14 DAY TRIAL // Those who had doubts about the HTC Merge being launched by Verizon ahead of other U.S. carriers, here is the confirmation. A recently leaked U.S. Cellular internal document mentions that the smartphone will be launched on Friday, April 29.
HTC Merge is already available for purchase from Alltel and is expected to be launched by Cellular South as well.
However, it is unclear if the U.S. Cellular's Merge will be bundled with the Amazon Appstore for Android application. Currently, only Cellular South confirmed that its HTC Merge will be delivered with the said application pre-installed.
The Merge is a mid-budget smartphone, thus it is powered by an 800 MHz Qualcomm processor.
The device comes with a 3.8-inch capacitive touchscreen with 16 million colors support and 480 x 800 pixels resolution, as well as accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate and proximity sensor for auto turn-off.
The average 5-megapixel camera includes features such as auto-focus, LED flash, face detection and HD video capturing capabilities (720p).
The HTC Merge also comes with integrated GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, DLNA function, Stereo FM radio with RDS, and microSD card slot for memory expansion (up to 32GB).
Equipped with Android 2.2 Froyo and the HTC Sense user-friendly interface, the smartphone allows users to effortlessly multitask and easily link to social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook and update their status while checking e-mails.
The HTC Merge is a 'global phone' and comes with a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard.
Rumored for quite some time now, the HTC Merge made its appearance in public at this year's SXSW (South by Southwest) festival in Austin, Texas.
Although the phone had Verizon's brand all over it, it seems that the carrier decided to postpone the smartphone's launch indefinitely.
There's no word on U.S. Cellular's pricing for its branded HTC Merge, but it is expected that the carrier will at least match Alltel's $125 offer.