ITG’s long-anticipated xpPhone, a smartphone capable of running off-the-shelf PC software, is finally going up for sale, though for slightly more than anticipated when we took a look at the phone back in January.
The xpPhone runs Microsoft Windows Embedded Standard 2009, the latest version of XP Embedded. The software carries over the lion’s share of features from the PC version of XP, letting you run most of the same applications. Just because it runs XP doesn’t mean the phone has to look like it; ITG’s outfitted the system with a UI skin that could easily pass for one designed from the ground up for smartphones.
Hardware-wise, the xpPhone isn’t that much different from your standard QWERTY smartphone. It’s got an 800 x 480 display, 512MB of RAM, and either 8GB or 16GB of flash storage. Rather than HDMI, the phone uses VGA for its video-out, keeping with its PC roots.
The smartphone’s available either with or without 3G connectivity, and for the truly masochistic, with DOS installed in place of the embedded XP (though we’re hoping that’s a joke). Prices range from $666 to $876 depending on options, and pre-orders are open now.
