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Cricket picks up the Motorola Hint, too
It's interesting how some handsets make the rounds among the regional carriers without so much as a passing mention from the nationals, and that's certainly shaping up to be the kind of life the Motorola Hint is leading. Piling on to launches on Alltel and MetroPCS, it turns out that the Hint is also now available from Cricket; like MetroPCS, Cricket likes to do the whole no-contract thing, which means you'll pay $229.99 upfront for the pleasure of putting a 2 megapixel, EV-DO equipped QWERTY slider in your pocket with these guys. Any takers? [Via Crave]
Motorola Hint QA30 texts its way onto MetroPCS
So this is shaping up to be a week of "me toos" for the regional carriers, it seems; we have the LG Banter migrating from Alltel to US Cellular, and we've got the Motorola Hint hitchhiking from Alltel over to MetroPCS. Like the Banter, the unusually-shaped Hint goes squarely for the texting crowd with a full QWERTY keyboard -- but unlike the Banter, the Hint goes for a portrait slider. Features include a 2 megapixel camera, 140MB of onboard storage with microSD expansion, a 2.5-inch QVGA landscape display, and of course, AWS support for MetroPCS' airwaves. It runs $249 contract-free. [Via MobileBurn]
Bell Mobility gearing up to launch Motorola Hint QA30
Wow, remember this thing? That somewhat promising QWERTY-based smartphone that was first introduced by Motorola last November? Anywho, said handset is finally getting set to partner with a carrier (at least that's the good word on the street), and it'll be Bell Mobility doing the honors in Canada. We're hearing that the Hint QA30 will be sold outright for $329.95 or as low as $129.95 on a 3-year contract, though we have to wonder what kind of demand will be out there given the phone's age.
Motorola's Hint QA30 gets official
We weren't particularly impressed when we got our first peek at MOTO's QWERTY-sliding Hint QA30 yesterday morning, finding the form factor to be a little too squat for our tastes whether open or closed. Today the phone has been given the official treatment and, while things look a little better in a new set of glamor shots from Motorola (no more Alltel branding on the UI), the "innovative" design still doesn't look particularly comfortable to carry or to use. Now that we can make out the buttons on the front we see that they'll serve as controls for the media player when closed, again making us think this should be a good choice for your family's texting-addict rocker. The specs we got before are confirmed, the one exception being that the microSD support tops out at 8GB, not 32GB -- better turn down that bitrate, son.
First pics of Motorola's MOTO QA30 QWERTY slider
Sliders are typically known for offering the best of both worlds: the sophisticated, clean looks you want hiding the ugly, QWERTY keypad you need. Motorola's bucking that trend with the chunky MOTO QA30, looking rather utilitarian open or closed and featuring the sort of squat form-factor that didn't exactly woo us on the UTStarcom TXT8010. The 2.5-inch 320 x 240 screen is a bit on the small side, but an integrated 3.5mm headphone jack and stereo Bluetooth 2.0, plus support for up to 32GB microSD cards, should make this a reasonably good choice for anyone needing a texting-friendly handset that can serve up some tunes. No word on price or availability, but we'd guess "affordable" and "soon."Update: Jed commented to let us know U.S. Cellular recently featured this phone in an ad, dubbed the HINT and listed as being available as December. So, now you know what "soon" equates to, at least.
