Sprint's first 4G phone due before summer
updated 07:45 am EST, Fri February 19, 2010
HTC Supersonic to reach Sprint WiMAX early
Sprint's first phone to use its WiMAX-based 4G network should be ready in the first half of the year, the company said late Thursday. The confirmation to Forbes comes earlier than anticipated and doesn't include any phone details. Most however expect it to center on the HTC Supersonic, which would use the 3-6Mbps speeds to handle higher-quality streaming video and other services off-limits to most 3G.
The phone is known to be a high-end Android 2.1 model and may in some cases be superior in performance to the HD2. It shares the 4.3-inch, 800x480 screen area but should use AMOLED instead of LCD and will have a larger battery as well as a kickstand. It should still have a 1GHz Snapdragon processor and a 5-megapixel camera.
Sprint's most likely opportunity to unveil the Supersonic is at the CTIA show in late March, although it may not necessarily ship until sometime later. Its WiMAX so far reaches only 27 cities in the US and is due to reach Houston within the next few weeks, and the most important cities to cover are still ahead this year, including Boston, New York and San Francisco.
