Verizon XV6800 / HTC Titan coming November 16th?

While AT&T customers have had the same technology for awhile in the 8525 -- and heck, even Sprint users can pick up a Mogul now -- those folks unfortunately locked into a Verizon contract are about two generations behind when it comes to HTC Windows Mobile devices. Well according to a purported insider going by the name "verizonguy" on the PPCgeeks forum, the long wait for VZW's XV6800 version of the Titan may soon be over, with the company reportedly planning a November 16th hard launch. What's more, an online-only soft launch could occur as soon as November 2nd, according to the writeup -- good news indeed, as long as you haven't already left Verizon in frustration for greener pastures.

[podphreak @ Oct 21st 2007 5:11PM]

It's really a shame that verizon always gets screwed when it comes to the latest smartphones/pocket PC's. Even Sprint beat them! Come on guys....

[Geir @ Oct 21st 2007 5:14PM]

Titan? Come on, it is TyTN. Anyway, I feel for Verizon's customers as I tap away on my TyTN II...not.

[Geir @ Oct 21st 2007 5:37PM]

I stand corrected...Titan it is...thanks Josh.

[jason L @ Oct 21st 2007 5:27PM]

yea, i have a motoQ at the moment on verizon
my contract is up in january
so unless i hear of something really nice coming out for verizon pdas
i might switch over to att for a nice pda
verizon will always be my carrier for personal cellphone use

[Josh @ Oct 21st 2007 5:27PM]

Actually it is Titan.

Titan = Mogul = XV6800 (CDMA)
Hermes = TyTN = 8525 (GSM)
Kaiser = TyTN II = Tilt (GSM)

I just left Verizon myself and picked up a Tilt from at&t.

[Who? @ Oct 21st 2007 5:36PM]

I'll be doing the exact same thing by the end of the week. I'll have to pay the $175 ETF, but I'm sick of walking into Verizon stores and surveying their pathetic offerings or reading on Engadget about how I'm being PWN3D for staying on Verizon.

It's either the Tilt, the BB 8820, or the Curve 8310 for me. And no, the BB 8800 on Verizon is unacceptable: no GPS, no Wifi. I'll start with the Tilt and see where it takes me. But no matter what, I'm done with Verizon.

[cyn @ Oct 21st 2007 5:29PM]

haha, i just saw the post above mine
another person who left verizon for a better pda device
that might be me too!

[boe @ Oct 21st 2007 5:55PM]

I wouldn't be surprised if the don't get the Titan but something better and newer. The Titan has been out for about 6 months and their are rumors of discontinuing it. It might be because of a design flaw, might be because of a manufacturing flaw - not sure. Issues with the mogul include faulty backlight, Bluetooth is useless for business users, memory leaks, and keyboard issues. The battery life is no better than the 6700 which is two years old.

Compared to ETen and IMATE which both make similar sized FULL VGA phones - 4 times the resolution of the 6800 and so far no known bluetooth issues, it is hard to believe Verizon is just going to roll out a bug riddled, obsolete piece of technology (S#!+) like the mogul/6800. Considering there are over 40,000 posts on the topic of crappy BT on this phone let alone most likely an equal number of memory posts and nearly as many keyboard posts it would seem a bad idea for Verizon to roll out this phone with so many known issues and no known firmware updates to resolve the issues that plague this unit.

[Taylor Alexander @ Oct 21st 2007 5:57PM]

I just left verizon for the Tilt, after 8 years with them. I was really happy with everything verizon offered except the hardware (service was great though), but i couldn't stand waiting any longer for the 6800 to come out knowing full well it was still a generation behind the already-released Tilt. Verizon is really blowing it for customers like us. Now if only AT&T could get there HSDPA network even CLOSE to as pervasive as verizon's EVDO... I pretty much ALWAYS had EVDO in my area (it's freaking silicon valley for pete's sake) for the last 2 years, and now i switch to AT&T and though there is plenty of HSDPA, there's a surprisingly large number of areas that only have EDGE. Still, it works, and EDGE is faster than Verizon't 1X (what you get when there isn't EVDO), so it's not too bad. And man if i didn't get a lot of attention at the SF reader meetup! :)
-Taylor

[boe @ Oct 21st 2007 5:59PM]

The iPhone which came out a while ago has a significantly better battery life, faster processor and a WORKING Bluetooth - did I mention it is SLIMMER as well. This is not a plug for the iphone as I am no apple fanboy - what it is though is a comment about the horrendous technology/construction of this unit. The only patch for this phone was so that Sprint could sell music!

While the iPhone has no value for me as it doesn't fully sync with exchange, the hardware is vastly superior to this antiquated phone. Too bad the iPhone doesn't run WM6 or they'd have to give away phones like the mogul to keep customers - although the issues that infest it might drive some customers away in frustration.

[DT @ Oct 21st 2007 6:10PM]

"Too bad the iPhone doesn't run WM6 "

Did I read that correctly? A quarter of the appeal of the iPhone is the hardware, and 75% is the revolutionary software. God forbid WM should go near that thing.

[boe @ Oct 21st 2007 6:14PM]

DT - I think the iPhone software is cool and all but I need my phone for business. I need full synchronization with exchange - I get calendar, contacts, and html e-mail all FULLY synched at all times wirelessly. I can open excel, powerpoint, word and acrobat attachments easily. And I can browse to flash web pages. I haven't kept up with the iphone much although I've hooked a couple of aquaintences up to their e-mail servers on the iPhone. The display is sweet, the performance is great, the batter is what all HTC phones should be but I can't really use it for my business needs. I'm not putting down the iphone os, it is fun to use and I like the web browser but it just doesn't do what I need it to do. It does do a lot of things I don't really need much much better than WM6 though.

[Jon @ Oct 21st 2007 6:41PM]

@DT you mean the revolutionary software that requires 700MB of space (bloated) and can't do half the features that a dumbphone can?

[Jon @ Oct 21st 2007 6:42PM]

@boe, this is a two year old phone that Verizon just happen to be just releasing. The phone itself isn't bad but newer better QWERTY HTCs like the Tilt is out there.

[DT @ Oct 21st 2007 7:17PM]

@boe and Jon

Just wait till the SDK is out. The state of iPhone software now is nothing like it's going to be soon.

[boe @ Oct 21st 2007 7:42PM]

DT - trust me - I'm all for the iPhone moving forward! I want it to be able to do everything that WM6 can do for business users. Frankly I'd like to see it the other way around as well. I'd love to see HTC and other WM phone manufacturers start from the ground up and units with fast processors, great batteries and battery consumption/life and have fantastic processors. HTC is one of the largest WM manufacturers but frankly their hardware is so antiquated it is rather pathetic. That is why I would hope that someone figures a way to run WM on an iPhone as the iPhone hardware is about two years ahead of the HTC crap.

[Constable Odo @ Oct 22nd 2007 1:18AM]

What's the matter? You never heard of BootCamp 1.5 for iPhone. You tap the Home Button twice then reboot. Up pops the Alternate OS menu. You have your choice of WM6, Symbian or Palm OS right at your fingertips.

All three OSs combined only take up about 100 MB of the iPhone's capacious memory area. I'm surprised more iPhone users haven't heard of this feature.

Luke, feel the power of iPhone.

[Jon @ Oct 22nd 2007 4:35AM]

@DT, sensible people do not pay for 'potential'.

[Paul @ Oct 21st 2007 6:24PM]

"and 75% is the revolutionary software. "

If by revolutionary you mean full of pretty gimmicks that average joe will fall for, then I agree.

For the rest of us that actually like to take full advantage of our home computers capabilities, or our pda-phone's capabilities, we'll stick with something that is indeed better.

[suv4x4 @ Oct 21st 2007 6:51PM]

Well you know: music fans listen to music, audiophiles listen to stereos. Utility and practical value means nothing to these guys.

Which is a shame, since there's amazing value to be untapped on the Apple platforms (look at Adobe's software on OSX).

[DT @ Oct 21st 2007 7:17PM]

Well since you're so smart, surely you know that guys like you "who like to take advantage yada yada yada" make up a small fraction of the entire cellphone market, and the iPhone caters to the rest of humanity who do enjoy pretty things that do cool things simply. And when the iPhone SDK is released, there will be a flood of new programs that can do whatever you need. This is the next big mobile platform, no question.

[Wireless Buddy @ Oct 21st 2007 7:02PM]

Am I the only one who noticed this thing is running WM5?

Holy crap.

[sitruc @ Oct 22nd 2007 1:32AM]

When the phone was initially designed it was for WM5. That is an old photo. The XV6800 is supposed to be WM6.

[kjmurphy711 @ Oct 21st 2007 7:05PM]

I too am locked into an agreement on Verizon as well (my wife re-upped on her family plan add on late last year). Does anyone know if this getting this phone will require a data service? I'm hoping to just try the WiFi for the time being and will sync my e-mail at work. I don't believe there are family plans that are data plans... Thanks.

[ed @ Oct 21st 2007 7:17PM]

Isnt Verizon gonna get the Voyager (Iphone Killer) soon??? If so, then you Verizon traitors will be sad...

[Hiwired @ Oct 21st 2007 8:21PM]

The voyager is simply a chocolate with a big touch screen. It's the same crap verizon os. It's in no way going to be an "iphone killer".

[TDG01 @ Oct 21st 2007 7:23PM]

I got my i760....I'm good for about 3 months...then I'll have the itch again...

[Chris_3D @ Oct 21st 2007 8:23PM]

Are they serious? If this thing comes out running WM5, I'll stick to my 6700 until I find something better....or run out my contract and get an iPhone. At least my 6700 is running WM6...xda-developers FTW! =)

[CanoSpinach @ Nov 2nd 2007 5:24PM]

XDA! more like PPCGEEKS super fancy high tech ultra shiny uber custom WM6 no2chem ROMs.

we got Colonol ROM's...
we got DcD ROM's...
we got no2chem ROM's...

and many more!

Coz Boogie Militia!

[Geass @ Oct 21st 2007 8:42PM]

Eww, Plasticky qwerty key board with cliché sidekick flipscreen, no thanks.

I'll hold out on the iPhone when its ATT contract expires.

[Jon @ Oct 22nd 2007 7:17AM]

Shocking. An Apple fanboi without an iphone yet.

[Geass @ Oct 22nd 2007 10:32AM]

I'm with Verizon at the moment, I'll wait until the contract is up with Cingula AT&T that way they can choose the next carrier unless they renew. Besides, by the time that happens the memory will be larger as well as most of the hardware will be updated.

*Stupid kyocera phone for now*

Yes and thank you for the mature commentary.

[brian.m.jones @ Oct 22nd 2007 3:39PM]

ATT has like a 3 or 4 year contract with apple don't they?

[Geass @ Oct 22nd 2007 11:30PM]

Its 2 years I beleive, and by then another price drop will occour plus a few minor upgrades. By then apple will probably have figured out hwoa contract witha phoen company works and how to make a better fine prin deal since its releaseing them in Europe soon.

[CheapB @ Oct 22nd 2007 6:47AM]

Have been waiting for this phone for 6 months - just gave up last week and got a Tytn II and T-mobile. Maybe next time Vz.

[hi @ Oct 21st 2007 10:22PM]

is the iphone sdk the same iphone with different software
or a new iphone all together?

[Michael Geary @ Oct 22nd 2007 2:29AM]

The iPhone SDK is not an iPhone at all. It is software. SDK = Software Development Kit, i.e. software that lets you write native apps for the iPhone.

[Mike @ Oct 22nd 2007 12:03AM]

If the price is $99 or even $199 I will stay with Verizon, otherwise I Will not pay $400 or $500 on a phone that is Obselete, will you?

[JAmerican @ Oct 22nd 2007 10:17AM]

That phone is just uglah compared to the Sprint version! LMAO Verizon. You got no sense of style.

[Danny @ Oct 22nd 2007 8:15PM]

Looks like WM5? No thanks, my WM5 i730 makes me want to kill myself everytime I have to use it.

[Howard @ Oct 28th 2007 10:03PM]

I was with Verizon for four years and then they delayed month after month getting the XV6800 and wouldn't offer its customers any information. So, I checked a Sprint store and once I tried the PPC6800/Mogul I found it impossible to resist asking about their service plans. It was a done deal after that. Good bye, Verizon. It was nice while it lasted. Now I've had Sprint's Mogul for the past month-and-a-half and it's great!

[Nikki 2Beeps @ Oct 31st 2007 6:12AM]

"revolutionary software" Are you kidding? The only reolutionary software on the iphone is visual voicemail which is carrier dependant. Can you think of anything other than that, that you can do on an iphone that you couldn't do on 5 other devices for more than 3 or 4 years.Come on the iphone has 2 great features advertising and marketing. If I had a choice between a blackberry and an iphone Id get it. If I have a choice between an iphone and a real convergence device I'd choose anything but an iphone. It does have decent battery life but any iphone user will tell you it gets 2 to 2.5 hrs of actually using the device for what it is intended ie; wifi surfing, mp3 etc. This shouldn't be a big deal just pop in a freshly charged battery and you'll be fine. Instead I have to stay in the car or near an outlet.(Really mobile) Hardware is the best thing going for the device. It looks sleek and pretty, processor is good, and auto rotate is way cool.If you ever try to respond to an email on the thing you'll see why it should have come with a stylus.I think for now I'll live with fliping out my full keyboard for the screen to rotate. I am not a wm6 fanboy nor am I against apple but I am tired of them renaming the wheel and being the first device on the market ever to use one. Hmm phone with an mp3 player built in that surfs the web and gives me email?? wow amazing, especially in yr 2000 when I bought my first real convergence device.I guess apple should invent a little card that would slip in the side of the devie that would give you more storage memory. Call it an icard or ichip it will be revolutionary hardware design. Oops nevermind they will just sell me another device with larger internal storage capacity. Iy will be an easy up sell when they go to replace the battery in my current device because Ive burnt it out from plugging it in 5 times a day.

[substring @ Nov 8th 2007 2:12PM]

When you says the XV6800 is "two generation behind", what are those generations? Things do not get obsolete simply because of age. For example, if all the car manufacturers decide not to make any more cars after their 2000 models, then their year 2000 models are still the latest greatest cars in the world.

At this point, there is no other PDA phone on the market that has better size of screen, plus the landscape mode, plus the full QWERTY keyboard, plus the memory, plus the processor, plus the integration with corporate Exchange email. So how can it be 2 generations behind?

The iPhone and the iPhone-wanna-be are totally different animals. I cannot see myself typing email or doing data input without a QWERTY keyboard. The iPhone et el are for amateurs.

[Dan @ Nov 25th 2007 1:08AM]

HTC has had two derivations of the vx6700 (HTC apache) since its release. The vx6800 (aka ATT 8525, Sprint Mogul, HTC TyTN), and the TyTN II (aka ATT tilt). Both had keyboards, but the vx6700, which is all that verizon has, does not. There are various other improvements, as well.

That puts verizon two gens behind, and believe me, it's a big deal. If they would release the 6800 they would only be one gen behind. Right now, you can't get an HTC with qwerty keyboard, basically the only alternative to BB phones besides the Samsung. Since HTC is regarded by many to have the best PDA phones, it kind of sucks to be a verizon customer right now (I know, I am one).

-Dan

[Mike @ Nov 9th 2007 4:47PM]

I visited my local Verizon store a couple of weeks ago and they told me that the 6800 was imminent and to come back in a week or so. I just came back from another visit, and was told that this store just received an email stating the the 6800 would be delayed until the 1QTR of 2008. They pushed the new Samsung i760. I've had it with the wait. Obviously if Verizon is going to miss the Christmas holiday season that they have serious problems with this phone.

[5800guy @ Nov 13th 2007 5:33PM]

Hey Mike, any word on the SMT5800? Does anyone know for CERTAIN whether or not the phone will have WiFi enabled?

[peachykyne @ Nov 11th 2007 6:17PM]

Don't forget the T-Mobile Wing. :D

[cheerfulg @ Nov 28th 2007 2:06AM]

I just ordered mine online!