First we hear about the recall of the Motorola MPx220 (here at HowardForums.com) due to sound issues and now.. now we have more news from the States about the Audiovox SMT 5600. According to several websites, the recent Cingular / AT&T Wireless merger may push the SMT 5600 off the radar. 🙁
Quote from this Mobile Gadget News story...
“It seems to be official, the AT&T stores are no longer carrying the SMT5600 and http://www.attws.com bumps me to the Cingular store every time I try to do anything on the site. It looks like this great little phone had a good run but a short one.
Amazon is still selling the phone at this point so if you want one of these phone, you had better act quickly and buy one from Amazon before they too lock the remaining units in a closet too.”
I’m unsure about this – the SMT5600 is showing on the AT&T Wirless site – even after its re-brand to Cingular. However, these sources are saying that it’s vanishing from shops as they get re-branded to Cingular? Here’s more evidence, this time from SmartPhoneThoughts.com…
“The first thought that came to my mind is that, this can’t be true. How can Cingular instruct the AT&T Wireless stores to toss out everything that says AT&T, where will all the AT&T branded phones go? Luckily I had to go to the mall myself, so I decided to step into the local AT&T store. And much to my surprise, the representative confirmed that on Sunday night they will taking down all the signs, removing all the AT&T phones from the display and restocking with Cingular literature and phones. This means that the Audiovox SMT5600 will no longer be carried in the stores. And representative had no idea what will happen to them.”
Perhaps Cingular are probably just pulling the SMT 5600 off the shelves while they check whether it’s compatible with their services – plus it’ll give them chance to rebrand it both inside and out?! I’d like to know more!
Sources – Mobile Gadget News and SmartPhoneThoughts.com