Monday, October 31, 2011

AT&T Reveals First LTE Phones: HTC Vivid and Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket

vivids2

For a few months now AT&T has had an LTE network, but no phones that could take advantage of it. Well, that all changes today — AT&T has just announced that the Android-powered HTC Vivid and the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket will be the first to run on their LTE network, and will hit store shelves on November 6.


The HTC Vivid packs a 1.2GHz dual-core processor under the proverbial hood, and a 4.5-inch qHD display graces its face. A 8-megapixel camera capable of shooting 1080p video occupies the Vivid’s rear end, and 16GB of internal storage (expandable up to 32GB with the right microSD cards) rounds out the package. HTC has kept mum on the specific version of Android the Vivid runs, but it does indeed sport HTC’s Sense UI. HTC fans can pick up the Vivid for $199 on a two-year contract.


Meanwhile, the Skyrocket takes a familiar package and plays with the internals. Instead of the 1.2GHz Exynos processor as seen in AT&T’s original GSII, the Skyrocket features a 1.5GHz dual-core processor. It also swaps the original version’s 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display for a 4.5-inch variant. The Skyrocket does however stick with an 8-megapixel rear camera, 16GB of built-in flash storage, and Android 2.3.5. If the Skyrocket has piqued your interest, expect to shell out $249 for it later this week.


Of course, you’ll need some LTE-friendly data plans to get the most out of these bad boys. Much like Verizon, AT&T has chosen to carry over their existing data plans, so $15 will net casual users 200MB of high-speed LTE access while $25 yields 2GB. Right now, LTE coverage is only available in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio, but AT&T is getting ready to fire up Boston, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Athens, Georgia on the 6th.


Long story short, most Vivid and Skyrocket owners won’t even be able to use LTE for a while, but they’ll at least have some impressive hardware to tide them over until AT&T lights up their neck of the woods.














target=_blank>http://chilp.it/40f661

No comments:

Post a Comment