macnn/electronista
07/03/2008, 3:30pm, EDT
Thursday, July 3rdTelus gets Touch Diamond first in North America
Telus today made a surprise announcement that it will be the first North American provider to carry the Touch Diamond, HTC's new flagship touchscreen phone. The news jumps Telus ahead of expected announcements from Sprint and Verizon and makes the Canadian firm the first known to get the CDMA version of the Diamond, which should have advanced 3G access through EVDO Revision A while keeping nearly all other features.
The Diamond is HTC's first Windows Mobile 6.1 native device and comes with a newer TouchFLO interface as well as a built-in 4GB of memory and a 3.2-megapixel back camera; the fate of the front VGA camera from GSM versions isn't known and may see the camera dropped without support from Telus or other carriers.
Telus ships the Diamond later this summer and will sell it for $150 on a three-year contract; unlimited web, e-mail, and messaging on the device will be available for $30, while messaging alone costs $15.
Filed under: gadgets
Other story tags: Verizon, sprint, Windows Mobile, htc, Touch, Telus, Diamond
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Please explain..
..how this is Mac news.
Re: Please explain..
It has the word Touch in it.
If I don't get an iPhone.
In Canada this really is Mac news because Telus is (in half of Canada) basically the only competitor to Rogers – who have the iPhone. If Telus has more affordable plans on their pretend-iPhones, then Rogers might lower their rates. Then I might leave Telus and get an iPhone.
Good news
This is a good alternative to iPhone in Canada. Hopefully it will help but downward pressure on data prices. The other good thing is that this should come preloaded with Opera Mobile, which, is a very very good browser.
I am sick of crap phones
One of the reasons I'm livid with Rogers right now is because I'm stuck currently with a Motorola Razor crippled by Rogers bundled software preventing me from having a decent music player on the device or adding my own ringtones. I feel that companies should not be allowed to cripple phones with crapware and then charge full price either upfront or subsidized.
As livid as I am with Rogers, I plan on negotiating for an early upgrade to an iPhone because the iPhone is one of the few non-crippled phones to be offered in Canada.
Re: Good News
Decent browser or not, it will still be crippled with addon software from Telus and they will disable some features before giving it to you.
I hope that Apple standing up to the telcos with regard to sofware bundling will set a precedent for other handset companies to follow to give consumers the features they paid for rather than a small subset of features tied into the telcos own download services.