AT&T Reveals HTC Aria Smartphone: $130, Available June 20th

AT&T admitted earlier this year that Android was on their roadmap. It's obvious that AT&T is lacking in the Android department compared to other carriers; Verizon has a number of DROID phones, Sprint has the EVO 4G, and the original Android phone launched on T-Mobile. But AT&T has continued along with just the iPhone and a few Nokia smartphones here and there; it's not like they really needed to invest in Android with the iPhone being such a huge draw, but now that Android 2.2 is coming, the competition is heating up, and Android is drawing some serious attention.


To date, just a single Android phone has shipped to AT&T's shelves: the Motorola Backflip. That's hardly a powerful phone, and it's meant most for the texting crowd. There's also an AT&T compatible Nexus One, but it's only sold off-contract directly from Google. Dell has announced that the Streak and Aero (both Android-based) will be coming to AT&T soon, and the carrier has confessed that a number of Android devices should be shipping on their network in the coming months.


The fun really gets going on June 20, as the HTC Aria will start what most hope will be a long run of Android phones on the operator. The Aria is a nice middle-range handset, with a 600MHz Qualcomm MSM 7227 processor, 384MB of RAM, a 2GB microSD card, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G HSPA support, a 5MP camera and a 3.2" HVGA capacitive touch screen. By most accounts, this is an HTC Legend in a different outfit, as it also has HTC's Sense user interface. But importantly, this is a bold move into the Android camp for AT&T, and priced at $129.99 on a 2-year contract after mail-in rebate, it's one of the more affordable smartphones as well. If this one looks to weak for you, more are promised for the second half of this year on AT&T. That's assuming you can bypass the iPhone 4 on June 24th, though...