News · 2 Sep 2011 · MTW Editorial Team
This is what I have been told by HTC and Microsoft reps during tonight’s event. HTC kept on boasting that they would be the first OEM on the market with Mango devices here in Europe (and France to be more specific) and the HTC Titan and HTC Radar launch date, October 6, is not surprisingly at the beginning of Fall 2011 (Start on September 23 this year). It should also be noted that none of the devices shown toy had final software (OS code was RTM but the firmware’s weren’t finalized yet). This tends to make be believe that OEMs and carriers aren’t ready yet (also not that no carrier announcements where made today in relation to the aforementioned devices besides the Radar sighting on T-Mobile germany’s booth this morning). Logically it would also be normal to have the ne Mango devices on the market before starting to roll out the update for the older phones.
As of right now KDDI’s Fujitsu IS12T is the only Windows Phone 7.5 Mango handset available to the public and the only device with final software on board (OS and firmware). This is mainly the result of 2 things:
– Carriers: The Fujitsu IS12T had to be tested on only one carrier and one country unlike all the other handset which are being tested in multiple countries and carriers across the world. The IS12T is also a KDDI only device so it’s easier to ship product when there’s only three companies involved (Fuji, KDDI and MS).
– Manufacturing and Stock: The IS12T is exclusive to Japan at first which means that not a whole lot of devices have to be manufactured for the first batch unlike the other handsets which are going to be sold worldwide, thus requiring a lot more stock.
Once again this is all speculation on my part based on what I have been told and it could turn out to be wrong. Only a few more days to wait…
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