Insisting its Long Term Evolution high-speed network has exceeded expectations, Verizon Wireless paved the way Thursday toward opening it to a widespread consumer base with new smartphones, netbooks, tablets and mobile hot-spot devices.
“Today, we’re unveiling the next evolution of 4G LTE for consumers,” said Verizon Wireless CEO Dan Mead at a news conference at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that was webcast live by Verizon.
New Droid and Thunderbolt
All four of the smartphones unveiled Thursday as well as the two tablets are powered by Google’s Android operating system and have a 4.3-inch touchscreen. The HTC Thunderbolt was the least surprising announcement, since leaked photos of the handset appeared on an Android news blog last week. But Motorola’s Droid Bionic 4G, the latest in its series of Droid phones, was far less anticipated. The other phones are the LG Revolution and the blandly named Samsung 4G LTE.
Release dates and prices haven’t been announced, though all will be available by midyear. The current LTE data plan for modem users is $50 for five gigabytes or $80 for 10GB, with a $10 charge for each gigabyte over the limit. There is no unlimited option.
The Thunderbolt is packed with HTC Sense 2.0, a one-gigahertz Snapdragon processor, a WVGA display, an eight-megapixel camera, and HD video recording.
The Revolution has a capacitive touchscreen, a five-megabyte rear camera, video telephony support with a front-facing camera, and mobile hot-spot capability that lets it share a 4G connection with up to eight Wi-Fi-enabled devices.
The Droid Bionic 4G has a front-facing VGA camera with a See What I See video feature, a rear-facing eight-megapixel camera, a 4.3-inch HD screen, HDMI connectivity, and a dual-core one-gigahertz processor.
The Samsung 4G LTE has a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus touchscreen display, a one-gigahertz processor, a rear-facing eight-megapixel camera with LED…