Blue 44! Blue 44! Set ... Down ... Hike!
Sorry ... I've been watching Hard Knocks on HBO and the name "Blitz" just set me off. Back at CTIA in April I saw a strange, squarish messaging phone at the UT Starcom booth. Four months later that odd little QWERTY phone is available to you, the lucky consumer, as the new Verizon Wireless Blitz.
Who's gonna buy this flat, wide sliderphone? Kids, of course! Check out this line from the press release:
Designed for the heaviest of texters, the Blitz comes complete with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and easy access to a dedicated My Messaging key, making this the must-have phone at schools from coast to coast.
Far be it from me to say what the kids will be rocking as the must-have phone this year, but I'm a bit concerned about Blitz's style. On the other hand, Blitz's feature set doesn't concern me so much - VZW packed a decent amount of punch into this lower-end alternative to the Alias and EnV2:
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MP3 player supporting VCAST Music with Rhapsody
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Stereo Bluetooth
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1.3 MP Camera
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microSD memory card expansion
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Mobile Web (i.e. WAP-only)
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Mobile Email ? access to MSN® Hotmail®, America Online® and Yahoo!® e-mail accounts
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Mobile IM
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VZ Navigator
Blitz will set you back $70 after rebate on a two-year contract. Not too bad for the, um, must-have phone of the season.