As the UMPC market slowly starts to heat up, we sit on pins and needles anxiously awaiting the official launch of the HTC Shift with all its beautiful portable Vista goodness. That wait is finally coming to an end next month, but it’s not through the channel that you were probably expecting. Instead of the sale commencing directly from the people at HTC, the Shift is getting its worldwide debut via Orange UK. This means that the Britons will get first dibs on this awesome handheld.

As you may recall, the Shift UMPC was originally revealed late last year and then the launch date was bumped to some time in 2008. No further details were released, so we really had little idea whether HTC meant that they were shifting to January or December. At least now we know that it’s public and you can grab one from Orange… if you’ve got 900 GBP kicking around.

Core specs and features on the HTC Shift UMPC include both Windows Vista and Windows Mobile 6, full QWERTY keyboard, large touchscreen display, 3G+/3G/EDGE, WiFi, and VGA camera. The ad does note that “this device cannot make voice calls using the mobile network.” Dang.