It's not expected to ship for eight months, but HTC's next-generation Windows Mobile 5.0-based media phone has already surfaced on the web.

According to a MSMobiles.com report, the handset, dubbed Muse, is a 3G device that also supports GSM and GPRS with EDGE. It may also support HSDPA, the extension to UMTS 3G technology that improves data transfer speeds. As per other HTC handsets, Muse has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth too.

The unit has a 240 x 240, 65,536-colour display and a 2.1mp camera with Flash. There's a more basic, VGA camera on the front for video calls. For media playback, Muse has a pair of integrated stereo speakers and, like Samsungs's new D600, a TV port. There's an FM radio on board too.

The phone provides 64MB of RAM for operations and 4GB of Flash memory for media storage. There's a Micro SD slot for adding more. Muse contains a 416MHz CPU, the report claims.

There's no mention of a keypad, but we assume from the piccy Muse is a slider.

HTC's other 3G handset, the candybar-shaped Breeze, also makes an appearance at the site. Due May 2006, the device offers the same network specs as Muse, but sports a 320 x 240 display, 1.3mp camera with flash, 64MB of RAM and 128MB of Flash ROM. ®