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Sprint’s First 4G Phone Available June 4: Fast But Not Cheap

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Sprint (NYSE: S) has been known for introducing super reasonably priced voice and data plans for some time. That’s why the pricing for its first 4G phone comes as a bit of a surprise: On June 4, the HTC EVO 4G will go on sale for $200 and will cost $110 a month if you want all the bells and whistles.

It’s not that the rate plan isn’t a good deal, it’s just no where near the $25 voice and data plan Sprint’s prepaid division announced last week. But it probably shouldn’t be either. This is the best Sprint has to offer and is the product they are banking on to reverse subscriber loses and compete head-to-head against the iPhone.

And, to be fair, when you do the math, the fees seem a lot more reasonable. A user will get unlimited voice and data on the 3G network, unlimited data on the 4G network, and the ability to connect up to eight Wi-Fi devices, such as laptops, gaming devices and digital cameras, to the phone—for $110 a month. Sold separately, those plans could total $130 a month. If users elect not to have the ability to turn the phone into a mobile hotspot, the rate drops to $80 a month. At $80 a month, Sprint is charging $10 more than any other voice and data plan. That’s because they expect you to use so much data on this device, they just had to do it, a spokesman explained.

The EVO was officially announced at a splashy unveiling at CTIA in March, but the pricing plans were kept under tight wraps until tonight at a New York City event (where they were showing Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) Pictures’ Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time before its Memorial Day release).

As a refresher, this phone has a very large 4.3 inch touchscreen, is thin, and runs Google’s Android operating system. It has two cameras, an 8 megapixel auto-focus camera with HD-capable video camcorder and a forward-facing 1.3 megapixel camera. The device can easily be plugged into a HDTV to play video on a fullscreen. But those are just some of the hardware specs, the phone will come with a new video chat service from Qik, and will allow users to upload HD video directly to Facebook, YouTube or Twitter.

The big caveat with this device is that it will only get 4G speeds (which can be up to 10 times faster than 3G) in the 32 markets where Sprint’s partner Clearwire (NSDQ: CLWR) has built a network. More markets will go live in the remainder of 2010.

Earlier today, a Sprint executive told Reuters that a long waiting list had already formed of customers wanting to buy the phone. Whether those people remain interested in the product now that they actually know how much it costs, we’ll have to wait and see.

May 12, 2010 7:50 PM ET

CTIA 2010: Sprint shows off the EVO 4G, which can connect up to eight Wi-Fi devices to the internet Photo: Tricia Duryee


Posted In: Technologies / Formats, 4G, Broadband, WiMax, Companies, Clearwire, Google, Android, HTC, Sprint

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