T-Mobile offered a few more details on Tuesday about two upcoming devices that will run on its HSPA+ network: Samsung’s Galaxy S 4G and LG’s G-Slate, one of the first tablets to run the Honeycomb version of Android.
The announcements come in advance of a Google event on Wednesday where the search giant is expected to offer more details about Honeycomb.
T-Mobile has already announced both devices but is now offering a few more details about them. The operator did not reveal the price of either device or specifics on availability.
The G-Slate is a tablet made by LG that will feature an 8.9-inch screen capable of displaying 3D graphics. Users must wear blue and red tinted glasses to have the 3D experience.
The tablet will have a 5-megapixel camera for taking photographs and a 2-megapixel, front-facing camera for video chat over either Wi-Fi or the mobile network. A rear-facing, stereoscopic video recorder is capable of recording in HD.
The G-Slate will have an HDMI port so users can connect it to TVs to display 1080p video. It can also play content developed in Flash. It has a dual-core 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, 32GB of internal memory, a gyroscope and an accelerometer.
T-Mobile plans to start selling the tablet in the spring, which in the U.S. is the first quarter or early in the second. That means the Motorola Xoom, another tablet that will run Honeycomb, could be the first to market. Motorola has said it hopes to start selling the Xoom in February.
The G-Slate and the new Galaxy S 4G will both run on T-Mobile’s HSPA+ network. The phone will be the first smartphone that can take advantage of the highest speed available on that network. However, it’s hard to know how fast it will be for users. T-Mobile says the network has a theoretical maximum download speed of 21Mbps but would not say what a typical speed would be in a real-world environment. Reviews of devices capable of 14.4Mbps on the network have reported download rates around 4Mbps.
The Galaxy S 4G should be available sometime in February, T-Mobile said.
The phone is an update to the Vibrant. The most notable difference is that it has dual cameras and the Qik software so that users can do video chat.
The Galaxy S 4G will ship with Android 2.2, or Froyo, rather than the latest version of the OS, called 2.3 or Gingerbread. T-Mobile is aware that customers will want the latest version, so it is “working closely with our partners to figure out how to bring it to market,” said Randy Meyerson, director of product management at T-Mobile.
The phone will have a 4-inch Super Amoled touchscreen, a rear camera with a 720p HD camcorder and a front-facing camera. It comes with Samsung’s 1GHz Cortex A8 Hummingbird processor and a preinstalled 16GB MicroSD memory card.
T-Mobile will preload applications, including its TV offering that lets users stream TV from select stations and DoubleTwist with AirSync, an application that lets users sync photos, music and video to a home computer automatically over Wi-Fi.
Nancy Gohring covers mobile phones and cloud computing for The IDG News Service. Follow Nancy on Twitter at @idgnancy. Nancy’s e-mail address is Nancy_Gohring@idg.com