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Exclusive: HTC F8181 is AT&T's Brew MP-equipped dumbphone

We'll admit, we'd kinda figured that HTC's venture into the seedy underworld of dumbphones with the introduction of the Smart earlier this year was a non-starter and that it'd quietly fade into the night before 2010 was out, but apparently not -- at least, not if you ask AT&T. We've been slid a couple shots of a new handset from HTC for Ma Bell going by the model number F8181 (it'll have a fancy name like "Bacon," "Double Rainbow," or "Nilay Patel" by the time it launches, obviously) that runs the Brew MP platform Qualcomm has been pushing this year for the sub-smartphone category; of course, it seems to us that smartphone hardware is getting cheap enough to push through nearly every price segment, but if we can expect this to be free on contract, we suppose there might be a market here. No word on dollars or dates just yet, but naturally, we'll keep you in the loop.