T-Mobile USA officially took the wraps off the G2, its first HSPA+ smartphone and the successor to the G1, the first Android phone. However, the nation's No. 4 carrier did not provide a specific release date or pricing information.
As expected, the G2 is being built by HTC (just as the G1 was), will use the Android 2.2 platform and feature a slide-out Qwerty keyboard. The phone has a 3.7-inch touchscreen display, 800 MHz Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) processor, 720p HD video recorder, 5-megapixel camera, Swype input technology and 4 GB of internal memory with a pre-installed 8GB micro SD card and support for up to 32 GB of external memory. The carrier said current customers will be able to pre-order the phone later this month.
T-Mobile emphasized the phone's speeds, which it is advertising as 4G--a claim that has raised the hackles of T-Mobile's competitors that are building WiMAX and LTE networks. T-Mobile said the G2 will support theoretical peak speeds of 14.4 Mbps.
The device has been hyped by T-Mobile for weeks now, and is part of the carrier's strategy to highlight its upgraded network. T-Mobile plans to cover 100 major metropolitan areas--200 million people--with HSPA+ by year-end. The nation's fourth largest carrier currently has around 55 markets and 100 million POPs covered with HSPA+.
For more:
- see this release
- see this Engadget post
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Article updated Sept. 9 to reflect T-Mobile's year-end 2010 HSPA+ target of 200 million POPs covered.