LG GW910 (Panther) WP7 phone clears FCC for AT&T, gets a hands-on preview

It was the first Windows Phone 7 developer (or prototype) phone to start the rumor mill going back in March, and to hint about LG's big plans for Microsoft's new mobile OS. Now the codenamed LG Panther handset has cleared the FCC with AT&T frequencies, meaning that the developer's toy will be hitting retail as well. The Panther has lost its pink, it is just the LG GW910 now, marking a retrace in marketing hype around it, and bringing the naming scheme on par with the C900 and E900, which leaked the other day. Well, we have two more WP7 handsets to go from LG by the end of the year, so we'll soon learn if "Panther" was just an internal nickname of a developer's prototype.

The last time we heard about the phone, specs included a 3.5” WVGA AMOLED touchscreen, 1GHz Snapdragon chipset, and 720p HD video recording from the 5MP camera. A forum member has had a chance to play around with it yesterday, while still in its developer's debugging reincarnation (tiles not turning landscape, etc.), and had positive impressions. The screen was found to be “responsive” and the four-row keyboard keys “spaced-out and easy to use”. A good overview of the Windows Phone 7 browser running on the LG Panther has been outed on video as well.

From what we see in the FCC pics of the internals, the chip is Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8650 - the dual-mode one that offers HSPA, as well as CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Rev. B, backward-compatible with WCDMA and GSM/GPRS/EDGE. This means that we might see the GW910 on Verizon or Sprint.

Have a look at the pictures of the FCC filing for yourself, together with the hands-on pics below, and tell us how does the LG GW910 stack up against the other keyboarded LG WP7 phone, the C900 leaked the other day? What about the rest of the leaked WP7 handsets like the Samsung Cetus and the HTC Schubert? The Windows Phone 7 devices are surely not impressing with design so far, save for the Schubert's classy aluminum unibody, but we hope the companies are saving the best for last.

source: FCC and PPCGeeks