AT&T to offer first LTE phones this Sunday

AT&T has announced that the first two phones for its nascent LTE network – the HTC Vivid and the verbosely monikered Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket – will be available this Sunday, November 6.

In addition, AT&T's LTE service will expand on that date to include Boston, Washington DC, Baltimore, and Athens – the city in Georgia, not the city with the anti-austerity riots – adding to service already up and running in Atlanta, Chicago, and the Texas cities of Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio.

AT&T says that it plans to extend LTE coverage to 15 markets and 70 million US residents by the end of this year.

Both of the LTE phones run Android 2.3.5, aka Gingerbread, have 4.5-inch displays, shoot 1080p video, and come with 16GB of on-board memory, expandable with microSD cards of up to 32GB.

Those two 4.5-inch displays, however are not the same. The Vivid's display has a resolution of 540-by-960 pixels, while the Skyrocket's SuperAMOLED Plus display has a resolution of 800-by-480.

The Vivid's processor clocks in at 1.2GHz, while the Skyrocket tops that at 1.5GH – both are dual-core. Both have rear-facing 8-megapixel cameras, while the Skyrocket adds a 2-megapixel front-facer.

And, yes, those extra specs make the Skyrocket pricier than the Vivid in AT&T's offerings: the Samsung phone will run you $249.99 with a two-year contract, while you can pick up the HTC phone for $199.99 with the same commitment. ®