Close on the heels of T-Mobile's early August launch of its Touch Pro2, the hottest smartphone thus far in 2009, Sprint Nextel announced on Monday that it too will make the high-end HTC Touch Pro2 smartphone available through its Web site from September 8.

The business-specific smartphone will enable the 'on the go' mobile professionals to receive corporate and private e-mail, along with calendar and contact information. The handset, which would feature the HTC TouchFLO user interface and would run on Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system from Microsoft, has been optimized for use as a conferencing and speakerphone.

Sprint's version of the HTC Touch Pro2 would also feature a 3.6-inch, 480-x-800 WVGA resolution TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen; a 3.2-megapixel camera with a camcorder; a slide-out five-row QWERTY keyboard; a standard headphone jack; Wi-Fi; GPS; and Bluetooth.

In addition, the forthcoming Sprint Touch Pro2 will also offer users the accessibility to a wide array of 'Sprint-exclusive' features and applications - like Sprint TV with live and on-demand programming, and Sprint's select sports applications - such as National Football League (NFL) Mobile Live and NASCAR Sprint Cup.

Essentially similar to the T-Mobile Touch Pro2 model in features as well as price, the Sprint Touch Pro2 offering will be available at a post-$100-rebate price of just below $350 with a two-year Sprint contract.