HTC Touch HD is Compatible with US 3G Frequencies – Surprise!
By Will Park on Friday, December 19th, 2008 at 2:16 PM PST In Devices, HTC, Hottest Hardware, Windows Mobile
If you’ve been lamenting HTC’s decision to keep the HTC Touch HD and it’s huge and gloriously high-resolution touchscreen display out of the US, citing US 3G frequency incompatibility, have we got some good news for you!
The HTC Touch HD, it turns out, is compatible with 3G networks running the 850/1900Mhz spectrum.
In a surprising turn of events, HTC has released the HTC Touch HD’s service manual. The manual reveals that the HTC Touch HD is, in fact, capable of surfing 3G data networks in the US.
It seems that HTC decided to endow their high-end touchscreen smartphone with the necessary 3G hardware to work on just about any 3G network in the world. We knew that the HTC Touch HD would sport 3G frequency support in the 900Mhz and 2100Mhz WCDMA bands, but we had no idea HTC would sneak in support for the 850Mhz WCDMA band that us Yankees love so much. Unfortunately, the HTC Touch HD’s newfound US 3G compatibility isn’t likely to prompt any US carrier (AT&T (NYSE: T), we’re looking at you) to pick up the HTC Touch HD in subsidized form.
The good news, however, is that HTC Touch HD fans can import an HD and rest easy knowing that it’s fully functional within US borders. With a 3.8-inch WVGA touchscreen (480 x 800 WVGA), 5 megapixel camera, full 3G support, GPS and WiFi under the hood, the HTC Touch HD is without a doubt a handset worthy of importing into the US. Start scrounging for couch-change!
Find the HTC Touch HD manual here. (PDF link)
[Via: WMPowerUser]
Is there firmware available to enable the 850MHz range on the Touch HD? Has anybody tried to get this running yet? All posts that I read say that EDGE was the only option for using the Touch HD in the US.
I will be traveling to Taiwan and am thinking about brining one over.
Where can I buy an unlocked HTC Touch Pro that will work on Sprint in US and other networks outside of the US?
T-Mobile use 1700Mhz in the US, don’t they? So the Touch HD still won’t be compatable with T-Mob in the US – or does it support 1700Mhz as well?
Will, you really need to update this post. Did you miss the “OR” during the listing of the supported frequencies? Anyone who buys this phone overseas will be SOL when they get back to the US unless they have the ability to reconfigure the handset to support the alternate frequencies. Just because the phone can be configured to handle different frequencies does not mean that the phone can handle all of them at once.
US users might get a little 3G action from the Telstra version as it has 850 MHz, but the European version won’t work at all for 3G. Don’t give your readers bad info…
A few US customers bought the HTC Touch HD and were not able to use 3G in the US. Check out the reviews at Newegg, and please update this article – you do not want to mislead your readers.