Sprint yesterday announced its first EV-DO Rev. A-capable handset by releasing a software upgrade for its HTC Mogul device. The upgrade makes the Mogul the fastest Sprint phone currently available, with DSL-like download speeds of 600 Kbps to 1.4 Mbps and upload speeds of 350 Kbps to 500 Kbps.

"Sprint claims it is the first phone with Rev. A capabilities to hit the market; Sprint and Verizon Wireless have used Rev. A so far only in laptop cards," notes InformationWeek's Terry Sweeney. "Sprint plans to upgrade a second handset, the HTC Touch, to Rev. A 'later this year,' a spokeswoman said, without giving a more specific timeframe."

"This is a great move, especially for those that like to use their smartphones as computer modems on the road," writes PC World's Travis Hudson.

Of course, as Switched's Will Safer points out, it doesn't exactly make Sprint unique in the marketplace. "AT&T has several phone models available that can connect to its high-speed network, called HSDPA, which... has similar upload and download speeds to EV-DO Rev. A," he writes.

More here from dBTechno ... more here from The Inquirer ... more here from TECH.BLORGE.com ... more here from TMCnet ... more here from Brighthand ... more here from Crave ... more here from TechNewsWorld ... more here from the AP ... more here from the Wall Street Journal ... and the press release is here.