If you are wary about the economy but want to stick your toe in the BDC pool, stick with PNNT and MAIN, battle-tested warriors who came through 2008-09 with flying colors.
But the real selling point of the E1 is its role in HTC's new e-commerce strategy in China: while you can get hold of one at an authorized HTC store, HTC's Chinese "eShop" throws in custom options for the built-in storage (8 or 16GB), main camera (five or eight megapixels, both with only 720p video capture) and one of the six body colors plus patterns.