Lost in the current wave of news following the Department of Justice suit against the AT&T/T-Mobile merger, the carrier has announced that it will launch its first LTE tablet in the HTC JetStream 4G this Sunday, September 4th. The tablet will be launched for $699 with a new two-year contract and a new 3GB $35/month data plan.
While the data plan and pricing are to be expected, the JetStream 4G also marks the first time that AT&T is subsidizing tablets, though the unsubsidized pricing of $899.99 is sure to make many raise an eyebrow, as it’s $70 more expensive than the 64GB iPad 2 3G+Wi-Fi model. Continue reading for the specifications.
The tablet features Android 3.1 (Honeycomb), HTC Sense, a 10.1 inch WXGA capacitive touch display, Snapdragon 1.5 GHz dual core processor, rear 8-megapixel camera with dual-LED flash, 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, MicroSD slot supporting up to 32GB cards, Bluetooth, and will operate on AT&T’s dual-band HSPA and LTE networks on the 850/1900 and 700/AWS bands respectively. As a bonus for the early adopters, the HTC Scribe digital pen will also be bundled into the tablet for a limited time, which by itself is an $80 value.
[…] PhoneNews.com […]
Why is it that the carriers call it subsidizing when they sell an item for less then the MSRP but retailers do not? How many items sold at electronic retailers sell for hundreds of dollars less then the MSRP? NO carrier in the US pays even close to MSRP for a product and most probably get them for significantly less then what retailers normally pay for an electronics component intended for retail sale without a lengthy contract. Carrier subsidies in most cases are a myth or significantly less then they claim.