It’s hard to say just how long I’ve been waiting for this phone to come out. Scheduled to be on sale just in time for the holidays (can’t we agree that Halloween is twice as fun as Christmas?), this phone is dead set on absolutely killing the iPhone. I mean, just look at it! It’s got a freaking keyboard (read: “Tactile Response” you iPhone suckers)!! What’s even better is that IT RUNS ANDROID LINUX! An open-source cell phone? Get outta here!! And it’s only going to cost $179? You may proceed to salivate.
Now I could try and write up a bunch of original content describing all of the super cool features this phone will carry with it right out of the box, but other websites have already done this. Why waste my time? So for starts, check out this Gizmodo article: Android’s 10 most exciting apps. With this being an open-source platform, there is no telling how many more cool FREE applications will be developed after the phone hits shelves. You can pre-order it right now at T-Mobile.com.
There will be a few minor drawbacks about this device. For starts, it’s vendor locked with T-Mobile. And at the moment, not all of T-Mobile’s coverage areas provide 3G Internet speeds (3G coverage maps are available on T-Mobile’s website so you can check and see for yourself). They are also planing on limiting your download speeds after you’ve sucked up a whole gigabyte of data per month (do you really need to download a whole gigabyte of data while you’re away from your computer?). This will likely change in the future as more users join T-Mobile and provide them with the extra funds needed to expand their networks and relax bandwidth limitations. (Update: T-mobile has killed the bandwidth limit).
Any further complaints you see about it on the net are likely being generated by jealous iPhone customers who are stuck on an expensive contract with AT&T (this much seems obvious). But if you’re willing to spend time arm wrestling with AT&T, there is a way to cancel your contract without paying the Early Termination Fee. You can watch an informative video about doing this here.