IntoMobile reported on a story in the Electronic Times quoting an LG rep as saying their VZW flagship handset, the VX10000 Voyager, will be coming to AT&T and Sprint in the US later this year. Considering that the VZW model has sold some 1.1 million units in less than six months, it makes sense that LG would want to milk this cow for all its worth.
The move would necessitate the creation of at least two new variants of the device, since the VX10000 is compatible with VZW's CDMA voice/data network and their MediaFLO-based TV service. A Sprint version would be a MediaFLO-less CDMA phone while an AT&T model would, of course run on GSM (with or without access to AT&T's new TV service).
On the one hand, the addition of Voyager might seem like direct competition to Sprint's Samsung Instinct and AT&T's LG Vu, both of which were just announced at CTIA Las Vegas. On the other hand, odds are VZW has a one-year exclusive on Voyager, meaning that Sprint or AT&T versions couldn't ship until late 2008 at the earliest. By then Instinct and Vu will be months old and, thus, ready to be put out to pasture ... No, seriously, neither Instinct nor Vu features a physical QWERTY board, and some folks really like those actual buttons. So why not offer consumers a little more choice, right?