Samsung Rogue And Intensity Texting Phones Land On Verizon

Without a doubt, the hottest phone to hit the Verizon Wireless airwaves recently is HTC's Touch Pro2, but for those not so interested in forking out big bucks for a powerful smartphone, the carrier has two other QWERTY-equipped phones available for the taking.

In a joint announcement with Samsung, the operator has announced the availability of two new messaging phones, the Samsung Rogue and Samsung Intensity. Starting with the former, the Rogue is a rather simple feature phone, boasting a full touch LCD, a horizontal slide-out, four-row QWERTY keyboard, threaded messaging and one-touch access to popular social networking widgets, including Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube and Photobucket. One neat extra seen on this phone is speech capabilities that enable customers to launch and control a variety of applications and services with simple voice commands as well as dictate text messages.


The Rogue will serve as the flagship phone for the company's new data pricing option, which many have grumbled about. Previously, VZW offered a $15/month unlimited data plan for data-using phones that weren't considered smartphones, but now anyone buying this will have to select between two options: a 25 MB for $9.99 monthly access option or a 75 MB for $19.99 monthly access option to couple with their Nationwide plan. Needless to say, that kind of move is perfect for generating heat from the general population.

Following are additional key features and specifications for the Samsung Rogue.

• Available in bronze/black color
• 3.1-inch ultra-brilliant touch screen
  • Widescreen WVGA AMOLED (Wide Video Graphics Array Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode) responsive touch screen results in one of the brightest and clearest displays on a mobile phone in the United States
  • Slide out horizontally to reveal a four-row QWERTY keypad
• Full HTML Web browsing capabilities with one-touch access to social networking sites via shortcut widgets
• Full messaging suite including SMS, MMS, Mobile IM, Mobile Email and Corporate Email
• 3.0 megapixel camera with flash and video capture and on-device editing capabilities
• Supports Verizon Wireless services including V CAST Music with Rhapsody, V CAST Video, and Visual Voice Mail
• Media Center-capable -- downloadable games, ringtones, wallpapers, location-based services, such as VZ Navigator(SM) and Chaperone(R), and more
• Pre-loaded games including "NEED FOR SPEED(TM) Undercover," "Resident Evil: Degeneration," and "Tetris(R) and Dice"
• microSD(TM) card slot with support for up to 16 GB (card purchased separately)
• File Viewer can view Microsoft(R) Word, Microsoft(R) Excel(R), Microsoft(R) PowerPoint(R) and Adobe(R) PDF documents stored on a memory card

Moving on, there's the Intensity, which packs a pretty dominating name to say the least. Obviously designed for thumbs, this text-friendly handset slaps a traditional T9 keypad on the front as well. Clearly it won't handle web browsing nearly as well, but general texting, IM and such should do fine.

Following are additional key features and specifications for the Samsung Intensity.

• Available in a Charcoal Grey color in all sales channels and available in Flamingo Red online only at www.verizonwireless.com
• 2.1-inch display with horizontal slide-out four-row QWERTY keypad with dedicated Messaging key and Favorites key for easily texting and calling friends and family
• Mobile Web browser for Internet access
• Music player
• Full messaging capabilities including Mobile IM; Mobile Email; Chat; and text, picture, and voice messaging
• 1.3 megapixel camera with Night Shot, Self Timer, Multishot and Shutter Sound selection
• Compatible with PC client for V CAST Music with Rhapsody (over-the-air downloads are not supported on the Samsung Intensity)
• Voice commands such as Voice Dial, Menu Readout, Digital Dial Readout, TXT Message Readout, Call Announcement, My Verizon, and Help
• Media Center-capable -- downloadable games, ringtones, wallpapers, location-based services, such as VZ Navigator(SM), and more
• microSD(TM) card slot with support for up to 16 GB (card purchased separately)

The Samsung Rogue is available today for $99.99 after a $100.00 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement, and the Samsung Intensity in Charcoal Grey is available today for $29.99 after a $50.00 mail-in rebate with the same 2-year deal.