Actually, calling the HTC Universal a “smartphone” is selling it short, as this device was marketed as a “pocket computer” by both HTC and Microsoft, as it looked the part and featured Windows Mobile 5.0 with multiple desktop PC-grade apps on board.
The HTC Universal featured a full QWERTY keyboard, a large-for-the-time swiveling screen (one of its coolest features), and some pretty impressive internals like a 520MHz CPU and 128MB of RAM. It was also the first phone that had a dedicated front camera for 3G video calls. That’s an essential and boring feature these days, but back in the day, video calls on a pocket-sized device felt like a cutting-edge novelty or a glimpse into the future for most people.
The device also had a chockful of extra ports, buttons, and connectivity standards, which was the norm back in the day. It had a dedicated 3.5mm audio jack, an infrared port for data transfer, many physical buttons for answering and hanging up phone calls and messaging, a camera shutter key, and even a volume slider button. The Universal also had a full-sized SD card slot, a stylus, and even a physical reset button!
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