T-Mobile USA today announced what are likely to be its flagship phones for the rest of the year: The Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy S II and HTC’s Amaze 4G.
Both phones will be available on October 12, with the Amaze 4G selling for $259.99 and the Galaxy S II selling for $229.99, with both prices coming after a $50 rebate and a two-year contract.
The Galaxy S II features:
- Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 Processor with 1.5 GHz dual-core CPUs
- Android 2.3.5 (Gingerbread)
- Up to 42 Mbps (HSPA+) download speed
- 1080p HD video capture
- 8 MP rear camera w and 2 MP front-facing camera
- 4.52″ Super AMOLED Plus screen with 480 by 800 pixels
- DLNA for wirelessly streaming media from phone to TV or compute
- HDMI output (MHL adaptor required)
- Bluetooth® 3.0 & Wi-Fi a/b/g/n
HTC Amaze 4G features:
- Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 Processor with 1.5 GHz dual-core CPUs
- Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread)
- Up to 42 Mbps (HSPA+) download speed
- 1080p HD video capture
- 8 MP rear camera w and 2 MP front-facing camera
- 4.3” qHD super LCD WVGA TF with qHD 540 by 960 pixels
- HDMI output (MHL adaptor required)
- Near Field Communications
- Bluetooth® 3.0 & Wi-Fi a/b/g/n
T-Mobile also announced the Sonic 4G Mobile HotSpot, which will also take advantage of T-Mobile’s 4G (HSPA+ 42) network for up to five Wi-Fi enabled devices. It requires a Mobile Broadband data plan from $39 to $79 a month or a prepaid data plan from $10/week (100MB) to $50/month (3GB).
TmoNews says T-Mobile will also introduce a new 7 inch Samsung tablet with a 4G HSPA+ radio. It looks like the Galaxy Tab Plus is running Google Android 3.2 Honeycomb. No word on the processor, screen resolution, price, or launch date. The current 7″ Samsung tablet ships with Google Android 2.2 Froyo.
Apple’s rumored iPhone 5 launch next week, at the company’s Cupertino campus might use a Qualcomm Gobi chipset for both GSM and CDMA carriers. Qualcomm’s MDM9600 is already found in the HTC Thunderbolt. It supports GSM, HSPA+, EVDO Rev.A and LTE. Apple’s A5 processor is also expected. 9to5Mac implies it has had a peak at the iPhone 5 and describes its features, such as Voice Control. A TD-LTE phone would be nice — too bad their aren’t any TD-LTE networks in the United States, yet. Perhaps Sprint’s iPhone will skip support for WiMAX and include only 3G and (next year) TD-LTE.
Apple and China Mobile are in talks about a 4G iPhone, using the same TD-LTE technology promoted by Sprint, but such a smartphone likely wouldn’t work on Verizon or AT&T’s LTE networks in the US. Sequans and Huawei are working with China Mobile. Huawei will use TD-LTE USB dongles based on Sequans’ SQN3010 TD-LTE chip.
T-Mobile revealed at Mobilize that over 75 percent of his company’s phones sold in 2011 were smartphones, with 90 percent powered by Android.
Among new smartphone buyers, 
