[verizonguy]

I had previously told you the XV6800 would be available in November. I now have the date for you. The XV6800 passed interntal testing and the hard release date is November 16th where it will appear in stores for sale. The XV6800 will be available online prior to the hard release date. I'm projecting the soft release date will be November 2nd but it hasn't been firmed up internally yet. For the soft release, the phone will not be in stores, but will be available online. They will start shipping to the stores in about 10 days, but they won't be allowed to show or sell them.

The Samsung SCH-i760 will be in stores on November 2nd, but was put up for sale online 2 days ago, so you can get it now.

I was given some hands-on with both phones today and I instantly fell in love with the Samsung SCH-i760.

It is less boxy than the XV6800 and it felt better in my hand. The i760 has a recessed external phone keypad which was the most attractive feature for me. Both phones have a slide-out Qwerty keyboard, but the action on the Samsung's slide-out was much smoother and the phone felt sturdier.

Both keyboards felt good with decent-sized, easy to use keys, but the 6800 has an advantage with the keyboard--it has more "head room" on the top above the keys. That has always been one of my complaints about the XV6700.

Both phones have 64MB of on-board RAM, but the XV6800 has the i670 beat with double the ROM: 256MB as opposed to the 128MB in the i760. Both devices have ~ 400mhz processors and use microSD cards.

The controls on the XV6800 are set up similarly to the XV6700. The i760's left and right soft keys are located over the left with a clear button in between. The odd part that will be hard for me to get used to on the i760 is the Send/End keys. They are on the left and right sides of the phone, part way up.

The i760 comes for free with two batteries!! A standard one and an extended one, so I was pretty impressed by that.

After my hands-on session today, the winner for me is the Samsung SCH-i760. In fact, I went online and bought one immediately afterwards. It retails for 519.99 but as you can see I only paid $199 for it

As always I can't disclose how I have the above info as it could jeopardize my employment, so please don't ask.

I haven't decided if I'll continue development on the apache for long as I'll be working on the i760 too.

Long live the i760!

-vzg

P.S. For those who haven't heard about the i760 yet, here are some pictures:

UPDATE: 11/08/2007

I have some bad news. I received an email today from an acquaintance who works in marketing. She said her date on the 6800 has been changed to TBD (to be determined). No one can tell me why the date changed.

The odd thing is the dummy phones are in the stores, the xv6800 is on the rebate form I got when I bought the i760, it is in the November catalog for vzw employees and flyers have been distributed to the public including the device.

I checked with internet support (1 800 711 7773) who confirmed they have no information on the device yet. This concerns me as they get full product info 30 days before an internet launch of a device.

I don't understand what is delaying the launch. It passed internal testing...