HTC Touch Cruise Impressions: Revisiting the Original Polaris Smartphone

Long before HTC built its identity around Android, it spent 2007 and 2008 testing how much of a stylus-oriented Windows Mobile phone could be reworked around a fingertip. The HTC Touch Cruise — codenamed Polaris, sold as model P3650 — was one result: a compact touchscreen Pocket PC phone with integrated GPS, HSDPA, and HTC's early TouchFLO interface over Windows Mobile 6. This retrospective draws on Mobility Today's own original coverage, recovered from web archives, plus verified contemporary specs. It covers the 2008 original only, not the redesigned 2009 device that later reused the name.

What Was the HTC Touch Cruise?

The Touch Cruise was a candybar-style Windows Mobile Pocket PC phone sold as the HTC P3650, developed under the codename Polaris and reaching markets around January 2008. Where HTC's TyTN line built its identity around a slide-out keyboard, the Touch Cruise went the other way: no keyboard, a slimmer body, and TouchFLO as the main way most owners interacted with it.

The Smartphone Market in Late 2007

The Touch Cruise arrived into an unsettled moment. The original iPhone had launched mid-2007 with EDGE only — no 3G, no GPS, no App Store. HTC had spent 2007 building its own finger-first answer with the original HTC Touch, debuting TouchFLO, while Windows Mobile itself was still dominated by keyboard-and-stylus devices like HTC's TyTN and TyTN II. The Touch Cruise sat between those threads: touchscreen-first, but still carrying the GPS, 3G, and business features Windows Mobile buyers expected.

From Polaris to Touch Cruise

Before HTC's official branding went public, enthusiast and leak coverage referred to the device by its codename, Polaris — the same pattern seen with the TyTN (Hermes) and TyTN II (Kaiser). By release, the codename, the Touch Cruise name, and the P3650 model number were used somewhat interchangeably, which is why all three still surface in searches for the same device.

HTC's Touch Family and the Original HTC Touch

The Touch Cruise was the second major device in HTC's Touch lineup, after the original HTC Touch that launched mid-2007 as TouchFLO's debut — a roughly 201MHz processor, 64MB RAM, 128MB ROM, a 2-megapixel camera, no GPS, no 3G. The Touch Cruise kept the same 2.8-inch QVGA resistive touchscreen and TouchFLO foundation but upgraded nearly everything else.

TouchFLO and the Touch Cube

Worth being precise: the Touch Cruise ran the original, first-generation TouchFLO — not TouchFLO 3D, which arrived later in 2008 on the Touch Diamond and Touch Pro. TouchFLO added a finger-swipeable home screen with tabs for contacts, media, and messaging, but the menus underneath stayed exactly as stylus-oriented as ever. It also included the Touch Cube, a rotatable panel reached by swiping up from the bottom, each face offering shortcuts to contacts, music, or photos.

Windows Mobile 6 Professional

The Touch Cruise launched on Windows Mobile 6 Professional, the touchscreen edition of WM6, bundling Outlook Mobile, IE Mobile, Word/Excel/PowerPoint Mobile, Windows Media Player Mobile, and Exchange ActiveSync. HTC later released an official 6.1 upgrade, separate from anything community-built, though the Touch Cruise was never sold through a major US carrier.

A Resistive, QVGA Touchscreen

The 2.8-inch, 240x320 display was resistive, not capacitive — pressure-based and single-point. Mobility Today's coverage flagged this directly: some readers compared the pressure needed to register a tap unfavorably against the iPhone and iPod Touch, and registry-level tweaks existed to ease that threshold and adjust TouchFLO's scrolling. A stylus remained genuinely useful for handwriting recognition and precisely hitting small targets in older menus. This size and resolution was standard for a high-end Windows Mobile phone of the era, matching the original HTC Touch and the TyTN II, not a downgrade by 2008 standards.

Doing Without a Physical Keyboard

Skipping a keyboard was a deliberate tradeoff against HTC's own TyTN line: a slimmer body for less convenient typing. HTC shipped two built-in software keyboards, a 20-key XT9 predictive layout and a 12-key multi-tap layout. Mobility Today's reviewer found neither fully satisfying and bought a third-party keyboard app, CooTek's TouchPal, instead — a real period data point, not a verdict on HTC's stock keyboards generally.

The Navigation Wheel

Below the screen sat a circular control Mobility Today's original coverage described in useful detail: it worked as both a traditional four-way directional pad around a center select button and as a scroll wheel rotating a full 360 degrees — genuinely dual-function, confirmed from the device's own first-look rather than assumed.

Processor, RAM, ROM, and microSD

The Touch Cruise ran a Qualcomm MSM7200 at roughly 400MHz, confirmed by Mobility Today's own spec list, handling the HSDPA modem, GPS baseband, and app load. Memory was 128MB RAM alongside 256MB ROM — ROM holding the OS and built-in apps, RAM handling whatever ran actively, both a small fraction of a modern phone's storage. Expansion came via a microSD slot listed as SD 2.0 compatible; a specific maximum tested capacity isn't confirmed.

HSDPA, and What \"Theoretical\" Means

Mobility Today's original spec table listed 3G of up to 384kbps upload and 3.6Mbps download, on 2100MHz in Europe and 850/1900MHz in the US. That 3.6Mbps is a theoretical peak, not a typical real-world speed — actual throughput depended on carrier buildout, signal strength, and tower congestion.

EDGE, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth

Where 3G wasn't available, the Touch Cruise fell back to quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE across 850, 900, 1800, and 1900MHz, confirmed from the original spec sheet — useful for roaming and non-HSDPA areas. Wi-Fi was 802.11b/g; Bluetooth was version 2.0, with contemporary listings citing hands-free calling and A2DP stereo audio.

GPS, Bundled Navigation, and Dedicated Nav Devices

The Touch Cruise had integrated assisted GPS, using an active data connection to speed an initial fix — a real step up from the earlier Pocket PC era, when GPS often meant a separate Bluetooth receiver puck. Mobility Today's coverage described briefly trying it with Google Maps and Windows Live Search, a maps-and-search tool, not true turn-by-turn navigation. TomTom Navigator, plus one downloadable city map, came bundled on some regional releases, not confirmed as universal. Against a standalone TomTom, Garmin, or Magellan unit, the Touch Cruise's navigation was a convenience tradeoff rather than a clear upgrade — dedicated units had larger screens, more mature routing, and didn't share battery with the phone.

Cameras: Rear Autofocus and Front-Facing

The rear camera was a 3-megapixel autofocus unit, confirmed from the original spec list; flash, video capture, and panorama capability aren't confirmed in surviving coverage, so this piece won't claim them. A front-facing VGA camera was also on the confirmed spec sheet, intended for circuit-switched 3G video calling — a feature that saw far less real-world adoption than later internet video calling, with availability varying by carrier.

FM Radio, ExtUSB, and the Missing Jack

A built-in FM radio was confirmed, with a catch: it only worked with the bundled headphones, since the cable itself doubled as the antenna. Instead of a 3.5mm jack, the Touch Cruise used HTC's proprietary ExtUSB connector — one port for USB syncing, charging, and wired audio at once, a real accessory-standardization tradeoff common across this HTC generation.

Battery

The Touch Cruise shipped with a removable 1,350mAh battery, confirmed directly in Mobility Today's coverage. The reviewer was candid that the verdict on real-world life was still open, describing roughly a full workday of moderate use and comparing it favorably to a 1,600mAh cell previously used in a Palm Treo 750 — an early, unfinished impression, not a formal benchmark. HSDPA, GPS, Wi-Fi, screen brightness, push email, Bluetooth, and navigation use would all have affected actual runtime.

Physical Design

Confirmed dimensions put the Touch Cruise at 110mm by 58mm by 15.5mm, 130 grams with the battery, finished in a soft-touch paint popular across mobile devices at the time. Layout placed the power button alone on top; a volume slider and voice-activation button on the left edge; the microSD slot, a camera button, and a stylus silo on the right; and the ExtUSB port, reset hole, and lanyard loop on the bottom. The rear held the camera, a GPS antenna connector, and a small mirror.

Touch Cruise vs the HTC TyTN II

The two shared a surprising amount on paper — both around 400MHz with similar RAM/ROM, HSDPA, GPS, and a 3-megapixel autofocus camera. Where they diverged was form factor: the TyTN II (codenamed Kaiser) carried a tilting display over a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, bulkier at 112mm by 59mm by 19mm and roughly 190 grams, versus the Touch Cruise's slimmer, keyboard-less body. For HTC's earlier keyboard-first devices, our first look back at the original HTC TyTN covers that side of the family — that piece covers the original TyTN rather than the TyTN II, and a dedicated TyTN II retrospective may follow separately.

Touch Cruise vs the Original iPhone, N95, and Treo

Against the original 2007 iPhone — no 3G, no GPS, no App Store, no third-party apps at launch — the Touch Cruise had real advantages: 3G/HSDPA, integrated GPS, microSD expansion, Exchange ActiveSync, a removable battery, and an autofocus camera. The iPhone countered with a larger capacitive multitouch display and a Safari browser more capable and finger-oriented than IE Mobile. The philosophies were genuinely different, too: Apple built iPhone OS finger-first from the ground up, while HTC layered a finger-friendly TouchFLO shell onto an OS still designed around a stylus underneath. Two other contemporaries are worth a brief mention: the Nokia N95 ran Symbian behind a physical slide keypad with a 5-megapixel camera and a strong multimedia/GPS reputation, no clear winner against the touchscreen approach; and the Palm Treo, the device Mobility Today's reviewer used right before switching, represented the compact, physical-QWERTY business phone the Touch Cruise moved away from.

Business Use, Exchange, Browsing, and Apps

Bundled Office Mobile allowed basic document viewing and light editing, and Exchange ActiveSync enabled push email, contacts, and calendar sync — a real BlackBerry alternative for some organizations, though VPN access depended on configuration. Browsing ran through Internet Explorer Mobile, less capable and finger-oriented than Safari; nothing recovered confirms Opera Mobile on this model. Windows Mobile's third-party ecosystem was genuinely mature, illustrated by the reviewer buying a keyboard app to replace HTC's stock options — an edge over the iPhone's total lack of native apps at launch, which arrived only with the App Store in mid-2008.

Revisiting Mobility Today's Original First Look

Mobility Today's original coverage published Sunday, February 17, 2008, written by site member JNGold — not staff writer David Ciccone, who appears only in the comment thread. The piece ran three pages, framed as a first look rather than a full review, with a spec list, original photos, and 24 reader comments. The reviewer had bought an unlocked unit and used it on AT&T for a couple of days, suggesting a retail unit rather than a review sample. TouchFLO impressions were positive despite wider negative press HTC was getting over the MSM7200's graphics drivers. GPS was briefly tested with Google Maps and Windows Live Search, assisted by an active data connection for a faster lock. Camera and browser impressions weren't covered in depth. Phone quality and 3G signal were favorable on AT&T, holding a signal indoors where a Palm Treo 750 previously dropped to weak EDGE. Battery observations were an early, explicitly unfinished impression, not a benchmark. The navigation wheel drew praise, confirmed as a rotatable four-way scroll-and-press control. Original photos survived, though a video overview for this piece isn't confirmed.

Early Reception and the MSM7200 Graphics Debate

Recurring themes in period reviews and forums: positive notes on connectivity, integrated GPS, compact design, and TouchFLO's ease of use; critical notes on dated QVGA resolution, Windows Mobile's complexity, the missing keyboard, the proprietary ExtUSB connector, and occasional performance quirks. One genuine controversy touched the Touch Cruise specifically: HTC faced criticism for shipping MSM7200-based devices, this one included, without drivers fully exploiting the chipset's 3D graphics — referenced directly in Mobility Today's first-look, and backed by sustained XDA Developers activity fixing that same graphics performance on this platform.

XDA Developers and the Windows Mobile 6.1 Update

XDA Developers hosted extensive community activity around the Touch Cruise and Polaris platform, including a long-running graphics driver-fix thread and broader custom ROM development — genuine historical context, though this article isn't providing flashing instructions. HTC separately released an official Windows Mobile 6.1 upgrade after launch, distinct from anything community-built; exact regional rollout timing isn't confirmed, and the Touch Cruise was never sold through a major US carrier.

Don't Confuse This With the 2009 Touch Cruise

In January 2009, HTC announced a new device that reused the Touch Cruise name for a substantially redesigned phone, codenamed Iolite. That model shipped with TouchFLO 3D rather than the original TouchFLO described throughout this article, and introduced HTC Footprints, for geotagging photos with location and notes. None of the 2009 Touch Cruise's hardware or software belongs to the original 2008 Polaris-based device covered here, and despite sharing a name, the two shouldn't be treated as the same product.

Why the Touch Cruise Matters

Its significance isn't about being definitively first at anything — hard to establish this far out. What's easier to defend: a genuine early attempt at a finger-oriented interface over Windows Mobile, paired with integrated GPS and HSDPA in a compact, high-end body, at a moment when the category was still figuring out what finger-first design should look like. The T-Mobile G1, running Android and built by HTC, launched later that same year — the start of HTC's pivot away from Windows Mobile.

Using and Collecting a Touch Cruise Today

Set realistic expectations for a surviving unit: many countries have shut down its 2G/3G networks, Windows Mobile hasn't seen a security update in over a decade, an ancient browser build can't render the modern web, bundled maps are outdated, and old Wi-Fi security may not match current routers. This is a collector's device, not a daily driver. When evaluating one, check touchscreen and navigation-wheel responsiveness, stylus and battery condition, whether microSD still reads, the ExtUSB connector and any original charger, camera/GPS operation, and packaging completeness. Never use or charge a battery showing swelling or damage — dispose of it properly instead.

FAQ

What was the HTC Touch Cruise?

An HTC candybar Windows Mobile phone from early 2008 with a resistive touchscreen, TouchFLO, GPS, and HSDPA — no physical keyboard.

Is it also called the HTC Polaris?

Yes — Polaris was HTC's codename before the Touch Cruise and P3650 branding went public.

What was the HTC P3650?

Its model number, used interchangeably with the Touch Cruise and Polaris names.

When was it released?

Around January 2008; Mobility Today's first-look published February 17, 2008.

What OS did it run? Windows Mobile 6?

Windows Mobile 6 Professional at launch, with an official 6.1 upgrade later.

What was TouchFLO?

The original, first-generation TouchFLO — a finger-swipeable home screen with a rotatable Touch Cube, over a stylus-oriented interface underneath. Not the later TouchFLO 3D from the Touch Diamond/Touch Pro.

Was the touchscreen capacitive or resistive?

Resistive — pressure-based and single-point, not capacitive multitouch like the iPhone.

Did it have GPS?

Yes, integrated assisted GPS, with TomTom bundled on some regional releases.

Did it support HSDPA?

Yes, a theoretical peak up to 3.6Mbps download — real-world speeds depended on network conditions.

Did it have Wi-Fi?

Yes, 802.11b/g.

Did it have Bluetooth?

Yes, Bluetooth 2.0 with hands-free calling and A2DP stereo audio.

What camera did it have?

A 3-megapixel autofocus rear camera, plus a VGA front camera for video calling on some variants.

Did it have a physical keyboard?

No — software keyboards and TouchFLO only, a tradeoff for a slimmer body than HTC's TyTN line.

Did it support microSD?

Yes, via a slot listed as SD 2.0 compatible; a specific max tested capacity isn't confirmed.

What processor did it use?

A Qualcomm MSM7200 at roughly 400MHz, with 128MB RAM and 256MB ROM.

How does it compare to the HTC TyTN II?

Similar internals, but the TyTN II added a tilting display and slide-out keyboard at a larger, heavier size.

How does it compare to the original iPhone?

It offered 3G/HSDPA, GPS, expandable storage, and a removable battery the 2007 iPhone lacked; the iPhone offered a larger multitouch display and a more capable browser.

What's the difference between the 2008 and 2009 Touch Cruise?

Different devices sharing a name. The 2008 original (Polaris, P3650) is covered here; the 2009 Touch Cruise (Iolite) was a redesign with TouchFLO 3D and HTC Footprints.

Is it collectible today?

Genuine appeal for vintage-smartphone collectors, though dead 2G/3G networks, an unsupported OS, and aging batteries make it impractical daily.

The HTC Touch Cruise never became a mainstream household name, but it captured a genuinely transitional moment for HTC and Windows Mobile — a finger-friendly shell wrapped around a still stylus-oriented OS, GPS and HSDPA packed into a compact body, and a design philosophy that reads, in hindsight, as a bridge between the stylus-driven Pocket PC era and the finger-first smartphones that followed.