Samsung i760 hits VZW online tomorrow, stores on November 2nd

That Windows Mobile 6 Professional with the slideout keyboard, the Samsung i760, becomes available online tomorrow for Verizon Wireless customers. You'll have to wait until November 2nd to slide into a store and find one. $350 after contracts, rebates and promises of not gobbling up tons of bandwidth with the EV-DO radio nets you an i760. Aside from the keyboard and offset numeric keypad, there's your typcial array of features and functions: Bluetooth 2.0, 1.3-megapixel cam, WiFi, microSD slot, 128 MB of flash ROM and 64 MB of RAM.

The one thing I really don't understand here: I think we heard news of this phone very late last year. Why so long to wait for the actual product? This device would have had much more impact if it saw the light of day six months ago. Not trying to bash VZW here and I understand there's tons of hoops to jump through for testing and getting new devices out the door. Still, it's hard to get excited about the i760 when the Tilt is available for AT&T and the new HTC Touch is hitting Sprint on November 4th. Another example: Engadget Mobile says the XV 6800 is coming sometime after the i760. In my opinion, that device is overdue by 9 to 12 months considering how long ago we saw the XV 6700.

Comments

[Bruce MacLean]

I got tired of waiting for Verizon to come out with the i760 and xv 6800. They would never confirm when these two phones would actually be available, so I left for ATT when the Tilt came out. The Tilt is a generation of phones ahead of the Verizon phones. It has twice as much memory, Windows 6 professional and a 3 megapixel camera along with the cool tilt feature which make the phone much more usable in my opinion. Verizon takes so long to get new phones to market that they were no longer worth the wait for me.

[Sixftunda]

I agree it took too long for Verizon to release this phone, I also believe that there is no use in getting a pdaphone that is generations ahead on a network that is way behind. Verizon's network is on the whole way better that anyone elses. There's even been a survey which concluded that verizon did not lose near as many customers as alltel and t-mobile because of the network coverage. I'm glad the Tilt is working for you, but I won't be looking at any other provider's devices until they have a 3g network as good as Verizon's. I have been using the i760 for a few weeks now and find it to be an excellent device.

[Sixftunda]

edit to my previous comment: What I meant to say was Verizon didn't lose as many customers to the iphone as alltel and t-mobile because of the network coverage.

[Bruce MacLean]

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and in the areas that I frequent, the ATT 3G network is as good as the Verizon network.