The HTC Trophy will be the first Windows Phone 7-based Verizon Wireless smartphone, according to several reports on the Web today.
A Verizon spokeswoman, who last week said the company plans to sell WP7-based smartphones next year, delined to confirm the reports about the HTC Trophy.
Verizon, a CDMA-based carrier, will get the HTC Trophy in 2011, according to a Verizon pamphlet that appeared today on Slashgear, Engadget and other tech Web sites today.
The Trophy has a 3.8-inch touchscreen, a 5 megapixel camera and Wi-Fi support. The device offers 512 MB of internal memory, 16GB of onboard storage. The includes an offer to Microsoft employees that it will sell them the device for $199.99 upon launch "in early 2011."
Apparently, word of Verizon's interest in WP7 has been slow to get out as there were several reports today about a Nov. 8 tweet from Verizon saying it is "excited" to sell WP7 phones as soon as they are ready from Microsoft.
There have been questions about Verizon's interest in WP7, especially since the carrier had little success selling the predecessor Microsoft Kin phones and discontinued them in June. Verizon later said it would resurrect thousands of retired Microsoft Kin phones as feature phones without wireless data capability later this year.
Verizon President Lowell McAdam had raised questions about support for WP7 when he said in an interview in early October that " Microsoft is not at the forefront of our mind" after agreeing with a reporter that Microsoft was not a major player in mobile "at the moment."
AT&T and T-Mobile, both GSM carriers, began selling WP7 phones on Nov. 8. It isn't clear how successful the sales effort has been as Microsoft has declared the supply as "tight."