HTC Vision headed to T-Mobile in new spy shot, dubbed G1 Blaze?

While high-end QWERTY sliders loaded with Android aren't nearly as uncommon now as when HTC's Vision first leaked onto the scene, it appears this particular handset may be destined for T-Mobile with its (alleged) 1GHz processor, spacious keyboard and 3.7-inch WVGA screen. Of course, we'd heard that the Vision would appear on T-Mobile before, and our worries are the same as then -- there's no telling whether the phone will actually land stateside, or if it's destined for T-Mobile Europe instead. Either way, our tipster tells us it could arrive with a different moniker: T-Mobile may call it the "G1 Blaze."

[Cheesus Crust Posted Jul 25th 2010 6:26PM]

Isn't the EPIC4G much better?

[beesneazy Posted Jul 25th 2010 6:40PM]

@Cheesus Crust

Yeah, but some just love T-Mo, which I might never understand. I know a few folks with the G1 still who will definitely be all over this.

Brother is waiting for the Epic, keyboard alone. Would have been the Evo but no keyboard makes or breaks the deal for some.

[Cheesus Crust Posted Jul 25th 2010 6:47PM]

@beesneazy I mean I have TMO, and its pretty cheap, which I like, but the EPIC 4G is much faster.

[beesneazy Posted Jul 25th 2010 7:25PM]

@Cheesus Crust

Yeah, that's what I said though a formidable offering from T-Mo. Would appear, at the moment at least, that the Epic would be the better phone.

But some live their T-Mo, so an adequate successor for all those G1 diehards.

[Celz Posted Jul 25th 2010 8:30PM]

@Cheesus Crust If you live in a good area.. Which is almost an oxymoron.. But for a small number of people (which is still alot) Tmo 3g is by far the fastest and even faster than some Wimax areas..

[Gold Mamba Posted Jul 26th 2010 4:02AM]

@Celz I live in Southern California (Orange County) and am fortunate to have excellent T-Mobile coverage. Yes, T-Mobiles network is a bit smaller than the rest but I really do think it's catching up quite quickly to AT&T in terms of 3G coverage. It's definitely surpassed all carriers for 3G quality imo. I regularly push 4.75 mbps down and 1 mbps up when running the Speedtest.net app. On a good day, the ping hovers around 80-103 ms. I don't think any other network gets close to those speeds right now. =]

[beesneazy Posted Jul 25th 2010 6:33PM]

I'm over the physical keyboard but I know many aren't. This appeals to more people I know than not, gotta love options.

[seven7dust Posted Jul 25th 2010 6:45PM]

hmmm this phone, the Droid 2 ond the Epic 4G ,looks like us keyboard lovers are going to have a lot of choices soon, BTW does the Epic 4g have a 5 Row keyboard ?

[reinnier Posted Jul 27th 2010 11:16PM]

@seven7dust yup

[Ren Hoek Posted Jul 25th 2010 6:49PM]

Mr. Horse would say he wouldn't like it,
but man... I LIKE IT!

[Sizzmo Posted Jul 25th 2010 6:54PM]

WVGA screen? No AMOLED? or SLCD? wtf.....

[jeb Posted Jul 25th 2010 7:05PM]

It's headed for Tmo US. The Tmo branding for US has one dot in front of the T. The European branding has 2 or 3 dots not sure.

[Bipoler23 Posted Jul 25th 2010 7:13PM]

Ugh I hate 4 row landscape qwerty boards ighh !

[Jasonjm Posted Jul 25th 2010 7:14PM]

SumoTown.com broke this story back on the 7th, think a tip was sent in a to you guys that day too.

More details on the site.

http://sumotown.com/413/exclusive-htc-g1-blaze

[threetee14 Posted Jul 25th 2010 7:31PM]

this definitely is coming to Tmo USA... look at the T-Mobile symbol on top of the phone's screen... Tmo UK's symbol has two dots before the T. Tmo US does not.

e.g.

Tmobile UK = * * * T * Mobile
Tmobile USA = T * Mobile

[dracoaffectus Posted Jul 26th 2010 8:09AM]

@threetee14

SWEET! good observation. makes me more hopeful about getting this (in the US) :)

[Chellykay88 Posted Jul 25th 2010 7:51PM]

The screen itself looks decent but that keyboard ruins it. I like physical keyboards but that one looks cheap and ugly :/

[mofire Posted Jul 25th 2010 7:57PM]

tmobile said they will launch an HSPA+ phone by the end of the summer and i think that phone is it. i sure hope so.

[ckeegan Posted Jul 25th 2010 8:30PM]

I still truly do not understand why HTC would have taken a step backward from the Touch Pro2 keyboard. Makes no sense whatsoever.

[rosjo Posted Jul 25th 2010 8:40PM]

If I could get this on prepaid service...

[olypdd Posted Jul 25th 2010 9:04PM]

Yeah baby, that's what I'm talkin about......and I would upgrade to a Vibrant why?

[BlondeBuddhist Posted Jul 25th 2010 9:18PM]

Slide out keyboards make an otherwise decent device look cheap.

[GCK Posted Jul 25th 2010 9:47PM]

@BlondeBuddhist

If you look closely, it actually looks like the keyboard sits flush with the body of the phone. That sumotown link posted by Jasonjim corroborates this theory.

[olypdd Posted Jul 25th 2010 10:11PM]

@BlondeBuddhist - I think this is an area where personal preference comes into play. Some physical keyboards look cheap as hell. Some look very professional, however. This device looks very professional, but I am interested in the quality of the keypad action, tactile feel, etc. Time will tell.

There is no disputing the advantage of a physical keyboard. In fact, it's so obvious, no need to go into that further.

[Jasonjm Posted Jul 25th 2010 10:54PM]

@GCK Yes our sources say it should be flush, but will also sport a tactile hinge, and the feedback (feel) should be solid. The hinge design is supposed to be very sturdy with mixed poly+alloy, not light weight poly/TPU-ish as the Galaxy S (tmo variant) device.

[POZ Posted Jul 25th 2010 10:08PM]

With an aging G1, I am looking to go higher. I know what there is to know, and taking my time with a decision. My contract is up and I am looking at everything. What I do know is... I want something with at least a 4" screen. I would prefer the Hummingbird CPU/PowerVR GPU. Either that, or I will wait for a Next Gen ARM A9 Cpu. Yep, I am a knucklehead. And I want a slider, too :)

I hear the Sidekick will resurface with a 4.3... that would be perfect providing it has some power.

[olypdd Posted Jul 25th 2010 11:14PM]

@POZ - That sidekick, or whatever it will be is something I am very interested in myself....at least when it comes to a TMO upgrade.

[zedklind Posted Jul 26th 2010 5:13AM]

@POZ
+1

[n11 Posted Jul 25th 2010 10:21PM]

Gotta say it looks like a pretty sexy phone. Makes me want to get a slider. If only the screen was a bit bigger I'd might've gone for it : o

[ArcticWolf Posted Jul 25th 2010 11:10PM]

Looks very tempting but I might still hold on for "Project Emerald."

[brothaa Posted Jul 25th 2010 11:44PM]

Finally a good looking Android Slider... mmmm

to me.. there seems to be no reason to buy a phone with a nice screen that acts like a computer and basically is one.. that doesnt have hte easy option of using a keyboard.

so many of tasks just become so much easier, and it also makes it nice to hold.

also if you like, the on screen keyboard is always there if you need it.

[rav97 Posted Jul 26th 2010 12:22AM]

I was looking for a replacement of my aging Milestone, and it looks like this is it. Goodbye locked bootloader, hello xda-developers.

[flea925 Posted Jul 26th 2010 12:26AM]

Now that is just smexy! Looks like I'm getting a new android.

[mingkee Posted Jul 26th 2010 12:40AM]

So it looks like a combo of MyTouch Slide and nexus one.
Gimme at least 8GB storage, 512MB RAM, 2.2 with working mobile hotspot and I will get it.

[tonyprince Posted Jul 26th 2010 2:27AM]

looks good. not windows phone 7?

[Ratnok Posted Jul 26th 2010 11:39AM]

@Unverified User
Nope. And thank God for that.

[olypdd Posted Jul 26th 2010 2:36AM]

I did go to T Mobile UK's site and the T Mobile logo on this phone pictured is consistent with T Mobile USA, and NOT TMO UK.

[Sizzmo Posted Jul 26th 2010 3:21AM]

This phone is gonna be so popular with stoners !

[Hef Posted Jul 26th 2010 5:01AM]

im looking forward to this phone.
moreso now that it will be bearing a "G" moniker as that essentially says to me "open bootloader". stuck on a milestone for now although the bonus for me is i'm on t-mobile uk so a free upgrade might work out nicely here.

[dracoaffectus Posted Jul 26th 2010 8:01AM]

Looks pretty sweet, I can only hope the reference to G1 in that moniker means that this is coming to T-mobile US. (Didn't they call it the HTC Dream in Europe?)

[John Doe Posted Jul 26th 2010 9:15AM]

*facepalms* Jebus TMobile and HTC. WhyTF couldn't you have done this 6 months ago when I was pulling my hair out at the speed of my G1, and reconsidering my choice of going T Mobile?!?
At this point I'm less then a month away from dropping T Mobile and going Sprint. And while I could reconsider, I'm less included to do so because of their lack of inaction and no real replacement for the G1.

However it makes sense they would get such a phone out now. Everyone who jumped on the G1 on the day it came out...their 2 year contract is up in November. Unless T Mobile has a viable replacement for the G1 (And all the underpowered keyboard device they currently have are NOT.) there is a high probability of them bleeding off customers. Hence the reason this is showing up. In my case though...too little, too late. That and even 1.5 years after you rolled out 3G here in Minneapolis it still sucks butt.

[gophergun Posted Jul 26th 2010 12:35PM]

@John Doe I couldn't agree more. I bought my G1 in something like November or December 2008, and now I'm in the market for a new smartphone. Even if this does land on T-Mobile US, they'll probably price it at $200 or $250 if the Garminphone is any indication. Right now, the Epic 4G is looking to be really close to my dream phone, and this G1 Blaze thing isn't nearly enough to change my mind.

[jhy2139 Posted Jul 26th 2010 9:50AM]

Epic 4g seems better than this.

[highlandsun Posted Jul 26th 2010 3:21PM]

Yeah, I'm still looking for the GSM/UMTS Galaxy S Pro.

However, looking at the Sprint Epic 4G photos, I'd say they screwed up by making their keyboard a straight grid. They should have staggered the rows, like regular keyboards (and like the G1). It's the same mistake that Motorola made on the Milestone, which they've apparently fixed for the Droid 2.

I'm still using my G1. For me, this HTC Vision fails because of the 4 row keyboard instead of 5. They should have just kept using the G1 keyboard layout. The Samsung wins because of the Hummingbird processor and its superior GPU. But none of these is perfect yet. A Galaxy S Pro with a decent staggered keyboard layout would be just about perfect. I think that's a small enough negative that I would still get the Galaxy S Pro though. This phone, no.

[brutek Posted Jul 26th 2010 3:30PM]

Cannot accessorize with a case since this has a different motion than a slider to get the flush keyboard.

A little disappointed it is on 3.7" and not 4.0" but I'll probably bite if the mechanism is sturdy enough.

[GersonLeGreat Posted Jul 27th 2010 2:04PM]

I don't know why everyone is saying they've been waiting for this phone to replace their G1. Look at the keyboard damn it! It looks like the shitty Droid keyboard. Give me a dedicated number row and you'll have the perfect G1 successor for me. :)