New Info on 6 Upcoming AT&T Phones October 8, 2009
Posted by Eli Blumenthal in : Cell Phones , trackback
This has been a pretty big week for cell phones, and AT&T in particular. Announcements about 6 new phones, including the HTC Touch Pro2, Touch Diamond2 and new feature phones, were announced in varying detail this week by AT&T, and boy, some of these look really good, and I mean really good.
HTC Pure
The HTC Pure
The HTC Pure is basically AT&T’s version of the Touch Diamond2– an all touchscreen, Windows Mobile phone. It’s pretty sweet and a really solid looking phone, while still packing in some impressive features:
- Thin, 3.2 inch all touchscreen design– Kinda looking like an iPhone, just with some more physical buttons on the front. It also has that great zoom bar right underneath the screen for zooming in and out of pix, web sites etc. It don’t look too bad either. The touchscreen also gives off “haptic feedback”, or a little vibration, when you tap the screen to replicate the feel of pressing a real button. Sadly though, no multi-touch here folks.
- AT&T 3G with AT&T services like Video Share, AT&T Mobile Music, Cellular Video…
- Windows Mobile 6.5 with HTC TouchFlo 3D– This runs Microsoft’s latest mobile OS, designed to be more finger-friendly for touchscreens than previous versions of the OS (something Windows Mobile BADLY needed). Touch Flo 3D, is well, HTC’s awesome skin for Windows Mobile that we all know and love, and makes Windows Mobile into a MUCH better touch phone. Touch Flo 3D gives you a cool and simple way to get to all the info you need– mail, texts, photos, contacts (which now pull in the latest Facebook status updates to the contact’s page!), music (with it’s own variation of Cover Flow), apps, weather and more– all from the homescreen. It really is awesome.
- WiFi, GPS and Accelerometer (like in the iPhone and iPod touch, you flip the phone to it’s side when your, say, texting or viewing a web page, the phone will automatically rotate the screen and keyboard).
- 5 Megapixel Camera with Auto-Focus and Video capture– Pretty impressive for such a thin phone, it even offers Geo-tagging (automatically adds the GPS location of where you took that pic into the pic’s file itself. Good if you wanted to post on to Flickr or Facebook where exactly you got took shot of Times Square from), and panoramic shooting modes.
- Apps from Windows Marketplace for Mobile or AT&T’s App Center– You can download apps using Microsoft’s new Windows Marketplace for Mobile app store or AT&T’s own App Center. Of course, you still can install apps straight from your computer.
- Mp3 Player and FM Radio with microSD slot– FM Radio unfortunately only works with the optional wired headset.
Overall, a pretty solid phone for AT&T that looks nice while also bringing a little power. The Pure is out now for $149.99 with a new 2 year contract and a $50 mail in rebate (need to get at least a $20 a month internet or texting plan to get the rebate), and you can order it now from AT&T’s site here.
HTC Tilt 2
AT&T’s HTC Tilt 2
Remember the AT&T Tilt? That Windows Mobile 6 phone from about 2 years back that had a screen you could literally “tilt” up? Well, even if you don’t remember that phone, you’ll still be pretty interested in the next gen version that AT&T is finally bringing to the market. Honestly, it pretty much is AT&T’s version of the Touch Pro2 that Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon had for a few weeks now, just with the Tilt 2 name (similar to what AT&T did last year by calling the original Touch Pro the HTC Fuze, which we reviewed here). A recap of the feature’s on the Tilt2/ Touch Pro2:
- 3.6 inch High Res screen with slide out QWERTY keyboard– A great touch screen which, if it’s anything like the Touch Pro’s– and we assume this one’s much better– means you’re in for a great device. And of course like the older AT&T Tilt, the touchscreen tilts up– very cool. Though again, there’s sadly no multi-touch here either.
- AT&T 3G with Video Share, Mobile Music, Cellular Video…
- WiFi, GPS and Accelerometer
- Windows Mobile 6.5 with HTC TouchFlo 3D– See above with the Pure.
- 3.2 Megapixel camera with flash, auto focus and video capture
- HTC’s Straight Talk– Automatically turns on the speakerphone when you flip the phone over on a call. Pretty cool, and something that should work great with the Tilt 2′s noise canceling dual mics and dual speakers. Call’s look to sound great on this, which is good especially if you actually use your phone, as well, a phone.
- Apps from Windows Marketplace for Mobile or AT&T’s App Center– Again, see above with the Pure.
I really like the Tilt 2, I played with Touch Pro2 briefly the other day and it was great, and I love the ability of a slide out keyboard. That, plus the huge screen, makes texting from either the on screen keyboard or the slide out one an awesome experience. The Tilt 2 should be out pretty soon (basically any day this month– with the latest rumors saying October 18th), and will cost (unfortunately) a very high price of $299.99 after 2 year contract and $50 mail in rebate (come on AT&T, Verizon and Sprint both offer the Touch Pro2 for a much more reasonable $199.99, and they’ve already had this for a FEW weeks now). If AT&T lowers the price, I think they could have a big hit on their hands here.
Now let’s move to some of the new phones from Pantech and Samsung which AT&T is marketing as full web browser phones using the new Opera-powered AT&T web browser.
Pantech Reveal
The Pantech Reveal in blue (pic from Phone Arena)
This is the first of 2 new phones from Pantech, offering not just a slide out full QWERTY keyboard like the Samsung Propel, but instead of just one slide out QWERTY keypad, there is also a traditional phone keypad underneath the screen for sending a quick text or dialing a number without opening the phone. Both keypads also are always active, meaning you could text with the bottom half and easily add numbers in with the top half– definitely something we’ve never seen before on a phone. We don’t yet have a hard core list of specs, but we know it’ll have 3G (presumably with AT&T’s services like Mobile Music, Cellular Video…), the new AT&T full web browser, 1.3 megapixel camera, Mp3 player, and GPS with AT&T Navigator. We don’t yet know of an exact price, but it’ll be available in either blue or red when it launches October 18th.
Pantech Impact
This phone is said to be like an AT&T version of the LG enV Touch for Verizon, with it’s OLED touchscreen on the front screen, and the ability to flip open the phone to unveil a second screen with full QWERTY keyboard for those more intense texting moments. Sadly, the only other details we know on this now is that it will come in pink and blue and pack some 3G and AT&T’s new web browser, when it launches– no price, release date or pix just yet folks, sorry.
Now let’s go to Samsung’s side where things are much more finger friendly to say the least.
Samsung Mythic
The awesome looking Sasmsung Mythic
A 3.3-inch touchscreen-only successor to Samsung’s Eternity with Samsung’s cool TouchWiz interface (giving you all sorts of widgets on your homescreen for things like viewing pix, controlling music playback, birthdays…), AT&T Mobile TV (like on the Eternity), GPS with AT&T Navigator, AT&T Social Net, 3G, and att.net– the new full web browser mentioned in the intro before the Pantech phones, this is that new full web browser AT&T is introducing. The att.net feature is pretty cool– letting you sync your bookmarks on your computers web browser with those on your phone.
This slick phone will be coming in November for $199.99 after $50 mail in rebate and a new 2 year contract.
Samsung Flight
Samsung Flight
Like the Mythic, this too looks to be a successor to a Samsung device– this one being a true successor to the Propel. The Flight looks a lot like the Propel design wise, packing in a full OLED touchscreen, that slides to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard underneath. The screen also features an interesting UI that provides one-touch access to functions like shortcuts, favorites and messaging (my guess is this a little different than the standard TouchWiz). It also is said to have AT&T’s new web browser.
Unfortunately, not many more details on the Flight are out now, but it will be available in red and silver color options when it launches in November for $99.99 with rebate and a new 2 year contract.
Ok, ok– not the most fully featured preview we’ve done, but hey– these phones don’t look to bad, and you can look forward to seeing them in stores pretty soon. So AT&T readers… any of these phones you interested in, or is there a different phone in AT&T’s lineup your eying instead? Sound off in the comments.
Comments»
I think that the tilt 2 looks good, but i honestly think that at&t should come out with phones like the envy 2.