T-Mobile announced Monday that it will offer the Windows Phone-based HTC Radar 4G for $99.99 with a two-year contract starting November 2.

The smartphone will come pre-loaded with the latest version of the mobile OS, known as Mango, and will be T-Mobile's first Windows Phone to offer "4G" speeds.

The device sports a 3.8-inch LCD touch screen display and is powered by a 1-GHz Snapdragon processor. A dedicated camera button provides easy access to the Radar's 5-megapixel camera, even if it's locked. It comes in at 4.7 by 2.4 by 0.4 inches, weighs 4.8 ounces, and has 8GB of on-board storage.

Last month, PCMag mobile analyst Sascha Segan got some hands-on time with the Radar and HTC's other upcoming Mango device, the Titan. "Of the two phones ... the Titan is clearly the flagship here," Segan wrote, as it boasts a huge 4.7-inch screen and runs a 1.5-Ghz Qualcomm processor.

PCMag also ran benchmark tests on the devices. "The differences were striking and easily noticeable," Segan found. "The Titan scored 32771 on Browsermark, as compared to the Radar's 21026. On Sunspider, where lower scores are better, the Titan got 66.03, while the Radar scored 94.40. The 50 percent better performance translates neatly into the 50 percent faster processor."

T-Mobile, meanwhile, is marketing the device as having 4G speeds, but the provider does not yet have a true 4G LTE experience like that offered by Verizon and AT&T. T-Mobile does, however, offer HSPA+ 21, which PCMag found to be "speedy" in its annual fastest mobile networks test, but not as fast as those LTE options. AT&T is actually selling its pending merger with T-Mobile as a way to boost the carrier's sagging 4G offerings. During a May Senate appearance, Philipp Humm, president and CEO of T-Mobile USA, said T-Mobile's spectrum holdings "will not allow us to launch LTE," while parent company Deutsche Telekom "is not in a position to finance the necessary large-scale investment in the U.S. for T-Mobile to remain competitive."

By: DocMemory
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