LG Octane coming to Verizon tomorrow

Along with the Pantech Crux, Verizon today officially announced that the LG Octane VN530 will be avaliable starting October 28th. But unlike the Pantech Crux that will have a 3" touchscreen display and virtual on-screen keyboard, the LG Octane will be a replacement to the enV3, and will have dual displays with a physical QWERTY keyboard on the inside. Other features on the Octane include a 3.2MP autofocus camera with LED flash, music player with stereo speakers, Bluetooth, 2.5mm headset jack, and a microSDHC card slot with support for 32GB cards. For the software, there will be the Social Beat for connecting to social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc), VCast Video and Music, VZ Navigator, Mobile E-Mail, Skype, HTML browser, and a MS Office compatible file viewer.

Verizon's official price of the LG Octane will be $99.99 after a $50 rebate with a 2-year contract. However, one of our readers sent us the information below, saying that the device is already for sale at the wireless kiosk booths inside of Costco stores for $49.99 with 2-year contract and doesn't require a rebate. He goes on to say that the Octane and enV3 are pretty close in size, but the Octane has more rounded corners, and the slightly protruding front face of the enV3 has been replaced with a more flat front, and a fat-thumb friendly design for the d-pad. He also says that the internal keyboard's buttons are a bit larger and easy to use (see image below).

source: Verizon Wireless