Remember the old Touch Cruise (shown below, top)? It was HTC’s attempt at a navigation-centric device, but considering that all recent HTC device have GPS, we never really saw the advantage of the Touch Cruise, especially with that grainy QVGA screen and thick body.

Well, HTC is continuing the Touch Cruise heritage by pushing through an update. The device previously known as the Iolite is now the new Touch Cruise, shown below. It brings TouchFLO “2D”, a 2.8″ QVGA screen (blek), a 528MHz CPU, 512MB ROM, 256MB RAM, a 1100mAh battery, and WiFi with Europe-only HSDPA. It is 1mm thinner than the original Touch Cruise.

What is unique about the new Touch Cruise is its geotagging capability (which is done via software) that HTC is calling “footprints”. Basically, you take a picture, and the device remembers where you took it. Then, you can flip through polaroid-framed images on the Today screen, and tapping on an image will flip it over to reveal when and where the picture was taken. We hope that HTC releases this feature in all of its 2009 releases. Also, the device comes with a car kit and navigation software (though we wonder if there is an added fee for this).

Regarding availability, it will start in Europe, but will come to the US as an unlocked device with the proper US 3G bands (850/1900) for $500-600.