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Concurrent with HTC's event in Barcelona today, AT&T has announced that it'll be carrying an LTE-enabled version of the flagship One X smartphone as an exclusive "in the coming months." By all appearances, this is going to be one of 2012's more exciting handsets thanks to a 4.7-inch 720p Super LCD, Android 4.0 (with Sense 4) out of the box, a 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 processor, and some serious photography chops — f/2 optics with an 8-megapixel back illuminated sensor and 1080p video capture. It'll also feature Beats Audio — AT&T's first Beats-branded HTC model — and unlike previous Beats devices, the One X can enable audio enhancement across all audio apps. That's a big deal considering the popularity of Pandora, Rdio, and the like.
If you missed it buried in that paragraph, the AT&T version of the HTC One X has a different processer than the international version, a dual-core Qualcomm S4 instead of a quad-core Tegra 3. That's probably because Tegra 3 doesn't play nice with existing LTE chipsets, and doesn't have integrated LTE support of its own. For those worried that the LTE One X won't performs as well as its quad-core cousin, we're going to hold all judgement until we can get our hands on both. The Qualcomm S4 has held up fairly well against the Tegra 3 in some early benchmarks.
The phone will be AT&T's first with Android 4.0 and LTE, so let's hope it launches quickly — there are a lot of devices in AT&T's lineup (the just-launched Galaxy Note, for instance) that could benefit from Ice Cream Sandwich. Pricing for the One X has yet to be announced.
Update: While AT&T and HTC have only referred to the One X, HTC has just gone live with a website for the One XL, where the "L" presumably stands for LTE. The spec page confirms the dual-core processor and the LTE bands for both AT&T, Asian, and Australian carriers. Otherwise the HTC One XL looks to be identical to the One X.
