AT&T's HTC One X Lost The Tegra 3 Due To LTE Incompatibility

Android enthusiasts have been drooling over the HTC One X for months, ever since it was leaked as the HTC Edge. A lot of that had to do with the inclusion of Nvidia's quad-core Tegra 3 platform; at the time, it was the only smartphone we knew of that would get the screaming silicon. So it's no surprise that AT&T customers were a little miffed to hear that the American version is going with a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU instead. But before you start a signature campaign to bring the "real" one X to AT&T, you might want to read this: it was purely a technical limitation.

See, AT&T wanted to make sure that a flagship phone like the One X has access to its still-growing LTE network. Apparently the new 5-Plus-One Tegra 3 platforms still isn't compatible with LTE radio chipsets, and won't be for at least a few more months – too long to be included in the first batch of US-bound One X units. Given the choice between going back to HSPA+ or using a processor that was "only" dual-core 1.5Ghz, AT&T chose the latter.

That may be small comfort to many of AT&T's customers, the majority of which are outside of its LTE network at the moment, and are likely to remain so when the HTC One X launches in no more than 60 days. The kind of person that's targeted by ultra-high-end hardware doesn't like that sort of compromise – and I say that as the owner of a $700 phone who lives ninety miles from the closest AT&T LTE tower. It's an inauspicious start for HTC's would-be comeback; here's hoping that the few charms remaining to the One X (you know, the unibody styling, massive screen, Ice Cream Sandwich, Beats audio and great camera) will be enough to win out.

[via Cnet]