The photo above was sent by an anonymous tipster to Engadget who says that it’s a high end Android smartphone made by LG for Verizon, and if the logos on the back of the device are any indication of what it’s capable of, then it looks like this could be one of the few LTE phones that are going to be available during the first half of 2011. There’s not much else to say about this device, other than that we have to wait and see what Big Red is going to reveal about their next generation network. For them to build a smartphone that can handle both CDMA for calls and texts, and LTE for data, shows that like the HTC EVO 4G for Sprint, this is going to be one of a handful of custom Frankenstein handsets created until the “4G” ecosystem actually starts growing.
Are you looking forward to LTE? If you’re a heavy user of data then you should since download speeds are dramatically increased, with countries like Sweden hitting close to 90 Mbps, even Clearwire is getting the same figures, you’ll never have to wait for pages to load again. Now Verizon is saying that their first generation LTE network isn’t going to break 5 to 12 Mbps, and I believe them since it’s most likely a backhaul issue, not an LTE issues. Once they string some fiber to each and every one of their cell sites, remember that they did say their LTE footprint would be as large as their 3G footprint is today by the end of 2013, then you should be able to feel the real power of what LTE is capable of.
Historically LG hasn’t made the most interesting Android handsets, but since it’s so early in the game of smartphones they’ve got a while to up their game. They need to if they want to stay relevant.