AT&T’s First LTE Phones, HTC Vivid and Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket, Arrive November 6th

October 31st, 2011 by Davey Alba, LAPTOP Staff Writer

AT&T has had its LTE network up for a few months now, but hasn’t offered any phones that could utilize it. Now, the carrier has officially turned that around, announcing its first two devices with true 4G, the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket and HTC Vivid, which you can grab as early as November 6th (this Sunday!).

You can get the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket for $249 on a two-year contract. For those who had wondered whether the LTE version of the Samsung Galaxy S II would make its way to the US, here’s your answer. The handsome device features a 4.5-inch Super AMOLED Plus display and a 1.5-GHz dual-core processor (instead of the 1.2-GHz Exynos processor on the carrier’s original GSII). Other than that, the device packs the familiar specs of the previous iteration: an 8-megapixel rear camera, 16GB of built-in flash, and Android Gingerbread 2.3.5.

The HTC Vivid, available in black and white flavors, offers a 4.5-inch qHD display, a 1.2-GHz dual-core processor, an 8-megapixel back-facing camera equipped with the ability to shoot 1080p video, and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. 16GB of internal storage starts you off, but that’s expandable up to 32GB with microSD. There’s no word yet from the manufacturer regarding the specific version of Android that the Vivid will run, but HTC has confirmed that its Sense UI will indeed grace this handset’s interface. You can grab the Vivid for $199 on a two-year contract later this week.

At the moment, AT&T’s LTE coverage is available in only five markets–Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio–so folks rushing to buy these phones may not be able to take advantage of its full 4G LTE capabilities just yet. However, on November 6, AT&T will also launch LTE coverage in four additional markets — Boston, Washington DC, Baltimore, and Athens, GA. If fortuitously you happen to live in one of these cities, you’ll be able to take advantage of full data speeds at the same old pricing plans: $15 for 200MB a month, $25 for 2GB, and 4GB with hotspot connectivity for $45.