Today is turning out to be a big day for Windows Phone 8 in the US. Earlier today, Sprint announced it would start selling its first Windows Phone 8 smartphone beginning on Friday. Now US Cellular, the nation"s fifth largest wireless carrier, has confirmed earlier reports that it will soon offer its own Windows Phone 8 device.
US Cellular"s press release states that the carrier"s debut WP8 handset will be its own version of the Samsung ATIV Odyssey, which was first released in the US earlier this year and sold by Verizon Wireless. The device is already available to purchase online from US Cellular and will debut in the company"s stores on Thursday, July 11th. The price, after a 50% mail-in rebate, will be $49.99 with a new two year contract.
In terms of hardware, the US Cellular version of the Samsung ATIV Odyssey is no different than the one sold by Verizon. It still has a four-inch 800x480 WVGA Super AMOLED display, a 1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor, 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB of storage, a five megapixel rear camera and a 1.2 megapixel front-facing camera, and will also support US Cellular"s LTE network.
Source: US Cellular | Image via US Cellular