We think it’ll be the best phone … this year. It will kill the iPhone,” Verizon (VZ) Wireless Chief Marketing Officer Mike Lanman said in an interview.
The Voyager, made by LG Electronics, beats the iPhone by offering faster wireless Web access. But to compete with the iPhone, which is only available to AT&T (T) subscribers, it has a large touch screen and full Web browser.
It also unveiled another LG phone, the Venus, made in black and pink, which has a phone keypad that slides out from under a touch screen. As with Voyager, it vibrates when a user taps a menu option on the screen.
Both phones have 2-megapixel cameras, and high-speed wireless connections for fast music and video downloads, and a slot for 8 gigabytes of extra memory. The iPhone has 8 gigabytes of built-in storage. Pricing was not detailed but Verizon said the phones would range from under $100 to about $400 vs. the iPhone’s $399 price tag.
Venus and Voyager both have 2-megapixel cameras, and high-speed wireless connections for fast music and video downloads, and a slot for 8 gigabytes of extra memory. The iPhone has 8 gigabytes of built-in storage. Photos are below
I don’t know that either of these are going to “kill” the iPhone but one thing is sure, now that Verizon users have an option, they will be far less likely to defect from the better network to jump to AT&T for the iPhone. I think a more likely word that should be used here is “iPhone equalizer?” The iPhone may a better product but the far superior Verizon network compared to AT&T and the lower cost of Verizon’s phones will give potential iPhone buyers serious pause.
It comes at a time when Apple is behind its own sales goal and iPhone users, so disenchanted by the AT&T network are hacking the phones to free them from it. Apple has responded by destroying those phones and lawsuits are in the process of hitting the courts for that action. All in all, while these phones will not destroy the iPhone, I think they will make Jobs actually realized what a cut throat industry he has jumped into.