Ultra-thin QWERTY phone announced by Pantech

They are going to sell bunches of these. Debuting as the world’s thinnest QWERTY phone, the new Pantech Slate is available now on AT&T. This phone is one of many AT&T is launching to address the heavy-messaging market segment. Phones like the Pantech Matrix (a take on the Duo without Windows Mobile), Samsung Propel and now the Slate, AT&T is covering the bases with a variety of styles to fit, well, your style.

The Slate’s claim to fame is its less than 1-centimeter thickness. That is super thin and AT&T claims it can fit into your skinny jeans; though, clearly, they’ve not tested my skinny jeans.

Besides its staple functionality: messaging (instant, e-mail, text, multimedia) the phone boasts a 1.3 mp camera (a tad skimpy) with 2X zoom with video capabilities. Bluetooth rounds out the feature spec, which AT&T also kept thin. If the Slate features the same OS as the Matrix I’ve been playing with, users will find it definitely usable as long as Gmail isn’t a priority. The OS has a simple UI, but one that has cool graphics, fonts and icons. Overall, I like it.

The phone sells for just $49 after mail-in rebates of all kind are added up.

Product page: [AT&T]