Telstra dreams of an Android smartphone Christmas

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 02 November 2011 19:02

Your IT - Mobility

Telstra has added new Android smartphones from LG, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, a Telstra-branded ZTE model and the BlackBerry Bold 9900 to its range in preparation for the Christmas sales boost.

Announcing the new models, Andrew Vollard director of device management at Telstra, said: "In prepaid we are about to launch a new Telstra branded Android device, a touchscreen qwerty device runs Android 2.3, with WiFi and Data at 7.2Mbps."

The device, the Telstra Qwerty-Touch, will sell for $129 on prepaid and is one of the few low end devices with a qwerty keyboard. According to Vollard, "We found there was a real texting and messaging market at that level, so we are pleased to be able to provide something differentiated at the price point ahead of our competitors."

Telstra has also become the first telco in the world to offer the LG Ultimate Spirit, also an Android 2.3 device, with 800MHz processor. According to Tom Lewis, general manager of LG Electronic, "It comes bundled with the LG Smartshare app. You can send photos and videos from the phone to the TV and you can also use the phone to browse other DLNA devices and send content from those to the TV." It will sell for $149 as a Telstra prepaid phone. He added: "We think this is a device to bring smartphones to everybody."

Motorola's Barry Smyth described th new Motorola phone, the Defy + as "the Defy on Steroids." Motorola launched the Defy just before Christmas last year. It was unique in carrying an IP67 (Intrusion Prevention 67) rating. According to Smythe, the new version "has a 1GHz processor supporting Gingerbread [Android 2.3] and the IP67 dust and water resistance rating. We have preloaded some apps: the cardio trainer - because this devices lends itself very well to the active lifestyle and we have also included the Zenio Reader. We have worked very hard with Telstra to sell this at $299 as a prepaid device."

An IP67 rated device must offer "no ingress of dust; complete protection against contact'¦ [and] ingress of water in harmful quantity shall not be possible when the enclosure is immersed in water under defined conditions of pressure and time (up to 1m for 30 minutes)," and Telstra and Motorola will be pushing this aspect of the phone heavily. Smyth said: "Last year we did a 'Summer Proof' marketing campaign for the Defy and we will be continuing that in conjunction with Telstra this year."

Both the Ultimate and the Defy + carry Telstra's Blue Tick, indicating better than average RF performance in marginal coverage areas.

The new Sony Ericsson model, the Xperia ARC S, supports HD voice - which Telstra implemented in its network earlier this year - and has a 1.4GHz processor. It is able to take panoramic 3D photos that can be viewed on a  SD TV set using the active 3D glasses. It will be available for $10 on Telstra's $59 per month Freedom Connect plan.

Telstra has also cut the price of prepaid mobile broadband devices: The price of the Elite mobile WiFi devices has been reduced from $129 to $99 and that of the USB Elite broadband from $99 to $79.