We may not be able to pronounce the name of HTC's self-branded variant of the
Hermes --
TyTN -- but we
will be able to rock one toward the end of this month, if Expansys' UK site is to be trusted. Expansys is showing an alleged July 17 availability date for the device, and while our European friends are already
well-acquainted with its imminent availability in several flavors of carrier, this could be the only shot Americans have at 1900MHz UMTS smartphone goodness until it officially drops
on Cingular in the fall (knock on wood). The Hermes is physically a dead ringer for the
Wizard it replaces, but mercifully upgrades the woefully underclocked OMAP to a 400MHz Samsung piece, adds a second camera for video calling, and bumps the primary to 2 megapixels. The price north of $1,000 USD might seem stratospheric to most of us, but we suspect we can find a few Wizard-toting folks willing to shed it to get themselves out of EDGE purgatory.
[Thanks, Daniel S.]
posted Jul 6th 2006 6:37PM
I would love to get my hands on one of these... if it didn't run WM. I use a wizard now and I don't need faster speeds, I need a better OS.
Any word of the i-mate branded Hermes? I remember reading an article way back saying it would be called the JasJar.. I think i'd take that over the cingular branded one.
My wizard is busted for now but should be revived within a week and when it is.. i think it'll be up for grabs on ebay.
I assume that "TyTN" is pronounced "titan".
These went on sale yesterday in Taipei as a joint promotion between Chunghua Telecom and HTC. Confusingly named the CHT9000, based on the name of the carrier and NOT "HTC". Exactly as pictured, but with the CHT logo up top instead of the HTC logo. Pricing with contract is somewhere around 14,000 NTD (about $450 USD) Anyone get their hands on one? They hadn't even opened up the display model yet when I saw the signs going up last night.
The Sony Ericsson P990i is supposed to be shipping the day before (16th July).
That's going to be an interesting head-to-head contest. Both have similar specs, but I wonder which one will be the better smartphone?
Anyone else notice that the screenshots on Expansys show one of the appointments being the launch of the TyTN on the 15th July at 1pm???
Fone_Fantastic - The i-mate-branded Hermes is called the JasJAM. (you were only one letter off, but the JasJar is actually the HTC Universal!)
They should sack their marketing dept - is it that hard to come up with a good name??!!
See http://www.imatephonestore.com/product.asp?itemMDL=IMATE_jasjam
I am hoping the JasJam will start becoming available in the next month or so!!
Does the SE 990i have HSDPA on 850 and 1900 for the US market? This seems to be the selling point for many on the TyTN (as there are no other handsets with this coverage presently). I don't see it on the US sales site for Expansys, but I assume you can just bring it on over and slap a UMTS card into it.
Oliver
James Turnbull,I meant JasJam, was a typo. And about the names, in that article i was referring to earlier had a break down of them. All i can remember is Jas= 3G/UMTS and Jar= VGA screen.
Oliver, I haven't found anything relating to a SE P990a so for now all we know is the P990i is triband gsm (900/1800/1900) and on the SE site just says UMTS which we can take to mean wcdma 2100.
Also available for pre-order from On The Go solutions....$849 USD!! i'm in for 2! (i know the wife will want one and she's NOT taking mine!)
The CHT9000 is actually around 660 USD without contract, but the OS is of course in Chinese and the QWERTY keyboard also has Chinese Phonetics on it alongside th English.
Hello there,
Please feel free to read my personal review of the HTC TyTN:
http://mygadgetworld.wordpress.com/2006/07/22/htc-tytn/
http://mygadgetworld.wordpress.com/2006/09/21/stillthebestsmartphone/
Best regards,
Leif