It seems likely to me that one of the US GSM carriers contracted for these phones on spec. The external antenna and loss of the 900 / 1800 bands have probably slashed a whopping $1 off of the manufacturing cost of each phone. A whole dollar (if that) is nothing to you, but it's obviously important to the carrier (Cingular, maybe) that'll offer these phones for free [size=-2]with a two year contract[/size]. Yup, it's sad, but even more sad is that these phones will probably do pretty well in the US market.
“There's a certain feeling of wading through water with this phone, as every time we went exploring the menus, we were met with a delay long enough to make us doubt our keystrokes registered.”
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It seems likely to me that one of the US GSM carriers contracted for these phones on spec. The external antenna and loss of the 900 / 1800 bands have probably slashed a whopping $1 off of the manufacturing cost of each phone. A whole dollar (if that) is nothing to you, but it's obviously important to the carrier (Cingular, maybe) that'll offer these phones for free [size=-2]with a two year contract[/size]. Yup, it's sad, but even more sad is that these phones will probably do pretty well in the US market.