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HTC Does What Google Wouldn't: Sell an LTE Phone That Sidesteps AT&T

Posted by Soulskill on from the three-letter-acronyms dept.

schwit1 writes "You won't see it advertised on billboards or television, you won't hear it mentioned in a carrier store, and your less technologically-savvy friends most certainly won't know about it — but quietly, HTC's done something extraordinarily important this month: it's broken AT&T's stranglehold on its nationwide LTE network. It's a move that even Google, for all its money, power, and influence, didn't make with the Nexus 4. HTC is shipping both 32GB and 64GB versions of the One — an early contender for the best phone of 2013 — in a carrier- and bootloader-unlocked version that supports both T-Mobile and AT&T LTE. No strings attached."

5 of 290 comments (clear)

  1. News at elleven by spectrokid · · Score: 5, Informative

    company dears to do something in the US (under cover of darkness) which is standard practice everywhere else on this planet. Welcome to the 21th century!

    --

    10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then

    1. Re:News at elleven by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, you idiot. You pay 49.95 now, and the rest as downpayment through your 2 year contract. The cost isn't subsidised, it's hidden.

    2. Re:News at elleven by nightgeometry · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Pity you are at 0, because this is exactly it. Whenever I wish to change phone I look at the same phone on contract 'subsidised' and paying outright. Every time so far it has worked out cheaper to buy the phone, then equivalent service. Also every time my monthly cost has dropped after some time, so it works out even cheaper than the original calculation makes out. Further - if i wish to change phone, I sell the old one, and get to choose a new one (I never come out ahead, but it is nice to reduce the burden).

      --
      The best is the enemy of the good
  2. Looks great! Except, it needs a hole in its head. by VortexCortex · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Looks great except for One thing: No SD card slot, so screw it. I'm not buying into the "stream everything" BS. "Always online" is a disease. Lack of this basic feature is a huge "Fuck You" to me and anyone else who shuffles a lot of data -- The power users -- The people who would by the thing -- The target demographic...

    I mean, even my cunting Sansa Clip+ has a fucking SD card reader -- Loaded with a 64 gig micro SD... Which is more than this damn thing can store (the full 64GB of the 64GB version isn't fully usable for data) -- And I have a 8 of these cards (in a CD jewel case holder). It takes me 10 seconds to swap cards -- That's 384 GB/sec... For the price they're changing for this thing, it should be as feature complete as a $30 music player.

    What is it going to take? Wait until software defined radio gets cheap enough before I can have a damn SD card slot back? Ugh.

  3. Re:Looks great! Except, it needs a hole in its hea by nametaken · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Believe it or not, people care about different things.

    I use the hell out of my smartphones, but I've yet to need more than a few gig of local storage. I just don't use my phones to hold my entire music and movie collections, even if I have the option.

    And given how many smartphones do not have card slots, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess it isn't necessarily a make-or-break feature.