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Verizon’s Q4 Lineup Adds Second Droid, More PTT, Prepaid Broadband

New York
– New additions to the Verizon Wireless fourth-quarter lineup include a $99
Android-based touchscreen-only smartphone, the carrier’s first prepaid
broadband-data plans, an expanded selection of push-to-talk (PTT) phones,
Verizon’s first BlackBerry Curve with Wi-Fi, and the first touchscreen phone in
the carrier’s LG Chocolate lineup.

“We’re providing more options than before,” a spokesperson said
of the carrier’s fourth-quarter product strategy. The options include a
significant expansion in the carrier’s smartphone selection compared to the
year-ago period, more PTT phones, and the carrier’s first two Android-based
smartphones.

The carrier’s $99 Android-based smartphone is the $99 HTC-made Droid Eris, which goes on sale Nov. 6 along
with the previously announced $199 Motorola-made Droid,
which also goes on sale Nov. 6. The Droid is the industry’s first phone to
incorporate the Android 2.0 OS, and it features touchscreen with slide-out
QWERTY keyboard. Prices are after $100 mail-in rebate and two-year service
agreement with data plan.

The touchscreen-only Droid Eris is smaller than its Motorola-made
counterpart, lacks the Droid’s slide-out keyboard, features a smaller screen,
uses an earlier version of the Android OS, and uses a processor that’s slower
then the Droid’s 600MHz processor. Eris also lacks Google Maps Navigation,
which is a hybrid turn-by-turn navigation application that downloads a route’s
maps and driving directions on demand from the cloud for local storage.

The Eris features 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen, trackball
navigation and HTC’s Sense user
interface, which lets users customize multiple home screens, each populated by
different types of widgets and shortcuts. Home screens can be dedicated to
work, entertainment, travel or other uses. Eris also features 5-megapixel camera,
Wi-Fi, preinstalled 8GB MicroSD card, full HTML browser with Flash Lite capabilities,
digital compass to know what direction it’s facing, and Google apps such as
Google Maps, Gmail and Google Search. Location-based services are enabled by
embedded GPS and access to
Google’s assisted-GPS service,
which used cell-tower triangulation and Wi-Fi hot spot identification to
accelerate GPS-satellite
acquisition time.

As for the carrier’s first three prepaid broadband-data plans,
they are available with the purchase of a $129 USB760
EV-DO Rev. A modem available in a grab-and-go package. The modem becomes
available Nov. 15 in Verizon’s stores and Nov. 20 in select national retailers.
The plans consist of a daily $15 75MB plan, a weekly $30 250MB plan and a
monthly $50 500MB plan.

The carrier’s BlackBerry Curve 8530 with fixed QWERTY keyboard
adds Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, BlackBerry 5.0 OS, optical track pad, more memory at
256MB and more processing power at 528MHz. It uses Verizon’s 3G CDMA 1x EV-DO
data network. It’s available Nov. 20 at $99.99 after $100 mail-in rebate with
two-year contract including data plan starting at $29.99/month.

In multimedia phones, the first LG Chocolate-series phone with
touchscreen is the Chocolate Touch, due in stores Nov. 5 at $79.99 after $50
mail-in rebate and two-year service plan that need not include a monthly data
plan. It features FM tuner, 1GB embedded memory, MicroSD slot supporting 16GB
cards, stereo Bluetooth, 3.2-megapixel camera, 3.5mm headphone jack and Dolby
Mobile technology. This technology adds spaciousness to music played through
headphones, restores lost high frequencies, extends bass, and maintains a
consistent playback level  when switching
audio sources or moving from song to song.

The Chocolate Touch also accesses social-networking sites,
downloads music over the air from Verizon’s music-download site, and streams
video and TV shows via the VCast Video service. A “join-the-band” feature lets
users play a virtual drum set or virtual piano on the touchscreen as stored
music is playing.

Three new PTT phones all feature EV-DO Rev. A data technology and
meet military specs for ruggedness. One, the Casio GZ-1, is Verizon’s first PTT
phone with QWERTY keyboard. It will be available sometime in the fourth quarter
at an unannounced price. The other two models, both clamshell models, are the
Motorola Barrage, currently available at $129 after rebate, and the Samsung
Convoy, due Nov. 15 at $49.99 after rebate.

The GZ-1 features slide-from-the slide keyboard, Microsoft and
PDF document viewer, text-to-speech conversion to convert email and text
messages to voice, 3.2-megapixel camera, HTML browser, and Verizon’s V Cast
music and video services.

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