By Cincinnati Bell’s Android gravy train just won’t cease until everyone’s gotten enough! This time, sources close to the carrier tells us that their latest Android handset – which everyone believed to be the Motorola Milestone XT720 – will indeed be launching this Friday, August 6th. This would make Cincinnati Bell Wireless the first US carrier to offer the device which teeters between being on the upper end of mid-range and being a high-end handset.
With that claim, I bet you want to see some specs, no? It’ll have a 3.7-inch FWVGA (480×854) capacitive touchscreen, an 8-megapixel camera (with Xenon Flash) capable of shooting 720p HD video, an HDMI-out port to get all of your videos and images up onto the bigger screen (cable is thankfully included in the box) and will be running stock Android 2.1 with no MOTOBLUR (happy yet?). It’ll ship with an 8GB microSD card with the port to house it being expandable to 32GB.
Performance specs include 256MB of RAM, 512MB of ROM, and a TI OMAP 3430 processor clocked at 720MHz (We hear these run quite nicely even without being clocked to 1GHz – it’s based on the same architect found in the original Motorola Droid, for comparison’s sake.)
Bluetooth, WiFi, DLNA, aGPS, and all of the rest of your standard smartphone features make up the rest of this good looking package. We expect the device to cost $199.99 for new subscribers after an equipment agreement and $299.99 for new customers without the agreement and existing subscribers with the urge to upgrade to this (and oh what an urge I bet they’ll have for this device). If you want to go without strings and discounts, $449.99 is the cost to walk out with one of these. (Discounted prices are fulfilled after a mail-in rebate.)
Cincinnati Bell’s been making great progress on building their compelling Android lineup, and the Milestone XT720 sits alongside their other offerings to cap off a package that’ll undoubtedly turn a few heads. If you were holding off on their other Android handsets (the Blaze and the Behold II) to wait for a high-end offering, then you might want to keep your eyes peeled this Friday as we expect the XT720 to make its marvelous debut then.
tempted to jump ship from T-Mobile…
If the screen was 4″ and if it had a 1 GHz OMAP processor, I’d be returning my Vibrant right about now, but alas, that screen and that speed are keeping me addicted.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ5HPF9wg2A
Don’t forget the Xenon flash!
@Nate, in that video, you can definitely see some motoblur action. It is the last screen the call/contacts buttons are definitely motoblur. Reminds me of my cliq with 1.5… :(
I own a Singapore XT720. Basically it’s the same thing, the only differences are the clock speed which is set to 550MHz and amount of RAM which is 256MB. (Cincinnati Bell website stated it has 512MB?)
It’s using TI OMAP 3440 cpu. Right now it’s running fine at 800MHz (its default speed anyway). Stock camera will lower the image quality, I get around 2MB image file with 8MP settings. If I use third party camera app and bump the quality to the max, I will get around 4MB instead.
I was getting a bit worried with the behold 2… This is a much better option and it’s great that android can bring more higher end phones to regional carriers.
Seems like a nice enough device. I noticed how they don’t speak of the OS. What version of Android is this running and will it be upgrade-able to future version(s)? I’m thinking I’m going to wait to see what TMo is offering next month as far as their Android device that will be running on HSPA+… Why settle for 1-2mbps when you can have 20+???
I have a friend who works at cincy bell, and it does indeed have 2.1 w/motoblur they have had them in hand for a few weeks now.
Just picked mine up this a.m……… it is Phenominal!
It has 2.1 but NO motoblur, your friend is wrong and misleading you.
It is also a sub par droid phone, half the processing speed of the Droid X. Again Cincinnati Bell has sucky ass phones or phones that are 2 to 4 years out of date.
Brian do you have one? Didn’t think so… I ran my next to my buddy’s droid X… the performance difference is indistinguishable….. Get it, you wont be disappointed… + Cincy Bell’s phone/data plans can’t be beat… you can deal them down no problem…
yeah brian dont be talking crap about cincinnati bell. i have the phone and it is ten times faster than the droid X so shut up you dont know anything.