With a little less than 5 months left until the start of 2012, we’re kind of sad to say that we’ve been duped, yet again, by analysts predicting that near field communication technology, or NFC, would take off and become mainstream. The first, and right now only, NFC enabled Android smartphone on the market is the Google Nexus S. The Samsung Galaxy S II was supposed to come with NFC, but it looks like the only country lucky enough to get said NFC enabled variant is South Korea. Many have been anticipating when HTC would launch their first NFC capable device, and today we have a somewhat clearer answer to that question. The HTC Stunning will launch in China next month, packing NFC, Android, and a 4 inch screen, and it’ll use UnionPay’s infrastructure. Never heard of UnionPay? Don’t be surprised, neither have we, but they’re the sole, as in single, as in complete monopoly, issuer of bank cards in China. That makes this announcement a big deal. There are currently 400,000 NFC enabled point of sale terminals in China and that’s expected to hit 700,000 by the end of this year.
Not quite the news you were expecting, right? We don’t have any clear photos of the Stunning, what you see above is terribly blown up, so it’s rather difficult to say if the Stunning is a totally new device or something that’s currently out on the market, but with the addition of an NFC chip inside. Update: It’s just an Incredible S, but with an NFC chip. We do know that it’s likely not going to take long to hear news of the European/Asian/American version of this device, but for the NFC ecosystem to grow we of course need other players to jump in, so expect us to make a big fuss whenever LG, Nokia, even Huawei or ZTE, start shipping near field smartphones.
We’re frankly tired of carrying crumpled paper money and clangy metal coins.