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Tech Trends

We got to meet and hear from the people in the know at MetroPCS, this morning. It was especially interesting considering they had lots to say.

First of all, they announced a limited-time service plan “sale” which allows for “all you can eat” which means unlimited everything – including LTE - for $55 per month.

And then there was the announcement of the new LG Motion 4G Android phone which, among other things, sports a compact, 3.5-inch touchscreen, Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, 5GB of storage (plus microSD slot), 5 megapixel camera (capable of 1080p video) and lots more. Price: $150. (Don't forget, MetroPCS doesn't force you to sign a contract.)

It should be noted that the Motion 4G takes full advantage of MetroPCS' LTE network. Ultimately not as fast as AT&T or Verizon's but much faster than their previous 2G data offerings.

We also got to see a picture of some other interesting-looking Androids from Samsung and others which we'll hear more about in the coming months.

But the most exciting part of the presentation concerned VoLTE (Voice over LTE). The future of voice calls. While not available yet in NYC (only in MetroPCS's Dallas-Ft. Worth home base) we were able to actually try it here in midtown Manhattan on two specially unlocked phones.

The two handsets sounded slightly different (one slightly better than the other) but both prove that sending voice packets over a data network will be part of our lives very soon.

MetroPCS won't say exactly when but they're hoping to introduce VoLTE in the NYC area by the end of the year.