Multiple Cellular Firsts Hit Market

By Joseph Palenchar On Mar 7 2011 - 6:01am

NEW YORK – The second month of the year is always the shortest of the year, but February’s list of cellular firsts was the longest in recent memory.

HTC, for example, revealed that its long-awaited Merge Android smartphone will be the company’s first Android-based CDMA worldphone. It will join the Motorola Droid Pro, which was the first Android-based worldphone when it became available late last year through Verizon. Both models operate in 3G mode in CDMA 1x EV-DO Rev. A markets as well as in foreign HSPA markets for global 3G data roaming.

In another first, HTC announced that the Windows Phone 7 smartphone platform would come to a U.S. CDMA network for the first time with the March 20 arrival of the $199 HTC Arrive on the Sprint network.

In cellular-equipped tablets, Motorola began offering the industry’s first Android 3.0-powered tablet, the Xoom.

For its part, T-Mobile launched the $199 Galaxy S 4G Android 2.2 smartphone, the carrier’s first phone capable of theoretical peak download speeds of up to 21Mbps in HSPA+ markets. It is T-Mobile’s fastest 4G phone to date.

For the Verizon network, Best Buy announced pricing of Verizon’s first 3G/4G LTE phone, the HTC ThunderBolt, which became the first smartphone priced with contract service to match the $299 price of the top model in the Apple iPhone 4 lineup. In a Feb. 27 ad, Best Buy advertised the $299 with two-year contract. The ad, however, didn’t say when the ThunderBolt would be available, and the retailer has been telling consumers that the rollout has been delayed a second time — from Feb. 20 to Feb. 24 and then again to an unspecified date.

Here are the details on these and other phones that were just launched or whose details were disclosed:

HTC ThunderBolt: Verizon’s first 3G/4G phone, the Android 2.2-based ThunderBolt, was priced by Best Buy at $299 with two-year contract and required $29.99/month unlimited data plan. The price without contract is $749. Best Buy is the phone’s exclusive national retailer.

For the price, consumers will get a touchscreen- only phone with a 4.3-inch 800 by 480 WVGA screen, 1GHz processor, DLNA, 720p video capture, kickstand, 8GB embedded memory, MicroSD slot supporting 32GB cards, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n/, hot spot capability supporting up to eight Wi-Fi devices, 8-megapixel back camera with 720p video capture, 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for Skype video chats, FM tuner and assisted GPS.

HTC Merge: The Android 2.2-based Merge phone will operate in U.S. 850/1900MHz 3G CDMA Rev. A networks, in overseas 2.1GHz 3G HSPA networks, and in U.S. and overseas GSM/EDGE networks. It will be available through multiple North America carriers in the spring, presumably including Verizon, which offers multiple 3G worldphones.

The Merge features a slide-from-the-side QWERTY keyboard, 3.8-inch capacitive touchscreen with haptic feedback and pinchto- zoom capability, 720p video capture, GPS, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, 5-megapixel camera with flash and autofocus, HTC’s Sense user interface, and HTC’s FriendStream social-media aggregation service, which delivers Facebook, Twitter and Flickr updates in a consolidated view.

The phone also features a 800MHz Qualcomm processor, 2GB embedded memory, included 8GB MicroSD card and stereo Bluetooth 2.1.

HTC Arrive: The Windows Phone 7 smartphone platform will come to a CDMA network for the first time with the March 20 arrival of the $199 HTC Arrive on the Sprint network.

The phone, priced after $100 mail-in rebate and two-year contract, is also the first Windows Phone 7 handset to combine a sliding QWERTY keyboard with a tilt-up display that creates the appearance of a tiny laptop. It also features such preinstalled Windows 7 upgrades as copy and paste.

The Arrive is similar to the HTC 7 Pro offered outside the U.S.

Like the multiple GSM/HSPA Windows 7 phones available here in the U.S. from T-Mobile and AT&T, the 6.5-ounce Arrive meets Microsoft’s minimum performance requirements, or “chassis spec,” which mandates a minimum 1GHz processor, 5-megapixel camera, 800 by 480 capacitive touchscreen, minimum RAM and flash-memory, and the like. They also feature 720p HD video capture.

Motorola Xoom: Motorola and Verizon are confident enough in the Xoom’s capabilities that they priced it at $799 without contract, or $70 more than the equivalent, currently available first-generation no-contract iPad with 32GB of memory and embedded AT&T 3G cellular. The Xoom, however, is still less than the currently available $829 64GB 3G iPad.

With a two-year Verizon contract, however, the Xoom’s price is subsidized down to $599. AT&T doesn’t offer its iPad with contract, only with prepaid service.

3G service for the Xoom starts at $20/month for 1GB of data. An upgrade to 4G LTE service will be available in the second quarter.

Samsung Galaxy S 4G: Carrier T-Mobile priced the 4G version of its Samsung Galaxy S smartphone at $199 after $50 rebate card and announced that consumers would be able to pay for Samsung’s MediaHub video-download service through their phone bill.

Right now, only T-Mobile offers direct carrier billing for Samsung’s MediaHub service, and only for the Galaxy S 4G, not for other MediaHub-equipped phones.

The Galaxy S 4G Android 2.2 smartphone is the carrier’s fastest 4G phone to date, capable of theoretical peak download speeds of up to 21Mbps in HSPA+ markets.

Compared with the 3G Galaxy S, the Galaxy S 4G adds Qik video-chat capability over 3G, 4G and Wi-Fi. It adds a preloaded DoubleTwist with AirSync app, enabling automatic Wi-Fi syncing of photos, HD video and music with a home PC.

Like the 3G Galaxy S, also called the Vibrant, the 4G version features proprietary 4-inch multitouch touchscreen with Samsung-proprietary Super AMOLED display, Samsung 1GHz processor, a 5-megapixel rearfacing camera/camcorder with 720p video capture, LED flash and DLNA-certified Wi-Fi.