Verizon To Sell $99 Pantech LTE Phone

Adam Dickter, <a href='http://www.newsfactor.com'>newsfactor.com</a>

Seeking to boost usage of its new high-speed, long-term evolution data network, Verizon Wireless will begin selling its first low-cost 4G smartphone, the Pantech Breakout, on Thursday.

At $99, after a $50 mail-in debit-card rebate and with a two-year voice and data plan, the candy-bar-form Breakout lives up to its name in distinguishing itself from its four LTE Verizon siblings: Samsung's Droid Charge ($299), Motorola's Droid Bionic ($299), LG's Revolution ($199) and HTC's Thunderbolt ($249.)

Loaded With Features

But the Android-powered Breakout is no slouch, with a 1GHz processor, 4-inch capacitive 480x800 touch display, LTE mobile hotspot for tethering as many as 10 Wi-Fi-enabled devices, a virtual QWERTY keyboard with Swype technology for quick and easy typing, a 5-megapixel auto-focus rear-facing camera with HD video capture up to 720p and an 8-gigabyte, pre-installed micro-SD card. It ships with version 2.3 of Google's Android operating system.

Verizon did not disclose the phone's memory capacity, but Phone Arena listed it as 512 megabytes, less than the Thunderbolt's 768 MB or the Droid Bionic's one gigabyte.

"At face value, the device looks relatively loaded," said wireless analyst Kirk Parsons of J.D. Power and Associates, who sees premium prices for other 4G devices as temporary. "It's just a matter of time [until] LTE enabled devices will come down in price. With a 4G-type device, the big test will be battery life -- that's where performance is being judged by users relative to previous non-smartphone devices."

The Breakout's 1500 mAh battery is good for 347 Minutes (5.7 hours) �of usage time, or 300 hours of standby, Verizon said. By comparison, the 3G HTC Droid Incredible 2 has a 1450 mAh battery that promises 6.5 hours of talk time and 361 hours of standby, according to Phone Arena.

Verizon also sells two Pantech USB modems for its LTE network, but the Breakout will be the only phone made by South-Korea-based Pantech in Verizon's current lineup.

Parsons noted that while $99 is a bargain price for an LTE-enabled phone, "until it's tested, used by customers, it would be too difficult to conclude the device's full value vs. other, more-established brands."

LTE Battle

Verizon's fifth LTE device comes as rival AT&T kicks off its own LTE network this week in Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Dallas and San Antonio for mobile computer and tablet users. The company has yet to announce any LTE smartphones for its network.

Both networks promise an average speed of five to 12 megabits per second for downloads and two to five mbps, which is substantially less than the International Communications Union's standard of 100 mbps broadband speeds for 4G.

Verizon's LTE system, which went online in December, now covers an area that includes 160 million Americans, or half the U.S. population.

AT&T is taking a much slower approach, with the goal of covering 70 million people in 15 markets by year's end. The carrier insists its network is better because it is backed up by a faster HSPA+ network that will avoid noticeable speed degradation for users when traveling outside the 4G coverage area.