Samsung will soon release a new smartphone onto the US Cellular carrier. The Galaxy Metrix 4G will debut this Friday, August 24th as a typical mid-range Android smartphone with LTE and a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard.
There’s nothing particularly exciting about it. It does have the aforementioned physical keyboard for folks who are still adamantly against touchscreen keyboards. The Galaxy Metrix 4G has a 4-inch touchscreen on board with a single-core 1GHz processor inside, a 5MP rear camera and camcorder, and a 1.3MP front-facing camera. What’s really disappointing is the lack of Ice Cream Sandwich — yup, the phone comes preloaded with the antiquated Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system.
It’s important to note which areas US Cellular support in its 4G LTE network because it affects the pricing of this phone. Currently, LTE covers 31 percent of customers in certain cities of Iowa, Maine, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas and Wisconsin. The carrier is promising to expand into territory of Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oregon, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia by the end of the year to cover 58 percent of customers.
If you live within US Cellular’s 4G coverage, the Samsung Galaxy Metrix 4G is $129.99 with a two-year contract after a $100 mail-in rebate. If you don’t live within the coverage area, the phone’s price rises $50 to $179.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate and with a two-year contract. That means you could pay as much as $280 up front for a handset that’s only running Gingerbread. It’s a tad expensive if you ask me, but hey, if you’re still interested you can get your hands on the Galaxy Metrix 4G this Friday.