Sprint to release four One Click phones next week

Sprint Nextel will release four handsets next week running with its One Click technology. One Click gives the consumer the ability to have favorite applications in the phone's standby screen.

Kevin Packingham, Sprint's senior vice president, product and technology development, said in a conference call for industry analysts yesterday that the carrier would be releasing the phones next week. Sprint unveiled One Click at the CTIA Wireless and Entertainment Conference in San Francisco in September. The technology produces "tiles" on a phone's standby screen and give users one-touch access to any of the phone's features. Sprint had previously announced that One Click would be available on the LG Lotus, Samsung Rant and Samsung Highnote.

Packingham talked specifically about a Google tile allowing a user to access YouTube, GMail and Google Maps. "It's not the Sprint experience that we're giving these customers access to, it's the Google experience that they're used to," he said. "You're not just setting a screensaver. You're making decisions on what kind of content and data is important to you."

In discussing Sprint's idea of what an "open" network meant, Packingham also talked about the possibility of handoffs between Sprint's 3G CDMA network and potentially a WiMAX connection that would be available if the deal between Clearwire and Sprint goes through this year to create the new Clearwire.

"If we believe in this open ecosystem environment that we are trying to create it allows us to take a platform approach that is very network agnostic," he said. "I can shift between by CDMA and WiMAX, the Touch Pro or new the BlackBerry. There is a platform capability that allows me to leverage the best network that I have."

For more:
- see this slideshow of One Click phone pics [1]
-see this CNET review of the Samsung Highnote [2]

Related Articles:
Sprint [3] introduces One Click
Sprint [4] expands partnership with Google