Samsung InstinctQ coming to UK on O2

EXCLUSIVE: "Available for purchase shortly"

21 August 2009 17:16 GMT / By Duncan Geere

Update - This has been confirmed as false. See update at the bottom of the story

Samsung's InstinctQ handset, which packs Google's Android OS, Wi-Fi and a QWERTY keyboard, will be coming to the UK soon on the O2 network, according to a Samsung spokesperson.

Following the news earlier in the week that it would be arriving on Sprint in America within weeks, we posed the question the following question to Samsung's PR agency:

"Will Samsung's InstinctQ Android handset be coming to the UK?"

The reply came back: "Samsung and O2 are committed to providing customers with the best user-experience, each device therefore goes through a stringent "customer experience" testing prior to launch. Samsung and O2 have been working together to ensure the device meets customer expectations and the device will be available for purchase shortly".

That would suggest that the handset isn't far off, and that it'll be on O2 when it does arrive, taking O2's tally of Android handsets to two. However, there's always the possibility that the agency has got confused with Samsung's Galaxy i7500 Android, which was due this week and is already confirmed for O2.

If that's the case, it's still notable that the handset is experiencing some difficulties passing O2's QA testing - it was supposed to be here by now. Still, if we're taking Samsung's word at face value, then O2 customers will soon have a choice of Android handsets to pick from.

We'll keep you posted of developments on this breaking story.

UPDATE: We were right. Samsung got confused. A spokesperson for O2 told us: "The quote you heard was about the Samsung Galaxy. At this point we have no plans to launch the Samsung InstinctQ".

UPDATE 2: Samsung has told us that the InstinctQ is " not going to be launched in UK market". That's a shame. We're trying to find out why.