LAS VEGAS – AT&T announced smartphones from Samsung and HTC today supporting the carrier's new HSPA+ network. The Samsung Infuse 4G will be the thinnest Android smartphone on the US market, and the HTC Inspire 4G is the first US phone to include the newest generation of HTC's Sense software.
The two phones join the Motorola Atrix 4G as AT&T's first HSPA+ smartphones. AT&T intends to have 5-7 HSPA+ devices during the first half of this year, including two existing laptop modems and these three smartphones, the carrier said.
The Infuse 4G has a 1.2Ghz Samsung Hummingbird processor and a gigantic 4.5-inch, 800x480 screen with Samsung's new Super AMOLED Plus display technology. Super AMOLED Plus improves the color fidelity of AMOLED screens by adding more subpixels.
"Our consumers will enjoy even sharper images, easier to read text, and improved outdoor visibility," Samsung mobile communications president JK Shin said.
In a brief demo with a different Super AMOLED Plus screen, I couldn't see much of a difference between the Infuse's display quality and the previous, excellent Samsung Galaxy S.
The phone also has an 8-megapixel camera on the back and a 1.3-megapixel camera on the front.
I got a few minutes to play with an Infuse 4G dummy phone, and while it didn't turn on – yeah, it was really thin. The phone is a big, flat slab – with its 4.5-inch screen, it's starting to head in the mini-tablet direction. It has a textured black back. That's pretty much all I could tell from the dummy unit.
The HTC Inspire 4G looks a whole lot like the Desire HD, an existing European phone. It's another big-screen phone, with a 4.3-inch, 800x480 display and a 1Ghz processor. HTC CEO Peter Chou said that the Inspire's differentator is the new HTC Sense software, including a Web site, HTCSense.com.
HTCSense.com lets users remotely track and wipe their devices, much like Apple's Find my iPhone or Microsoft's My Phone software does.
The phone also has an 8-megapixel camera on the back, capable of HD video recording. It also has a "fast boot" feature letting users start up some applications, such as the music player, very quickly.
Both new phones run Android 2.2, "Froyo." While they'll come to market in the first quarter of 2011, there's no word on their price or whether they'll be upgradeable to 2.3, "Gingerbread."