The AT&T Tilt2 (Touch Pro2) is now on sale on their website for $300 (after rebates and on a two-year contract). You can also get the device for $500 if you purchase it outright. I think this pretty much wraps it up for Touch Pro2 availability on all major U.S. carriers! Yay!
T-Mobile is perpetually in fourth place among U.S. wireless carriers, but details of a plan to change this have been slipping out. Project Dark will apparently include some very aggressive moves intended to make this company much more appealing to customers.
The theme for this campaign will reportedly be “The coverage you need, price you want, and the handset you crave.”
According to unconfirmed reports, the first part of that promise will be a roll out of HSPA+ service in markets across the U.S. This will give users 21 Mbps access, considerably faster than most of its competitors’ mobile broadband. This carrier already has this service up and running Philadelphia.
The second part of the campaign — the “price you want” – will supposedly have two facets. One of these is new pricing for service plans: a $40 unlimited voice plan, a $50 unlimited voice and text plan, and a $60 voice, text, and data plan.
In addition, reports say T-Mobile is going to allow users to pay for phones in monthly installments, rather than asking for the cost of the device up front.
And the third part of Project Dark will be a collection of new smartphones, including the HTC HD2.
The combination of reasonable plans and installments for a device purchase could be huge. I know many people who have expressed a desire to have a newer device, but cost prohibits them. It’s a brilliant idea to break the cost into installments! Kudos to T-Mobile for leading the way on this!
Alright! The last of the major U.S. Carriers has officially announced their version of the Touch Pro2 (called the Tilt 2) as well as the HTC Pure (the Diamond 2):
The HTC PURE is available at AT&T retail stores nationwide and online at www.wireless.att.com for $149.99. The HTC Tilt 2, will be available in the following weeks for $299.99. (For the HTC PURE, pay $199.99 and receive $50 mail-in-rebate, for the HTC Tilt 2, pay $349.99 and receive a $50 mail-in-rebate. Two-year agreement on a minimum $69.99 plan required.)
Verizon users can now join the happy bandwagon along with T-Mobile and Sprint customers, availing themselves to the HTC Touch Pro2 as early as Friday!
The Touch Pro2 will be available for $199.99 (after a $100 mail-in rebate) with a new two-year customer agreement on a voice plan with an e-mail feature or e-mail plan. Customers will receive the rebate in the form of a debit card; upon receipt, customers may use the card as cash anywhere debit cards are accepted.
Beginning Friday Sept 11, customers can order the HTC Touch Pro2 online, in business sales channels and in Verizon Wireless Communications Stores. For additional information on Verizon Wireless products and services, visit a Verizon Wireless Communications Store, call 800-2 JOIN IN or go to www.verizonwireless.com.
As with the HTC Snap, Verizon has undercut Sprint by $50 for the Touch Pro2. Time will tell if Sprint will budge on their $349 price (with new 2-yr contract). I’m guessing not - Sprint’s plans are generally more affordable, so it balances out in the wash.
Regardless, it’s great to see the TP2 out on another carrier!
The Sprint Touch Pro2 is due to be released right after Labor Day, so to whet everyone’s appetite, Sprint has posted tutorials, videos and the device user guide on their site.
Last week, my wife and I went on a trip to the Finger Lakes region of upstate NY for a nephew’s graduation. While I know that it’s far from being a metropolitan area, my Sprint connectivity was so bad, my Touch Pro was reduced to being nothing more than a PDA like I had in 2001. I will add that my wife, my parents and one of my sisters are all Sprint users as well (with varying phones) and they too, had no signal or a very weak one…
I found myself cursing the lack of connectivity countless times while on the trip. It became painfully obvious how much I depended on a data connection to perform much of what I do.
I could not:
Granted, it depended on where I was in the Finger Lakes region. At times, I had a decent connection, but more times than not, I was in search mode, eating away at my battery like crazy. PRL updates did nothing for me. And to add insult to injury, my brother, who has an XV6800 on Verizon, had absolutely no issues, and was even watching the US Open via Slingbox on his device, sitting right beside me! Obviously Verizon has a bigger stake in the Finger Lakes region than Sprint…
It really made me realize how vulnerable a data connection and cloud computing can be. It’s great when there’s a connection, but when there’s not, you are screwed. And what would that have been like for a web OS device such as the Palm Pre or Android? I’ll bet that Sprint won’t sell many Pre’s in that area!
That experience was painful, and the gears are turning in my head to figure out how I could better survive a “no signal” situation in the future. I will still employ all of the cloud computing services I use (Mesh, Evernote, etc), but I would advise to anyone who uses data heavily: have a contingency!
Oh, it’s good to be back in Louisville, with a strong signal and my precious data! :)
Engadget, WM Experts, PocketNow and various other sites are reporting that Sprint is VERY close to releasing the Touch Pro 2. Here is a shot of the device, complete with Sprint logo:
If rumors are correct, the Sprint Touch Pro 2 will be released in June, which, if true, would beat T-Mobile by a month, making them the first U.S. carrier to release this much-anticipated device! Word has it this device will also be a World Version, meaning it will have a SIM slot available to use when abroad.
The Palm Pre has been confirmed as being released in early June, so this would make a nice one-two punch for Sprint, particularly since version 3 of the iPhone is anticipated this summer. Sprint needs all the tricks it can possibly pull out of the bag at this point, since they’ve been losing subscribers steadily.
As for Verizon, heck, they only just recently released the HTC Diamond (version 1) with no mention of the Touch Pro (version 1), so I would anticipate they will release the Touch Pro 2 in February 2011 or so! :) Sorry VZW users!
Someone over at the The Boy Genius Report has happened upon an End Of Life document for Sprint, and amongst others, the Touch Diamond is listed for EOL in July! There is no replacement for the Diamond mentioned, but that doesn’t mean a replacement is not in the works. Lord knows, there are plenty of HTC devices Sprint could choose from!
The Motorola Q9c is mentioned as well (EOL in mid-June), and no replacement is mentioned for that model either. The other WM device mentioned is the Palm Treo 800W, which is slated for EOL in April (with the Treo Pro slated to replace it in February).
That certainly is a short life span for the Diamond!
Verizon’s product road-map for 2009 has leaked out and it looks like VZW will carry the Touch HD, the device from HTC best known for its 3.8-inch WVGA touchscreen.
We’ll confirm more details when possible.
Looks like the Touch Diamond from Sprint will actually get Internet Explorer 6.0. Previously, Microsoft said that IE mobile 6.0 would only be available on new devices (not existing) due to the changes required in the operating system for it to run.
BUT, over at PPC Geeks, there is an unofficial ROM upgrade available for the Diamond, and it has IE Mobile 6.0 as well as numerous enhancements to other features of the software. As is usually the case, that means an official ROM release is likely very near. Hurray for Diamond owners!
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