Motorola i1 coming to Boost Mobile iDEN and Best Buy
Motorola made the announcement back in March that they’d be releasing the first Android powered smartphone available for the iDEN network. The initial announcement was for the phone to be released through Sprint/Nextel which disappointed a whole lot of Boost Mobile iDEN users. Well, Boost iDEN folks, you’re in luck!! It appears that Sprint/Nextel won’t have exclusive dibs on the Motorola i1 after all. There’s word that Boost will be releasing its own version of the i1 this summer. No official word yet on a release date for the Boost version but there’s already a page set up for the phone on the Best Buy website which is a pretty good sign that it’s indeed for real. The bad news is that the Boost version of the phone will cost $350 since there’s no contract with the carrier. Plus, you can’t use the pay-as-you-go plan with this phone, only the $50 unlimited plan. But for those wanting a smartphone on the iDEN network, this is the only choice (for now at least).
Motorola i1 features: Android 1.5 OS, Opera Mini 5 browser, 5.0 MP camera, built-in Wi-Fi, bluetooth, 3.1″ HVGA touch screen, microSD memory card, nationwide walkie-talkie, 210 minutes talk time, 100 hours in standby mode.
I’m still curious to hear about web access on this phone. Since iDEN wasn’t built for high speed data throughput, surfing the web might be a bit on the SLOW side. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see once the phone hits the streets.
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i am actually about to buy the new i1 next week but was just curious since it is on the iden network how is the texting on it? as far as is there any downloading needed of the text like I have had on other iden boostmobile phones?
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LikeThanks John, I have an incogito "3G" phone from Boost and get average speeds of 121 to 162 kbps. Very slow compared to the 1195.6 kbps that Sprint provides to the average user. Its seems to me that you get what you pay for. Sad, i really want a droid but the internet would be unusable for what i do. Opera would help a little bit since it compresses everything going to your phone but if you are doing anything else you are going to get burned by the slow network.
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LikeI didn't realize that Opera Mini uses a proxy that makes speed tests inaccurate. So, I downloaded the speedtest.net app and ran that. It consistently comes up with d/l speeds around 22-28kbps and upload speeds vary from 18-44kbps. Sorry for the error. Also, Boost offers a third plan on iden phones that consists of $1 per day with 10 cents per minute for peak hours and unlimited nights and weekends.
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LikeI just got the Motorola i1 today on Boost. I went to the mobile dslreports speed test page and got 415kbit download speed with 0.059s latency, and 19.804s d/l time for a 1MB file. Not spectacular, but I think that is about what i used to get on my ATT 3G Windows Mobile phone. So far I really like this phone. You ARE able to get the pay as you go plan with this phone. It is not limited by Boost on the software you can load on it from the Android Market. And even better, it is not bogged down by a bunch of bloatware like ATT like to do to its smartphones.
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LikeThat's good to know, John. Thanks for the update. it's surprising to hear that Boost will allow pay as you go on this phone. hhhmmmm...
But then again, why would someone pay over 300 dollars for the phone and then penny-pinch by going with a pay as you go plan? heh.
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