Thursday, April 07, 2011

Alltel Launches 4 Android Phones, Including The Mythical HTC Merge

There aren’t too many people still on Alltel these days, given that the terms of the company’s acquisition by Verizon left them operating in only 6 states. That doesn’t mean those left lingering in Alltel’s territories should be stranded without some awesome phones though, right?

Right — and for them, Alltel has just launched a quartet of Android phones (including one that no one else has yet).

The four phones launched today (from left to right, above):

The LG Axis, a QWERTY-sliding handset running Android 2.1 with a 3.2 megapixel camera on the back

The Samsung Gem, also running 2.1, is a candybar phone with a 3.2″ display, 3.2 megapixel rear camera, and an 800 Mhz CPU.

Essentially the same phone as the Droid X that launched on Verizon in June of last year, the Milestone X has a big ol’ 4.3″ display, 1Ghz CPU, an 8 megapixel camera, HDMI out, and 8 gigs of internal storage. It’s not exactly cutting edge these days, but it’s still a pretty beastly superphone.

Last, but not least: the HTC Merge. At this point, it’s almost shocking to see this handset actually hit the shelves. Word of its existence (as a Verizon phone) first leaked out waaaaay back in the third quarter of last year. Eventually, word on the street said that it’d been delayed in an effort to add LTE support — but around 6 months later, nary a peep regarding the handset has come out of VZW. Today, however, Alltel’s picking up the (LTE-less) HTC Merge in all of its QWERTY-sliding goodness, along with its 3.8″ (480×800) touchscreen and a 5 megapixel rear camera.

Anyone out there on Alltel? Planning to pick one of these up? Drop us a comment below and let us know which one.