HTC today launched its slimline 'Star Trek' clamshell smart phone, as we reported last month, though the handset is not due to ship in the UK until late June, the company admitted.

The phone will indeed arrive in the UK as the QTek 8500, though HTC is now calling the handset the STRTrk, presumably to avoid any trademark entanglements that might arise from the use of the codename in public.

The clamshell is a quad-band (850/900/1800/1900MHz) GSM device with support for EDGE-enhanced GPRS connections. It sports a 2.2in, 240 x 320, 65,536-colour primary display, a 1.2in external display, a 1.3 megapixel camera and runs Windows Mobile 5. It's got Bluetooth on board too.

The 8500 measures 9.9 x 5.1 x 1.6cm when closed and weighs 99g. There's a MicroSD slot for memory expansion. It's got 64MB of RAM and the same amount of Flash on board, we understand.

The QTek 8500 goes on sale in the UK in the third week of June, the handset's local distributor, 20:20 Logistics, said. It will be available in black, silver and pink versions, each retailing for around £500 inc. VAT, though retailers bundling airtime packages are likely to offer it for less. ®