While we wrote last month about the HTC Advantage being available on Amazon for $899, the Advantage is just now officially announced by HTC as available to buy here in America.

HTC America issued a press release this week announcing that the HTC Advantage is available at a price of $899. HTC lists two places to buy the Advantage, CompUSA and Amazon.

The MSRP for the Advantage is a steep $899, but Amazon continues to sell the phone for $849 as they have been for a while now. I was able to play with the Advantage in L.A. last month and it was very nice. Huge for a portable phone, but with all the power it has and the office applications you really could leave your notebook behind and work from it for a few days. The keyboard was small and cramped, but certainly workable.

If you are wondering why the phone was for sale on Amazon for a while now with the official announcement just coming, I spoke with Jason Gordon at HTC for an answer to that. The previous version that was being sold on Amazon was imports, which had different specs than the models for sale now. The previous phones carried a 7500 part number and the one for sale now at Amazon and CompUSA carry a 7501 part number.

The difference between the 7500 and 7501 is that the 7501 uses Windows Mobile 6, whereas the 7500 was Windows Mobile 5. The 7501 also loses the VGA camera that faced the phone user on the 7500 in favor of a single camera for taking pictures and video pointed away from the user. Via HTC