T-Mobile myTouch 3G Slide official announced

A little less than a year after introducing its second Android phone, the HTC-built myTouch 3G, T-Mobile unveils a new flavor of the handset, complete with a roomy slide-out QWERTY keypad, a trio of custom widgets, and an upgraded camera. The device slides in at 15mm thick and features a 3.4″ HVGA screen, Android 2.1, 5 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, 3G, and even a Genius button powered by Dragon Dictation. It will come in 3 colors, red, white and black.

Given that the myTouch 3G is on sale for $149 with a two-year T-Mobile contract, I’d guess that the Slide will arrive somewhere around $149 to $199 (hopefully closer to the lower end of the scale).

Specifications:

The myTouch 3G Slide runs on Android 2.1, the latest version of the Android OS, and while it lacks HTC’s handy “Sense” user interface (good for quick access to your latest e-mails, social-networking updates and weather), the Slide boasts a trio of custom widgets: Genius Button (not to be confused with Genius on iTunes), which fires up voice commands at the touch of a button; myModes, which lets you create a series of discrete modes for, say, home and work (complete with specific themes, widgets and apps, all of which can be set to activate according to the time of day or even your location); and Faves Gallery, which collects 20 of your favorite contacts and their latest texts, e-mails and social-networking updates in a single home-screen widget.

Hardware-wise, the myTouch 3G Slide comes with a 3.4-inch HVGA touch screen, an optical joystick and (in back) a 5-megapixel camera with auto-focus and flash, an improvement over the myTouch 3G’s 3.2-megapixel lens. Also on board: support for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and T-Mobile’s 3G network, as well as GPS (good for use with the free Google Maps Navigation app). In terms of storage, expect the Slide to ship with an 8GB microSD memory card, which you can swap out for 16GB or 32GB modules.