O2, European GSM operator, just went official with an announcement that the much lauded XDA Zinc will not be offered through their network. We all expected the Zinc to drop in January, and then expected it in March. And when we finally get news of it dropping on us, we find it’s been dropped from O2’s network. A spokeswoman for O2 confirmed that the XDA Zinc didn’t pass muster with O2’s network tests. The XDA Zinc is a tri-band, UMTS, qwerty-slider powered by Window Mobile 5.0. O2 recently chose to explore partnerships with other manufacturers and the XDA Zinc is a result of a partnership with Asus
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But on the upside, there’s rumor that the replacement for the Zinc will be the XDA Trion. Now that’s an interesting piece of news because the XDA Trion is actually the HTC TyTn. And HTC was the original manufacturer of the XDA line, but O2 decided that the two companies needed some time apart. Apparently, the grass is not greener on the other side and wants to get back in bed with HTC.
The HTC TyTn is definitely fatter than the slim Asus-made Zinc, but you deal with some belly fat for high spec. The Trion one-ups the Zinc with quad-band and true 3G – making it a worldly traveller. But for those of you on T-mobile US, quad-band and 3G mean nothing to you.