Taiwanese mobile maker HTC unveiled a trio of new handsets at Mobile World Congress – spearheaded by the stylish Legend.

HTC’s sleek phone picks up where its predecessor, the Hero, left off and some critics think it matches Apple’s iPhone in the style stakes.

The Legend is fashioned from a single piece of aluminium, like Apple’s MacBook, and combines touchscreen with an optical trackpad.

Running the latest Eclair 2.1 version of Google’s Android OS, the Legend features a 3.2-inch organic AMOLED display, for a crisper image than traditional backlit LED handsets.

The new Sense software – HTC’s own user-interface – allows contacts to be separated into business and friends, making the phone more convenient for work and play. It also pulls Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites together into a single stream of updates.

The Legend arrives in the UK in April on Vodafone contracts.

HTC also unveiled the speedy, high-spec Desire and the smaller, Windows-powered HD Mini.

The Desire looks similar to Google’s Nexus One (also built by HTC) but promises to be one of the fastest smartphones on the market with a 1Ghz Snapdragon processor(same processor as the one on the lenovo skylight -thinest netbook) and 576MB of RAM.

Combined with its 3.7 inch touchscreen display, the Desire is designed to be a fast mobile web browser and supports Flash. It arrives in the UK this spring on T-Mobile and Orange contracts.

The HD Mini is a smaller version of the Windows-powered HD2. Its ability to act as a mobile wireless hotspot – allowing other users to piggyback its 3G data connection – will make its owners very popular.