A touch mobile phone which looks similar to the iPhone has gone on sale in Australia beating Apple to that market.

The machine, which has been on the drawing board for two years, has been made by Taiwanese smart phone maker HTC.

It is roughly the same price as the iPhone. It has a slightly smaller screen and is a bit thicker.  The biggest downside is that it only has 1Gb of memory in comparison to the iPhone's 8Gb for the same price. However the memory card is removable

Like the iPhone it will only run on a 2G network, although the plan is to create a 3G version soon. HTC chief executive officer Peter Chou, denied his company's phone was a copycat product launched to steal the iPhone's thunder.

He was pleased that Apple had followed his company's direction, he said.The phone would have been out earlier but an earlier proto-type had to be sent back for extra work, Chou said.

More here.