HTC rains on Nokia's Windows parade with Telstra selling the HTC Titan 4G

WHILE Apple and Android slog it out for supremacy in the smartphone market, an interesting skirmish is unfolding between Nokia and HTC over who can produce the best Windows 7smarphones.

Last week Nokia announced two more smartphones in its Lumia range, the 900 and 610, which have Windows Phone  7 as the operating system.

This week it's been HTC's turn with Telstra announcing the HTC Titan 4G, the first Windows smartphone in Australia that runs on fourth generation LTE networks.

In doing so, HTC has raind on Nokia's parade, with the Titan 4G going head-to-head with the Lumia 900 in the Windows  7 , large display phone market

Nokia has been banking on its relationship with Microsoft to regain market share with smartphones

featuring Windows phone 7.

But Window Phone 7 is familiar territory for HTC too. It has produced several Windows 7 phones, starting with the HTC Mosart in late 2010.

HTC's Titan 4G has a 4.7-inch WVGA screen which trumps the Lumia 900's 4.3-inch screen in size. It has a 16-megapixel camera with a dedicated shutter button, and a 1.3 megapixel front facing camera for video conferencing.

The Titan 4G's specs however are a little more conservative than HTC's trailblazing quadcore phone, the HTC one. It has a single core 1.5 Gigahertz Snapdragon S2 processor, and it shoots 720p HD video rather than full 1080p.

These more modest specs however should deliver longer batter life from the Titan's 1750 milliampere hour battery.

Telstra is pitching the Titan 4G as a reliable business phone rather than cutting-edge consumer

oriented one, and a phone that delivers a full-day's use between charges with moderate use.

Telstra is offering the Titan 4G to business customers for $8 per month on its 24-month $70 per month business mobile advantage plan, with 1 Gigabyte of data per month.

Consumers can buy the HTC Titan 4G fo$0 upfront on a $79 freedom connect plan with 2GB of data per month.