AT&T launches LG Thrive pre-paid Android smartphone

April 12, 2011 By Geoff Duncan

Want a smartphone but hate contracts? AT&T is looking to crach the pre-paid market with the Android-powered LG Thrive.

AT&T has announced it is launched its first pre-paid smartphone in the form of the LG Thrive, adding the device to the company’s GoPhone program so customers can pay as they go—including mobile data—without committing to a long-term contact. Of course, AT&T will also be offering an on-contract version of the same device, dubbed the LG Phoenix. Both go on sale April 17.

“We are excited to add LG Thrive, the first smartphone for GoPhone, to AT&T’s growing Android portfolio,” said AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets VP Judy Cavalieri, in a statement. “Thrive brings more choice and more value to our GoPhone customers by delivering the benefits of a smartphone, balanced with functionality and affordability.”

Both the LG Thrive and LG Phoenix sport 3.2-inch 320-by-480-pixel touchscreen displays and run Android 2.2 running on a 600 MHz processor; they offer a 3.2 megapixel camera, 3G data service using AT&T’s HSPA network (with speeds theoretically reaching 7.2 Mbps, although in practice it’s far lower), along with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless networking. The devices sport assisted GPS, 160 MB of user-accessible memory, and a microSD storage slot for up to 32 GB of additional storage capacity.

AT&T will be offering the LG Thrive for a starter price of $179.99 so long as users sign up with a GoPhone prepaid plan: available plans include $2 a day for unlimited calling and text messaging plus $0.01 per KB of data transfer, paid only on days you use the phone. (This also translates directly to a $60 per month plan). Users can also choose a $75 per month plan with unlimited calling and text with 200 MB of data a month, or a “Simple Rate Plan” where calls are $0.10 a minute, messaging is either unlimited or $19.99 a month, and data is a penny per KB.

If folks are OK with a two-year commitment, the LG Phoenix will be available on April 17 with a new two-year service plan, and the device can be used with AT&T’s Mobile Hotspot and Tethering features on its DataPro 4 GB Plan with overages costing $10 per GB.

Bringing Android into the pre-paid arena serves as another indicator of how smartphone technologies are creeping down from high-end “luxury” phones into more everyday devices affordable by folks who don’t need ever whizbang feature and don’t have phones glued to their hands. It also puts AT&T into more direct competition with acquisition target T-Mobile, which has historically had a strong position in the pre-paid market.

Showing 2 comments

BurntHam77 at 9:54am 12th April 2011 My wife just picked up a T-Mobile pay-as-you-go Android phone and she loves it. The screen is not as big as the higher-priced contract phones, and the quality feels like a slight step down, but overall it is a pretty solid phone. It is nice to have Androids as an option for pay-as-you-go, although what would be really sweet would be a pay-as-you-go Windows 7 phone. To be able to merge my Zune and smart phone into one device is very appealing to me.
1. Matt Bregar at 12:05am 18th April 2011 Windows Phone 7 on prepaid won't be coming any time soon unfortunately. Microsoft has very strict minimum hardware requirements for phones using their new OS. The good thing about that, is that any WP7 device you find should be a great piece of equipment. The side effect, sadly, is that you won't find it at an affordable price without contract subsidy any time soon. I'd look for this to change later this year, as it has been rumored that Microsoft may loosen these requirements after the OS has been established in the market for awhile. (Maybe a Nokia??)