While it wasn’t the announcement we were hoping for from Samsung at CTIA 2011, the company did show off the Verizon Stratosphere, the first 4G LTE device on the network with a full QWERTY keyboard. We’re rocking and rolling at CTIA, so you just know we had to play with it.
The Samsung Stratosphere has a 4-inch Super AMOLED screen and it does pop pretty well – we’re not talking Super AMOLED Plus territory but it should be appealing for users. Of course, the main draw of this is the keyboard and we thought it felt pretty nice – the dedicated number row is a nice touch, the travel back on the keys is on point but we thought it felt a tad bit cheap.
Inside, you have a 1 GHz processor, 4G LTE support and this is smoking fast in certain markets, GPS, Bluetooth and all the other goodies you’d expect from a device of this class. It rocks Android Gingerbread, has a front-facing camera and a 5-megapixel camera on the back which can record in 720p HD.
The Samsung Stratosphere will land Oct. 13 for the reasonable price of $149.99 on a new contract. Let us know what you think in the meanwhile.
