One of HTC's top executives says his company will release a highly anticipated UMPC early next month.. What will set the HTC Shift apart fromn its competitors is that in addition to running Windows Vista it will also run Windows Mobile.

In a recent interview, Vishnu Vardhan, HTC's Executive Director MEA, said the Shift will be released at the GITEX tradeshow, which kicks off September 8 in Dubai.

Price for different configuarations of this laptop-like model are expected to start at $1,500.

An Overview of the HTC Shift

This mini-laptop will have a tablet design with a QWERTY keyboard hidden behind its 7-inch touchscreen. When the screen is slid aside to expose the keyboard, it will flip up at an angle.

If the shipping version of this laptop is like the prototypes that have been shown so far, the Shift will run Windows Vista Business on an Intel Santa Rosa A110 processor. It will have 1GB DDR2 RAM and a 40 GB hard drive.

When running Windows Mobile 6 Professional, the Shift will use a 400 MHz processor from Qualcomm, and include 64 MB of RAM and 128 MB of ROM.

The Shift will function as a quad-Band GSM phone with GPRS and EDGE. It will also support the 3G cellular-wireless networking standards UMTS and HSDPA in the frequencies used in the U.S. and Europe.

For short-range wireless networking it will include Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0.

The HTC Shift will last for three hours on a single charge when running Vista, while HTC says its battery life running Windows Mobile will be more than 5 days.