A few new Windows Phones aren’t the only handsets to be hitting AT&T shelves on November 6th. AT&T’s first LTE-enabled smartphones will be going on sale the same day, and will include the HTC Vivid and Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket. To mark the occasion, AT&T is also flipping the switch on LTE in 9 new markets, including San Antonio, Atlanta, Chicago, and Houston. The phones will be available with tiered data plans; DataPlus gets you 200 MB for $15/month, and DataPro gives you 2 GB for $25/month, which you’ll likely burn through at blistering speed.
The Skyrocket is more or less the same as the T-Mobile GS2 variant – 4.5-inch 800 x 480 touchscreen, 1.5 GHz dual-core processor, running Android Gingerbread 2.3.5, 8 megapixel camera with LED flash plus front-facing camera for video calling, 16 GB of on-board memory plus microSD. The HTC Vivid you might know better as the Raider. It hs a 4.5-inch 960 x 540 touchscreen, dual-core 1.2 GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM, and also has an 8 megapixel camera on the back.
AT&T feels pretty confident about their selection of LTE devices, and preliminary wireless data download speeds are promising, but Verizon has a pretty significant head start both in their LTE network coverage and 4G device selection. If the T-Mobile merger ends up getting through the anti-trust lawsuit gauntlet, AT&T may get the leg-up they need to close Verizon’s lead, but it looks like that’s still a ways off from happening.
The HTC Vivid will cost $199.99 on a two-year contract, while the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket will be going for $249.99. You can sign up for availability notifications over here.