Verizon to get full QWERTY Samsung Stratosphere Oct. 13 ($150)

By Jeffrey Van Camp Published October 10, 2011

samsung-stratosphere-verizon — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Today, Samsung and and Verizon announced the Stratosphere: the first Android smartphone with a full LTE 4G connection and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Better yet, it will launch Oct. 13 for $200 with a two-year contract–much less than the price most LTE phones have been launching at. As a bonus, the phone has a $50 mail-in rebate.

The Stratosphere has a single-core 1GHz Cortex A8 Hummingbird processor, Super AMOLED display (common on most Samsung phones), 5MP rear camera, 1.3MP front camera, and runs on Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). The phone’s competition will be the Droid 3, which has opposing strengths: though it lacks 4G LTE speeds, it makes up for it with dual-core processing power and a big screen.

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In the press release, Samsung also points out that the Stratosphere has some added business features like Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, services from Cisco, remote device management, and remote wipe.

Jeffrey Van Camp

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As DT's Deputy Editor, Jeff helps oversee editorial operations at Digital Trends. Previously, he ran the site's…

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