HTC's Tattoo Phone Runs Android, Provides Design, UI Options

HTC has announced its fourth mobile phone based on the open source Android operating system, dubbed the HTC Tattoo. You can take a visual tour of it here. The Tattoo runs the HTC Sense user interface on top of Android, and the name Tattoo comes from its design customizability.

Tattoo users can choose from a variety of phone colors, and even design unique covers. There are also "inking" options for illustrations on the phone's case. Meanwhile, the HTC Sense user interface allows users to create their own home pages, combining links to frequently used sites and services, photos, and more. It's particularly loaded with social networking conveniences.

Tattoo is a 3G smartphone with a 2.8-inch touchscreen, a digital compass, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, a 3.2-megapixel digital camera, and 512MB of local storage plus a MicroSD card slot for adding more. There isn't pricing available for it yet, but it definitely looks slick, and may be the most customizable Android smartphone.

Curiously, HTC continues to release its smartphones in Europe first, and then only later in other parts of the world. That will be the case with the Tattoo, but it should be available in the United States by the end of the year.

In the screenshot below, you can see one of the available "inking" customizability options for Tattoo, in orange.