Americans get a lot of cool stuff before the rest of the world, but phones that play nice with international networks is not one of them. Verizon customers in particular have a lot of frustration to deal with, since the CDMA network is totally useless almost everywhere else in the world. There are a smattering of globally operable phones on Verizon, including the DROID 2 Global, DROID 3 and the Incredible 2. But so far there haven’t been any global-ready smartphones that take advantage of Verizon’s LTE network. According to some leaked internal documentation from Droid Life, that may soon change with phones from HTC and LG.

We’ve heard rumors of both these phones before: the HTC Fireball was spotted in Verizon’s apparently leaky computer system, and shots of the LG Spectrum (AKA the LG Revolution 2) make it look like a revised version of AT&T’s Nitro HD. Both of the phones were marked as “global” in the above Verizon listings. That’s great news for global travelers who use Verizon in the United States, as none of the recent high-profile smartphone releases on the network have featured global connectivity, with the exception of the iPhone 4S. And who wants to embarrass themselves while traveling?

There’s no news on when these phones will become available, but if they’re in the system it’s probably a matter of less than three months. Expect more information at CES in about three weeks, with hands-on photos and videos from Android Community if we’re lucky. Keep in mind that “global” doesn’t mean “unlocked”: Verizon’ world phones still incur significant roaming charges, and many international travelers simply opt to buy a cheap phone and a prepaid SIM card for the duration of their travels.

4 COMMENTS

  1. If you really feel that it would embarrass you to be caught with an iPhone 4S, than I guess you’ve developed a notion that some how you are too stupid to use a good device from a great vendor and would be embarrassed if someone thought you actually could choose a smart phone that worked well, all over the world?

      • Yea, the iphone 4S is boring and unattractive, why go with a smaller screen when you can go big, nowadays, people are into videos, music, movies, bigger is better and Android can do it bigger and better, no restrictions to customization, just plain fun to use, and the new technology in android phones just blows the iphone away, they may have a record for selling the most phones, but not for long, not after these new android phones every two to three months, sorry to say that Apple will once again disappear like they did before when the PC took over and now it is Android phones…..

    • The iPhone 4S is not a good device and Apple is NOT a great vendor. The iPhone 4S’ hardware and software are miles behind other Android phones that were already released. And iOS is boring. 

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