Sprint kicks off HTC Touch Pro2 sales at $349.99
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Sep 8th 2009 1:24AM
posted Sep 8th 2009 1:24AM
[Thanks, Wilson]
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Good device and decent price I'd say!;) Affordable
Hahaha! affordable? good device? maybe at $200.00
if you have sprint and are eying this phone, give it about a month. i'm sure they'll drop the price to verizons 299 before $100 rebate in no time. no way sprint would let its CDMA cousin which has historically had better service, and a better network out price them on this device.
Decent price? You're making me laugh! HTC will have to pay me to carry a winmo (aka dinosaurs)
phone. Seriously, the trouble I'll have to put up with the dinosaurs OS and the lost of productivity
from using this phone will have me charge HTC some serious money to carry this phone.
But I ask, where the hell is the CTRL button?
Chris will you sponsor me?
gotta love it. TMO demands $349, and they're called crazy, unreasonable, etc. etc...
Sprint does the EXACT SAME THING, and they get a virtual pass.
W
T
F
Why would you pay almost double for this when you can get the Hero nearly half that? I currently have the Touch Pro 1 and I'm sorry but my next phone will be the Hero, albeit in it's less desirable form.
I'm sure HTC could sell boatloads of these, if it were running Android with the Hero's Sense UI.
Hopefully, one day, vendors will start shipping smartphone "platforms" that can be flashed with whatever OS the user wants to use (Android, Maemo, WinMo, ...).
is sprint getting the gorgeous white htc hero? or the fugly redesign
For the umph-teen time... What Fortune 500 corporation (besides Google) allows Android phones on their networks?! This is a business cellphone.
I wish sprint had sim cards btw for you can't use it with any other carrier and the unlocked version would be twice as expensive as sprint's one
Actually, the Touch Pro2 comes with a SIM card. Yes, the Sprint version.
(It's for international roaming, though.)
But, there is a technology difference going on. Japanese CDMA phones do have the R-UIM, which is rather different in function (but identical form factor) from the SIM, but ends up having the same effect.
That's awesome then!I'm sure there will be folks selling it for $200 or less on craigslist brand new!Then I can unlock it and send it to Ukraine and sell at least for $500!;)
I have the T-mobile TP2 and it is the best phone I could have spent my money on.
TP2 + a fresh ROM from xda-developers.com = the best phone you can have right now
It's not better than my Touch Pro that I paid half as much for, which is running a similar custom rom based off the TP2 ROM. I basically upgraded my TP to a TP2 for free, since they are so similar hardware wise. Definitely isn't enough there to fork out another $350 for.
No, I agree it would be a toughie if you already have the original Touch Pro. I upgraded from an Excalibur (Dash).
But thank you for proving my point. TP2 (or any htc device for that matter)+xda-developers=awesome.
This phone is interesting but it has one deep, fatal flaw: it is running WinMo.
It would have been worth its weight if it came with Android instead.
Thankfully HTC has seen the light and is shrinking production of WinMo phones from 80% to 50% in the next 3 to 4 months. Conversely, HTC is ramping up production and volumes of Android phones to the other 50%. As the market responds more and more favorably to Android, HTC should continue this trend ultimately excreting WinMo from their business.
No.
Having WinMo is a plus.
The largest library of USEFUL applications, the most robust mobile OS (bar none at the moment), and WM 6.5's native UI is as pretty as anything else out there even sans TF3D.
It's only a negative for those who are living in the past.
Grab a WM 6.5 ROM, slap TF3D 2.x on it (even if you don't the native UI is once again near flawless), and you have the most complete mobile phone OS on the market.
GPS navigation : second to none
Multit-tasking: equals the Pre, at least
Voice control: second to none
Business applications: second to none
Device support: second to none
The ability and variety of ways to tether, email, sms, mms, capture video and audio: second to none
Skinning & customizing: second to none
I would wager just about anything that you haven't handled a WM 6.5 ROM with a recent build (say 23016 and up).
If you had, your opinion wouldn't scream: blind ignorance and intolerance
Pshhh, money's no issue for me, as I can easily afford...hold on... [ goes to crank hand generator ]
That's 149.99 more than I would've liked to pay for this phone on a 2-year contract.
$450 in actuality UP FRONT. $100 mail in rebate + 2yr contract. What a joke for technology thats already outdated. Sprint just keeps rolling out the fails and losing customers.
I don't entirely agree with your post, because Sprint has:
1. Cheaper Plans
2. Faster 3G (where I live)
3. Pre
4. 4G
Also take into consideration that this phone is the same price on T-Mobile. That sure doesn't sound like "fails" to me.
I went to the Sprint store today to look at a Pre, and walked out (almost) ready to switch from my iPhone and crappy AT&T service, and get a Pre with the 450 minute everything data plan. The only thing holding me back is the initial payment (Early Termination, phone costs) and lack of money.
Funny, cause T-Mobile has the phone priced the same. Undoubtedly it is HTC who is charging too much for this phone, and not the service providers.
so far I am on my 7th touch pro, sprint really doesn't care about its customers. offered to replace the phone with a lowerend model and told me i can't have the pre or the blackberry. what a joke.
You are either:
1: Lying
2: Exaggerating
3: Take EXTREMELY bad care of your phone.
4: A fanboy who secretly wishes they had Sprint instead of their inferior carrier.
5: A gay fat warcraft addict who is on drugs and is complaining because they still have Sand stuck in their v****a from the beach.
BTW Why the hell would they replace your Touch Pro with a Pre or the Blackberry Tour? Lmao.
It was always fun dealing with people like you when I used to work at Verizon. If you have had to replace your phone 7 times... you are the freaking problem. Or another cheap tool trying to complain himself to a model upgrade.
Ellis and mc-fizzle -
wrong. dont be so rude against him. the sprint touch pro is notoriously bad in general. the touch pro forum on ppcgeeks.com will tell you all about its problems. horrible lag and broken keyboards are just the start. tons of people have gone through so many - including the sprint reps at the corporate store near me. why do you think sprint is rushing the touch pro 2 less than a year after the touch pro 1 came out?
i went through 5 touch pros. 1st one did a random auto-PRL update, and somehow my signal went from 4-5 bars to 0-1 bars, 2nd one had the camera break, 3rd one had its keyboard break, 4th one had its screen just randomly shut off, and the 5th one had ANOTHER broken keyboard. ive never had a worse phone than the touch pro quite honestly. every single phone ive had has been awesome to use and has never broken down on me. the touch pro is the exact opposite - horrible/slow to use, and it breaks all the time.
ive tried everything to fix it. the pressing hard on the spacebar fix, tons of custom roms, and just tweaking the hell out of it with cabs - nothing seemed to get rid of its problems. i also didnt realize how bad windows mobile 6.1 is compared to the competiton. hell, i would rather use the old school palm o/s - that at least was rock-solid and stable to use. sure, it looked outdated, but the performance was there.
i loved this phone the minute it was announced. i was one of those nerds who called every best buy in the state just to get the touch pro a week early before everyone else. i had no clue this would turn out to be the worst phone ive ever used. all of my previous phones have been great. no problems whatsoever. i seriously couldnt believe that the touch pro would be that bad.
Ellis and mc-fizzle
first off you have no clue and need to stfu.
1st phone - notorius dpad becoming unglued
2nd phone - software issues droped calls
3rd phone - dpad issue yet again
4th phone - dropped calls and software issues
5th phone - refurbed unit the whole dpad was coming off took to store to show had to order another replacement
6th phone - another defective refurbed. the lcd does not sit in the lcd bezel and rasies oout of the frame
7th phone - not sure yet get it tues/wed
i take exceptional care of my phones they are like new.
and if anyone has sprint they can get a brand new touch pro turn off the slugish touchflo then in classic mode go to contact and using the touchscreen type in w,x or r and the phone will always do the following
w - w*
x - x*
r - dial first contact in the list
this will never change until they release a update. so sending a defective device out without testing is a joke.
also the dpad is a joke the left side is never glued down good enough and if you use your pad alot it will come loose. nice QC
glad the tp2 doesnt have the dpad issue
and as far as the pre or blackberry I could care less. the tp is the top of the line phone sprint makes. i paid for it when I got it. and to offer a lowerend phone is a joke.
i want a winmo device that works.
but i guess i will keep sending them back if they fail to meet the needs.
Anchit - The PRL issue I have seen before on different phones. Good reason to replace. Now the camera and keyboard I don't understand how they just break. The far more likely scenario is that some kind of physical damage was done to the device most likely unintentional.
Ops - Software issues and dropped calls. What do you think happens when you get a replacement? Its the exact same hardware with the exact same ROM. If the phone has bad QC you are just replacing with the same problem.
Statistically the chances of you being the unlucky guy that had the 6 bad phones through no fault of your own are incredibly small. If that was the case there would be 70-80% return rates. Theres all the XDA roms and different programs that you install that can have an effect that are more likely the cause of software issues. Anchit did not mention any problems with his Dpad after 5 exchanges. Software issues should be fixed with a hard reset almost all of the time unless the problem is with the default software in which case a new phone is pointless. You nit pick on a small hardware issues and you are taking your chances on refurbished phones owned by people who takes worse care of their phones. If you keep having the same hardware issue its most likely due to your usage of the phone.
When I was doing tech support for PDA phones the vast majority did not need to replace at all. But there were always those few guys going on 6-8 devices. Maybe those guys just have higher standards than the public. Problem is the replacement phone coming in is the same quality as the one you returned.
As unlikely as Ops situation seems, he is sadly correct. My girlfriend and I both got TPs before release. My first device had the keyboard conk out on me and the replacement I got had the left side of the D-pad unglued OUT OF THE BOX. I didn't want to be a nag so I just took it as-is. My girlfriend has had software issues. I had software issues with both of the devices I have received and now have to go for a third one because 7-9 of the keys are malfunctioning. I love this device anyway but I am anxious to purchase the TP2.
I went through 7 TPs, before I gave up, and waited 8 months for the Pre to release. Just went back to my Vogue, running 6.5 ROMs.
All of them had some crappy screen design that influenced (negatively,) input around the borders, whereas my Vogue did not.
All of them overheated, and refused to charge.
Many of them had d-pad issues, or screen/bezel issues. Some had wobbily keboards, or radically uneven backlights.
I remember all the apologists that said we were liars, so I created a thread for people to list their build-date, and their experiences.. way more people were returning them than previously-thought.
The Pre isn't perfect, but it satisfies my homebrew needs, and I can write an app for it in no-time. Tethers over BT or WIFI, has a powerful CPU/GPU.
The only thing I hate about the Pre is the lack of removable memory... and only for the use of backing-up on the go... but that necessity really disappeared when I switched away from WM. Now, when I back up my Pre, to format, I copy over one file, and I'm good to go.
I don't care..I'm picking me up one of these later on this afternoon. My TP's getting boring :D
Ordered mine On Sunday through Telesales. Should be here by Wednesday. Cant Wait.
Only reason i got this Instead of waitin for the HERO is cuz of the keyboard. After Havin a HTC Touch the past 2 yrs, no way will i lock myself to a touchscreen only phone again.
For some reason engadget/engadget mobile weren't paying attention to tips that people were able to order this for Sprint last week. Of course they were slow on the Verizon price and date as well...
Ive had mine since friday and its one of if not the best smart phone sprint has.
How can they charge that much when the Pre (within the same carrier no less) has much more horsepower, a much more up-to-date OS, and costs nearly half as much?
I got suckered into the touch diamond and, truth be told, I am glad it fell to its untimely doom and forced me into a Pre. While the online forums are great and all, WM6.5 is an outdated OS any way you cut it. HTC cannot just patch that up with TF3d2
6.5 seems fine to me. Have you even tried it?
I went through my fair share of 6.5 roms on the diamond. While way better than 6.0 on a touch based phone, the roms were still relatively unstable and relatively slow, plenty of lag trying to load web pages and due to the lack of a capacitive multi-touch display, the internet was just a painful experience. On that note - resistive screens are just as dated as the WM6 platform and should not be around in this day and age, especially for this price.
Having to reflash to stock roms and then flash to an updated ROM was a royal pain, as was the process of trying to find any particular application I wanted. I would have to search XDA and ppcgeeks for a while, make sure it didn't have any critical flaws/works with the ROM I am currently on.
My pre just works, I love it. No hassles, no problems, just unadulterated smart phone bliss. Maybe some people like the constant pain that is tweaking WM but it just wasn't my bag of chips.
more expensive than a netbook? you can do better sprint/htc and I would mean Hero if it had a slide out keyboard.
Come on, where's the iSuppli teardown? Really, the problem with these high prices is the subsidy, it clouded the market while carriers keep fooling consumers that these smartphones cost an arm and a leg without subsidy. Really, if Nokia is making a profit out of $299 unsubsidized E71, it makes you wonder what's the margin these companies (including Apple) are making.
Nobody has mentioned verizon's will be 199 after rebate. Their plans are kinda high though.
This phone is interesting but it has one deep, fatal flaw: it is running WinMo.
It would have been worth its weight if it came with Android instead.
Thankfully HTC has seen the light and is shrinking production of WinMo phones from 80% to 50% in the next 3 to 4 months. Conversely, HTC is ramping up production and volumes of Android phones to the other 50%. As the market responds more and more favorably to Android, HTC should continue this trend ultimately excreting WinMo from their business.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't see what the deal is with all the WinMo hate. I've had no problems with it, I don't even remember the last time it froze on me.
Probably it's because of those fools that never heard of a taskmanager.....
And the standard UI could be better
It just seems sort of pricey to me, with the iPhone, Pre and Android phones running things right now, but if this is your thing, I ain't mad 'atcha.
Does anyone know if this is going to be available at Best Buy without having to do the mail in rebate as well? Because if that's the case, I'lll just go to them and pay $425 instead of my regular Sprint store and end up paying $525 for my upgrade.
Hero or death,
Been a Sprint costumer for 6 years, think I will switch over to Verizon. Better prices and plans, here I come Verizon!
If you do the math it's pretty darn easy to see why this phone is priced the way it is.
For most other smartphones you are required to buy a higher-priced phone plan... the carrier knows they can recoup the cost of the handset.
With this phone it's targeted at business folks who either have company plans or need the flexibility to design their phone/data plan however they choose.
I looked at the iphone before I bought my Touch Pro... for the plan I need I would have had to pay $70 per month... on sprint with my touch pro I only pay $45 per month (30 phone plan and $15 unlimited internet). Over a 2 year contract that's a difference of $600.
The pre, iphone, et.al. may be lower priced up front... but you ARE going to pay for that phone, one way or another.
Best way to get a phone still is buying a unlocked one and get a plan without a phone (especially in Holland where there is only GSM, so you can choose between all carriers)
Its kinda naieve and short sighted to not factor the monthly plan into the cost. The up front hit is only a small part. Especially with sprint, the up front cost of this vs the iphone is not even comparable due to the discrepancy of total cost of ownership.
Anyone able to activate this phone under Sero?
I guess being third does come cheap though....
http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2009/09/04/htc-touch-pro2-graces-verizon-on-september-11/
$199 AR lol
And $149 AR if you have a $50 NE2 or $99 AR if you have a $100 NE2.
Well... I mean WELL worth it at those price points.
#1. Touch Pro 2 is the same Hardware as the Touch Pro 1 WTF??? who would pay the same amount of money say this were a PC??? only difference is a .5 larger screen with better resolution. How do they get away with this.???
#2. If this had Android 1.5 with sense UI it would ROCK!!
#3. Also needs a Capacative screen this has resistive.
#4. Verizon's version costs $150 less
#5. Same CPU, + larger screen, + higher resolution = bad battery life
#6. If you have a Touch Pro 1, you can Flash it to have Windows Mobile 6.5 and the TP2 OS same phone .5 smaller screen
As others have stated below me, the people expressing that they have lost 5 or more original Touch Pro's to hardware failure are not lying or exaggerating.
I was one of the people who called my local Sprint store for 4 days waiting for the first batch to get shipped. This was my first jump to a smartphone and was ecstatic. I take extraordinary care of my phones and every TP I have had has been enclosed in the hard case offered by Sprint. Here is a recollection of the total losses so far.
1) First one faired pretty well. She lasted 6 months before the phone could no longer be recognized by any computer. Still charged fine. My first trip to the repair center the guy who is behind the repair center counter gave me his card and said "see you in a few weeks, these phones are the reason I hate getting up in the morning". Reassuring to say the least....
2) The infamous keyboard failure. After sending a ticket in for a new phone to be sent over, me and the original guy behind the counter opened up the phone to discover the problem to all these keyboard failures. The ribbon data cable that connects from the keyboard chipset to the main board literally over time unmounts from the mainboard. At this point after dissecting the phone, there is no reasonable way to put the phone back together.
3) Thing just died. Changed the battery, charged, connected to multiple computers. No recognition whatsoever. At this point I started leaving some food and drinks behind the counter for me and my new found Sprint friend to eat while I spend time at the repair center since I saw a ongoing trend heading my way.
4) Keyboard, again...
5) Infamous D-Pad un-mounting from the face of the phone. Even JBWeld didn't fix that one...
6) Keyboard...I am starting to get good at typing on the onscreen POS by now.
At this point (3 weeks ago) I went to the original location where I bought my phone. They told me to contact Sprint Customer Service over the phone to see what they can do. After 4 calls, 5 managers, 1 head of customer relations for SE U.S they all have offered the same thing. A HTC Snap, or a Palm Centro. Neither of which I will settle with....
Finally after a 35 mile trip to a corporate store in a neighboring town, they offered to end my contract prematurely, allowing me to get a new phone at a 2 year contract price. I plan on upgrading to the new 9300 or whatever Blackberry or the Pre. Any input on those devices? I don't want to make another mistake with a treacherous phone. HTC has lost me as a customer to say the least.
On a side not, the 7th Pro I am on now is working like a charm! Pushing my luck though, I have had it for 5 days now.
I went with the original Sprint TP a few months ago, to stick with my SERO plan and get the only sprint smartphone with a nice keyboard (screw blackberries, I never liked typing on them).
Anyway, I agree that winmo 6.1 is crap and 6.5 can be a dog too. Until I found a good ROM, I was regretting my phone purchasing decision. Its a lot better once you flash it with one you like. The only thing lacking with the TP/WinMo is the fact that it still relies on the stylus. Aside from that the interface is pretty, its responsive (thanks to a good rom), and multitasking is fantastic. I just wish I had held out for a TP2 cause the 3.5mm jack would make my phone the only device I need.
If you're trying to stick with SERO, Best Buy was very good about getting me a new phone, whereas I've read that some Sprint stores will give you a hard time.
Yeah after the TP, TP2 doesn't seem so nifty..
3rd TP now. 4th keyboard issue and d-pad coming off. I've since had to just tell the Sprint techs to just order me new keyboards every time I go in instead of constantly swapping for another new unit. Did I mention I have that rainbow blob on the touchscreen that HTC ordered Sprint to ignore? The same blob that started for some people and ended up in a non-responsive touchscreens. Yay.. looks like I'm in for some fun with this TP again.
I was a loyal Sprint customer for over 10 years until they stiffed me on my bill for a bogus charge. I told them I wanted the TP2 when it came out and if they were willing to do me a deal, I would wait for it and stay with Sprint.
I knew more about the TP2 than the rep did and he didn't even know when it was coming out. when it was announced, he told me it would be $350 WITH my $150 off. T-Mobile offered it to me for $150.
Is it any surprise Sprint are losing customers by the droves? Before long, Verizon will be the only CDMA player in the U.S.
Wow, I definitely didn't read up enough on all the horror stories. I thought I was just unlucky.
My first one was damaged by fault of my own but I was starting to get that rainbow blob on the touchscreen and couldn't figure out how it would have gotten there. The second phone had issues where the camera software couldn't find the camera hardware 85%+ of the time and if I left it in on the chargers when I went to bed it would lock up and drain the battery. The third one I got has the keyboard failure issue along with the end call key on the front face not working. I am getting my 4th one today so now I get to see how messed up it is going to be. I really like the phone while it is working properly otherwise.
Just ordered mine this morning...yeah it's gonna be $150 cheaper upfront on Verizon but the plan I got (450 minutes and unlimited messaging and data) is $70 on sprint...exact same shit is $100 on Verizon. Saving $30 a month times 24 months is just a smidgen over $150!!! (It's $720 savings to be exact)
Sprint could include a $349 gift certificate to AdultFriendFinder and this would still be too expensive.
Sprint's only competitive advantage is price.
I had five Alltel Touch Pro's suffer malfunctions mostly but not limited to loss of keyboard functionality. That was between February and July of 2009. Considering I take good care of the phone and the fact that Alltel inspected and replaced everyone of them with a brand new one without question I think posters who have jumped to the conclusion that user abuse is involved are incorrect. While I was trading in phone number five the guy at the next counter was getting his Touch Pro number four. I talked my brother into getting the ATT Fuze variant and he is on number four right now, in the last three months. The Verizon manager, when the store changed over strongly urged me to trade to any other phone they had, he was from the Atlanta office there to oversee the transition and he said the Vz Touch Pro was a notorious dog of a phone. But I love the phone when it works and they had no other decent Winmo offerings so I said I'd try theirs. I got a record four weeks life before the keyboard stopped working. Now I'm on VZ TP number two. I am just hoping it lasts another week as they tell me with six failures I will qualify for an upgrade to the TP2. I baby the phone, but I use the heck out of it sending countless emails, tweets, text messages and surfing. It seems the phone will last a long time for normal users but will not last for people who use the keyboard a great deal. The idea that this other guy is the only one with six failures, to me that sounds pretty normal for the small circle of people I know who have tried the phone. On the other hand I always have a shiny new one since they always just pull one from the box and hand it to me, not a single refurb in all those failures.
Hey Mc-bitch-fizzle,
I have dealt with shit-bag wanna-be cheese-dick sale-trash like you when I went into sprint to return defective phones and had to deal with pimple face smart ass punks like you that don't know your ass from your elbow, so STFU and leave Ops alone or I'll find your store and stick his phone to where you'll here it ringing from your punk ass belly, boy.
Amen
mc-fizzle @ Sep 8th 2009 2:18AM
It was always fun dealing with people like you when I used to work at Verizon. If you have had to replace your phone 7 times... you are the freaking problem. Or another cheap tool trying to complain himself to a model upgrade.
Sir-Patriotn11 ----
Don't worry,life will get better.