LAS VEGAS -- I got a closer look at the HTC HD2 smartphone this morning that Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer announced last night in his keynote.

The HTC phone runs on Windows Mobile 6.5, even though most in the industry are waiting to see what Microsoft brings to the table with Windows Mobile 7.0 given the immense gains of Apple's iPhone and Tuesday's announcement by Google to sell its own branded Nexus One phone.

The HTC HD2 smartphone.

The HD2 phone is iPhone-like in that it has a large touchscreen with a few buttons at the bottom. The screens are customizable, unlike the iPhone and like phones that use Google's Android operating system. The touchscreen also has the pull/pinch gesture technology that the iPhone has. Which is one of the problems with Windows Mobile as of now -- everything draws comparisons to what Google and Apple are doing with mobile innovation.

It also features HTC's Sense software, which connects each contact stored in the phone to that contact's previous text messages, e-mails and Facebook updates. Motorola is also doing that with Motoblur software.