T-Mobile Announces G2, Its First HSPA+ Phone

T-Mobile on Wednesday introduced the G2—the first phone on the carrier to take advantage of HSPA+ network speeds and the successor to the T-Mobile G1.

The company announced the phone via a page on its Web site, but that page doesn’t give many hard details about the device.

What’s most interesting here is that T-Mobile says the phone will “break new ground as the first smartphone designed to run at 4G speeds on our new HSPA+ network.” Basically, T-Mobile is branding HSPA+ as the company’s 4G network, which will compete with Sprint’s own 4G offering, WiMAX. Both AT&T and Verizon plan to launch LTE, their own 4G networks, in 2011. In our own nation-wide data-speed testing, HSPA+ gave us very good speeds.

The T-Mobile G1 was the first Android phone on the U.S. market back in October 2008. But as other carriers began to release Android-based phones, T-Mobile has seemingly lagged behind. Both Verizon and Sprint, which have had major releases with the Motorola Droid line and HTC EVO 4G, seemed to embrace Android more than T-Mobile. While the recent launch of the Samsung Vibrant gave T-Mobile its own “Android super-phone,” it may take another big Android phone or two before the company can cement themselves as the go-to place for cutting-edge Google phones.