AT&T to offer LG iPhone rival
updated 01:55 pm EDT, Fri October 12, 2007
LG CU920 Coming to ATT
AT&T is poised to launch a second full touchscreen phone that will compete with the iPhone, says a source leaking photos of the device to Gizmodo. The American carrier is expected to receive the CU920, a close relative of the Prada and KU990 available so far only in Europe; like either predecessor, the phone will be dominated by a touchscreen and have little more than call and answer buttons on the front. However, the CU920 will have support for American-standard 3G over HSDPA, the insider claims -- potentially giving the LG device an advantage over the iPhone, which uses the slower EDGE protocol.
More important may be its web browsing technology, according to the tipster. The CU920 will run Mozilla's upcoming mobile Firefox browser and, like mobile Safari, will render pages as they would on a desktop copy. Viewers would zoom in to view page elements without disrupting the layout of the page but would have to take two steps versus the iPhone's single pinch motion, says the report. Other software enhancements are known to include an instant messaging client and may also involve picture or video messaging, either of which has been omitted from the iPhone's early software.
A release date, price, and other launch information have not been provided for the touch phone, though the existence of AT&T branding and working software suggests a release within the next few months.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Apr 2001
Mock, then copy...
I think it is interesting. When the iPhone was announced, all of the big players downplayed the potential success of the iPhone, mostly by suggesting the very form-factor-- dominated by a touch screen, no keyboard-- would be a bad idea. Yet they are now all releasing such devices. It's called vindication.