HTC Amaze, Samsung Galaxy S II: T-Mobile’s fastest 4G phones yet
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T-Mobile said back in May that it doubled the theoretical peak speeds of its 4G network to 42 megabits per second in Los Angeles and other major cities.
But since then, no phones have been able to take advantage of such speeds because of hardware limitations. That’ll change in October as the HTC Amaze 4G and the Samsung Galaxy S II hit T-Mobile stores, Andrew Sherrard, T-Mobile’s senior vice president of marketing, said in an interview Monday.
‘We’re seeing average download speeds of 8 megabits per second, and the average home download nowadays is about 5 megabits per second,’ Sherrard said of the Amaze 4G and the Galaxy S II. ‘We’re not suggesting you replace your home Internet with these devices, but it’s a good reference point to show you how fast these phones are downloading on average.’
While the phones will be the first to take advantage of T-Mobile’s faster network, Sherrard said the carrier is seeing peaks of about 20 megabits per second on the handsets.
Both phones will go on sale online Oct. 10 and in stores Oct. 12. The HTC Amaze 4G will sell for $259.99, and the Galaxy S II will fetch $229.99 -- as long as either comes with a two-year contract and after a $50 mail-in rebate.
The Amaze 4G is a bit of a mash-up of other HTC phones, with the fantastic 8-megapixel/1080p camera from the HTC MyTouch 4G Slide and a 4.3-inch touchscreen, the same as the display found on the HTC Sensation, both from T-Mobile.
The Samsung Galaxy S II, which was released on Sprint this month for just $199.99, features a 4.5-inch touch screen, but Sherrard said the T-Mobile Galaxy S II will feature a 1.5-gigahertz dual-core processor that is faster than the Sprint version’s 1.2-gigahertz dual-core chip.
Like the Amaze 4G, the Galaxy S II has an 8-megapixel/1080p camera on the back, and a front-facing camera as well.
Aside from pushing smartphones -- 75% of the phones T-Mobile has sold this year have been smartphones, and more than 90% of those were Android devices -- quality cameras on phones are a priority for T-Mobile, Sherrard said.
‘We’re trying to get smartphones out to more people, people who’ve never had a smartphone before,’ he said. ‘We want to have the best camera phones out there. We’re looking to replace point-and-shoot cameras, and we think our phones have the best cameras out there.’
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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles