The HTC Desire S will sell through Telstra for $649 outright, and will also be available for $5 per month on Telstra's $59 Freedom Connect plan over 24 months. The plan offers $550 worth of calls and MMS messages, unlimited text messages to any mobile within Australia, and 1.5GB of data per month.

The HTC Desire S will be exclusively sold through Telstra until 31 August. It may be available through other carriers after this date, though HTC did not reveal any further details beyond the initial Telstra partnership.

The HTC Desire S is best described as an evolution of the original . It features the same 3.7in, capacitive touchscreen, 1GHz Qualcomm processor, and 5-megapixel camera as its predecessor, with a minor RAM increase -- 768MB up from 576MB -- the biggest change under the hood. The Desire S also has a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video calls.

Unlike its predecessor, the HTC Desire S's body is constructed from a single piece of aluminium, which HTC calls a "unibody" design. The HTC Desire S runs the latest 2.3 "Gingerbread" version of .