T-Mobile Prices Its Latest 2 Smartphones

By Joseph Palenchar -- TWICE, 3/17/2010

Bellevue, Wash. - T-Mobile priced its latest two smartphones, the Android-based Motorola Cliq and HTC's Windows Mobile 6.5 HD2, at $129 and $199, respectively, with two-year voice/data plan.

T-Mobile plans March 24 availability of the $199 HTC-made HD2.

The Cliq is available today in T-Mobile stores and its Web site, while the HD2 goes on sale in those channels March 24.

The full-touchscreen HD2 is promoted as offering the largest multitouch touchscreen on a U.S.-market phone, at 4.3 inches. It features Qualcomm 1GHz processor and comes with Barnes & Noble eReader application to read e-books and Blockbuster's first movie-downloading smartphone application, enabling downloads via Wi-Fi. The phone also comes with MobiTV application to stream view live and on-demand TV over 3G. The HD2 will be T-Mobile's 10^th 7.2Mbps HSPA phone.

The full-touch 3G Cliq XT follows T-Mobile's launch last year of the original Cliq. Like other Motorola-made Android phones in the U.S. except the Droid, the Cliq XT features Motorola-operated Motoblur service, which aggregates and pushes all of a user's work and personal emails; text messages; and social-network posts, messages and to the home screen for easy management. Status updates, wall posts and photo updates from social-networking sites are pushed to a home-screen widget, and text messages, social-network messages and emails are pushed to a universal inbox on the home screen.

Cliq XT features include 3.1-inch touchscreen, Adobe Flash Lite, FM radio, Wi-Fi, assisted GPS, 5-megapixel camera/camcorder and stereo Bluetooth.

Both models also feature Swype touchscreen text-entry technology, which lets users trace their finger along a virtual QWERTY keyboard instead of tapping each letter.