T-Mobile ups Android Ante with G2, First HPSA+ Smartphone

By Nick Mokey Published August 18, 2010

T-Mobile may have been the first to the Android party, but after Verizon showed up with a three-pack of Droids and Sprint tapped a keg of 4G, life just hasn’t been the same for the quiet purveyor of phones like the Cliq XT and myTouch 3G. Now T-Mobile is making another go at Android glory with a successor to the phone that started it all – and it has a new trick up its sleeve.

The carrier let word slip back in July that the successor to the G1, aptly named the G2, would carry HSPA+ compliance, which will allow it to leverage the full speed of T-Mobile’s quasi-4G network. Now it has posted a formal teaser page for the G2, including a murky profile rendering of the upcoming device.

“The T-Mobile G2 will deliver tight integration with Google services and break new ground as the first smartphone designed to run at 4G speeds on our new HSPA+ network,” the page states. Unfortunately, that’s about all it states, for the moment.

Given the recent leak of benchmarks for the HTC Glacier – an upcoming T-Mobile device that nearly triples the performance of the HTC Evo – it’s possible that the Glacier is the G2.

T-Mobile claims the backhaul upgrades it made in order to put HSPA+ in place benefit all its 3G customers, only HSPA+ compliant devices are capable of pushing the pedal to the floor on the network. For the moment, that elite fraternity includes only the webConnect Rocket and Rocket 2.0 USB data sticks – and soon, the G2. According to its teaser page, T-Mobile will provide additional details in the coming weeks.

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