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AT&T Expands Touch, Keyboard Selection

Dallas – A sextet of new cellphones from AT&T
will expand the carrier’s selection of touchscreen and keyboard-equipped phones,
which will include the carrier’s first two Windows Mobile 6.5 PDA phones.

All six models â€”
two each from Pantech, Samsung and HTC â€” become available in October and November. Three models â€” the HTC Tilt2, Pantech Impact and Samsung Flight â€”
feature a touchscreen and a hard QWERTY keyboard. Two touchscreen-only models
are the HTC Pure and Samsung Mythic.
The model without a touchscreen but with a hard QWERTY keyboard is the Pantech
Reveal. All touchscreen models also feature a virtual QWERTY keyboard.

The Windows
Mobile models are the HTC Pure and
the HTC Tilt2, both with an
advanced version of HTC’s TouchFLO
3-D user interface. The Samsung and Pantech models feature full Web browsers,
and they are the carrier’s first to come preloaded with AT&T’s faster HTML mobile
browser and ATT.net Web service, which use Opera browser and Opera data
compression to allow for faster HTML page delivery.

The new browser
delivers three windows to the Web. From the homepage window, subscribers browse
the Internet. A second window provides location-aware local news, weather, and
points-of-interest (POI)
information as well as access to maps, driving directions and traffic
information. A third window delivers headlines from news, sports and
entertainment sites.

Among the
Windows Mobile models, the HTC Pure became
available at AT&T retail stores nationwide and online at www.wireless.att.com for $149. The HTC Tilt2 will be available in the weeks following at $299. The prices are after $50 mail-in rebate
and with two-year contract
with a minimum $69.99/month
service plan.

The touch-only
Pure features 3.2-inch WVGA touchscreen, 5-megapixel auto-focus camera with video capture, expandable
memory, gravity sensor and ambient light sensor. The HTC
Tilt2 features slide-out QWERTY
hard keyboard and 3.6-inch widescreen WVGA display, which can be tilted up. The speakerphone features dual speakers and dual
microphones with noise cancellation, and
HTC’s Straight Talk, which allows for simplified
conference calling and turns on
the speakerphone by turning the
device over. It also features a 3.2-megapixel camera.

Both HTC models sport such Windows Mobile 6.5
improvements as improved browser with Flash support and redesigned Start Menu.

In 2009, AT&T will support Microsoft’s Windows
Marketplace for Mobile, enabling
application downloading to the Pure and Tilt2 as well as to other Windows
Mobile devices, the carrier said. Marketplace purchases will be added to
subscribers’ monthly bills. AT&T will likewise support Windows Marketplace downloads
to smartphones using other Windows Mobile versions when Microsoft makes that
service available sometime later this year, AT&T added.

Among the
Pantech models is the non-touch Reveal, whose numeric keypad slides up to
reveal a QWERTY keyboard that remain active simultaneously to let users access
letters and numbers simultaneously. It’s due Oct. 18 in red or blue

Pantech’s
Impact triband-3G worldphone features haptic-feedback OLED touchscreen with
slide-from-the-side QWERTY keyboard. Sliding out the keyboard reveals a second
display screen that makes it easier to type long messages, the company said.
It’s available in pink or blue. AT&T did not specify whether it would be
available in October or November.

In the Samsung
portfolio, AT&T plans November availability of the Mythic touchscreen-only
phone with MediaFLO-based AT&T Mobile TV service. It will be available in
black with 3.3-inch touchscreen that scrolls left to right on the home screen to
display additional application icons. It features Samsung’s TouchWiz user
interface with widgets to customize the user interface. Pricing wasn’t
announced.

Samsung’s Flight,
also due in November, features touchscreen and slide-down QWERTY keyboard. The user
interface provides one-touch access to functions like shortcuts, favorites and
messaging. It will come in choice of red or silver. Pricing wasn’t announced.

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