AT&T reveals two new Pantech handsets

Pantech phones at CTIA--photos

The Pantech Reveal has a vertical slider QWERTY keyboard.

(Credit: Pantech)

AT&T is on a messaging-phone craze lately, and Pantech has joined the effort with two new texting handsets, the Pantech Reveal and the Pantech Impact.

The Pantech Reveal looks like a regular, fat, candy bar phone at first glance, but it actually slides vertically to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard underneath. Interestingly, both keypads stay active when you slide the handset out. You get the typical text and multimedia messaging features, of course, plus GPS with AT&T Navigator, 3G, and a music player. It will be available in both red and blue starting October 18.

The Impact, on the other hand, has an unusual OLED touch screen on the outside with what looks like touch-sensitive number keys. It opens up to a secondary display plus a full QWERTY keyboard. We know that it'll feature a music player and tri-band 3G. It'll be available in both pink and blue.

Both phones will come with a new proprietary AT&T mobile browser that promises a full HTML experience "similar to your PC browser at home." AT&T describes it as having three windows: one where you can assign bookmarks and shortcuts, another where you can get localized results for news, weather, nearby restaurants and so forth, and a third that just feeds in the latest news headlines. If you want, you can customize your mobile.att.net homepage by hitting the "Send to Mobile" feature. This whole browser thing sounds a bit odd, but we'll have to wait and see what it looks like.

[happyslappy13]

i cant wait to see the pantech impact, i hope its like the lg envtouch or lg voyager. it sounds like it has the same basic design. might be one of the only good phones to choose from on att since they force you into a dataplan now for there "smart phones". i cant find a pic of this phone anywhere. we'll just have to wait and see i guess.

[norbert6464]

Perhaps the best impact of the iPhone was it really pushed competitors to increase the value of their devices, and really sting Apple in any places they went wrong.

[Rod Roddy]

I have had my share of Pantech devices, they are poor quality and are almost always thick. Pantech needs to go with the current trend of touch screen technology, but somehow I think they will manage to make their touch screen device thick as well.