.

More thoughts and -- of course -- more photos after the break!

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What, you thought that the Touch Pro and the Fuze were the pinnacle of QWERTY sliders, never to be outdone? You thought wrong, chummer, and here's the reason: the HTC Touch Pro 2. What did HTC change? Well, here are the specs:

• Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro
• 3G, quad-band edge
• WiFi, GPS, FM Radio
• Motion sensor
• MicroSD (SD 2 Compatible)
• 528MHz Qualcomm MSM7200
• 512ROM/288 RAM
• 3.6" 480x800 WVGA screen
• 4.57" x 2.33" x .68", 6.17 oz
• 1500 mAh Battery
• 3.2 mp camera

OK, we might have oversold it in that first paragraph. What we have here is essentially a Touch Pro with a higher resolution screen, Windows Mobile 6.1, and a "2" after the name. So it's a small bump to be sure, but it's a bump into WVGA resolution, which MWC09 seems to be teaching us will be the new standard. As you can see, HTC appears to be ending its experiments both with faceted backs and with fingerprint magnets and instead delivering us a smooth, handle-able form factor.

Availability is "early summer" across global markets, so it's a safe bet we'll see this hit the U.S. around that time frame.

There are also a couple new software features to be excited about, you'll see some hints of them after the jump in the full press release.

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