AT&T touts Opera-powered full web browsing with new phones from Samsung and Pantech
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Oct 5th 2009 12:01AM
posted Oct 5th 2009 12:01AM
Turning our attention to the Pantech side of the table, we've got the Reveal (pictured right) that lets you have it both ways with a numeric keypad up top twined with a QWERTY slider underneath. It's 3G-capable, AT&T Navigator-equipped, and available for your enjoyment on October 18 in red and blue. Finally, the Impact (not pictured) has an OLED touchscreen up front, but when the texting gets hot and heavy, the phone opens up to reveal a second display along with a QWERTY keyboard. It'll be available in pink and blue, though neither pricing nor availability are being announced just yet.
Gluing everything together is AT&T's new mobile browser, described as "a rich hybrid experience that gives you a HTML experience similar to your PC browser at home" that "works really well on a feature phone." Additionally, users visiting att.net from their PCs will be able to send bookmarks to their phones' mobile portals -- kind of a neat trick, especially when you're trying to minimize the number of URLs you have to mash out on an on-screen keyboard. Of course, featurephone browsers have a reputation for generally sucking, so considering that AT&T bills its new line of devices as "full web browsing phones," it'll be interesting to see how close they actually come to delivering on the claim; it's said the phones use "advanced data compression from Opera Software," which we're thinking is very likely some variation of Opera Turbo -- not a bad start.
Somebody is copying off of the PRE
same exact thought here
It actually looks more like the old HTC Blue Angel/XDAIII. So did Palm rip them off?
Thats an ugly phone there on the right
I second that.
Thirdedid.
Damn... That Samsung Mystic is lookin' mighty fine.
... That Samsung Mythic* too... Heh. Heh.
WANT the one in da middle.
not if its running touchwiz you don't.
@glenskey,
TouchWiz is that bad, huh?
The samsung is pretty hot...and if this browser is as good as it purports to be, this could finally slow down sales of Blackberries simply as glorified qwerty dumbphones (cant count the number of people i've met who have 0 need for the blackberry email/server)
So what OS are they running?
I suppose its some crappy proprietary bullshit that definitely not worth the prices they are asking for.
The browser is probably opera mini, with att skinning and opera sync changed. MAybe i am wrong, but if i am right you can get the same full web on every phone that runs java without any carrier crap!
I need the full specs or a link for the mythic, pretty please!
What is with these people who make QWERTY phones with allegedly-full Web browsers, and don't include less-than or greater-than keys? If you want to post a comment with HTML, you're stuck!
I first noticed it on the N900, but just today I see it on these phones and the CLIQ. Mrphl.
I love Opera, but every time I hear "Opera-powered" I cringe. Just because you use the rendering engine from Opera doesn't make at an Opera experience. Typically the UI is stripped down and performs worse. Why not just include Opera Mini? Oh, because you want to have CONTROL over the user's experience. I see.
Every time I see TouchWiz mentioned I have to go to the bathroom.
Yeah, at first I was like "ooh the one in the middle is pretty sexy"... Then I started reading it and was like "damn I want the 4th mystery "The Impact" with an oled touch screen and full qwerty and another screen. It's like an Envy touch w/ OLED :)"