Sprint launches Samsung Moment, Android empire expands by one
By Vladislav Savov 
posted Nov 2nd 2009 5:22AM
posted Nov 2nd 2009 5:22AM
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
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My friend has gone through 3 of these already. Don't install Panda Home and Open Home at the same time, apparently it causes a big problem.
Does the phone not offer a hard reset feature?
Far as I can tell, after he installs both, if he tries to power cycle, the phone just freezes at boot up. Dunno about recovery.
I got the Moment the day it came out. Battery goes down 10% every 25 minutes, GPS never locks on, and signal is always bad compared to my sister's Pre.
I exchanged it for the HTC Hero and it seems ok, but it's just a lot slower and the screen looks HORRIBLE compared to the Moment's AMOLED.
I'm pretty sure the problem was just with my unit because the Mic didn't work either. I'm going back to the Moment once my local Best Buy gets it in stock.
Keyboard looks like a beehive o.O
surely not, dont you know how efficient bees are?
if it looked like a beehive, it would read dvorak. ;)
Do you know how many hours I've wasted trying to improve my typing efficiency via dvorak?
I'll take it even if the keyboard really sucks as long as I can keep my SERO plan
http://www.petitiononline.com/SERO/petition.html
@Paul
I'm sure you meant honeycomb.
@szfs
stfu already. no one cares about your sero plan but you. be thankful you have it and go on your way, pleasekthx.
*cricket sounds*
Is it me, or Sprint = Trade Federation?
Man, they're getting a lot of 'droids. And their colors match, too.
"Unless you're locked in to Sprint for whatever reason, we might advise holding out for a couple of days and seeing if the DROID takes your fancy"
???
You act as if there's no reason someone would want to voluntarily stick with Sprint. Their 3G is awesome, their prices are great...$59/month for 500 mins, unlimited data, unlimited texting, GPS, tv, etc.
Yeah, I'm with Sprint and I don't really mind them at all. I just wish they had better reception in areas that are more "out-of-the-way", and not just major suburban / urban areas.
That's the main reason I switched to Verizon. I love the call quality of CDMA phones, but Sprint didn't cover large portions of my drive to my parent's house and I had no reception even within a mile of there. (And no, I'm not going to roam...)
I'm with Sprint but my contracts ends on Thanksgiving. I'm ready to ditch them and pay $30 more per month to get the Droid on Verizon. The reception is "good enough" in most places, but half the time I drop a call or have fairly crappy reception. The real killer is the reception in my own house -- it's next to nothing. In fact, more often than not it IS nothing. They gave me an Airave for free for a year, and it helps if you stay without 20 feet of it. Otherwise it will lose the connection and then Sprint will try to connect to a tower which of course will fail with the weak signal and BOOM... dropped call.
If I can't get a good signal in my house then fck it, I'm out.
Yeah, if they're not getting the job done then it's worth it to pay more, but for plenty of people they're pretty great. I like in the NY area and get reception and 3G speeds everywhere I go, which is something I couldn't say for when I was on AT&T (and even if I did, I had more dropped calls and crawling speeds there in 4 months than everywhere else my entire life).
YMMV, but Sprint does have it's fans.
@jonathan
I agree it is definitely the best bang-for-buck carrier in the USA, but even with improving customer service and call quality it's just not worth it to me anymore. I'm tired of going into someone's house and promptly losing signal or being in areas of weak signal like where I live.
I wouldn't switch to Verizon unless they had a good phone, and now they do have a few coming out. Prior to the new Droid, everything they had was garbage IMO.
This is what I don't get. Sprint phones roam for free on Verizon's towers so I've never really lost signal even in VZW-only areas like some rural markets and in the DC metro. Make sure you have roaming enabled and you should be fine. I've stuck with them due to their having some of the best deals of any US carrier but I would have left long ago if coverage was anythign but adequate. As it is, I've stuck with them from their first Sanyo camera phone to the Pre now.
I'm gonna skip this phone because the Pre is still rocking and they should have an updated Android phone out by the summer with Wimax and better specs a-la the HTC Dragon or Moto Droid.
I love sprint and have never had a issue. I left ATT and never looked back. I travel all over the country. My buisness and personal accounts are through Sprint. No real issues on my end. Sprint sells most of their phone with the roaming off, to cut down on money they pay Verison. You have to turn it on. The down side to Roaming is the phone is always looking for their network, so battery is eaten up. For those that say they dont want to roam, why? Its free. The Moto Droid is just ugly. Enough said.
i am locked into sprint, but i'm not getting a new phone for about 3 months. I was dead set on the Hero, but now i'm kinda torn between that and this. We'll see what comes out in January.
Verizon is bringing 15 new phones (mostly smartphone) from the start of the Storm 2 all the way to December.
Let us know when Verizon's prices stop sucking.
Wish this one would come to T-Mobile USA. Dedicated number row on a physical keyboard. Dpad that doesn't look like 1990's bling. This, or the LG android phone, are the ones I'm most interested in right now. Just not on a CDMA carrier.
It is coming to T-Mobile USA. So far all we know it is under code "Bigfoot" - that is Samsung Bigfoot, google it.
The images I've seen of the Bigfoot don't really look much like the Behold.
Er... not Behold, Moment. Duh.
The images I've seen of the Bigfoot don't look like the Moment.
I like the phone. AMOLED and all that jazz. A 3.5 mm. The keyboard is decent. 800 MHz. That is a nice phone to replace the Instincts and even any dumphone people may have. I am a fan of Samsung phones. They have excellent build and Samsung offers free goodies at their websites. I am sure this phone will have Donut and Éclair soon (officially, not ported) as Samsung has always pushed OS updates when available. One has to consider the OS update would also be up to Sprint. Anyways, this droid (yes, it is still a droid!) is looking good !
I like the hardware specs of Moment over the HTC Hero but I will wait until Android 2.0 is preinstalled and shipping with Moment. Hopefully, this is sometime around Xmas.
I'm glad Sprint is at least offering some new phones, unfortunately now that I've seen the HD2 everything else hardware wise looks quite
antiquated. Sprint doesn't even have the HD2 on their current roadmap and according to HTC - Sprint hasn't even approached them about the HD2 so the even if Sprint contacts HTC now about it - it will be about 6-9 months before they could even carry it. By that time the HD3 will be only a few months away.
Haha and I take it you are in direct communication with both HTC and Sprint's group managing roadmaps?
You have no idea what's on Sprint's roadmap sir...
Actually. I did chat with David Owens, Sprint VP of consumer marketing a few days ago and both I and others have received direct communcations from HTC regarding the HD2 and Sprint (along with several other people). While Sprint might be playing their cards close to the vest about their roadmap since HTC doesn't even have a CDMA version of the HD2 in the works - it seems highly unlikely Sprint has a secret GSM version of the HD2 that miraculously works on CDMA cell towers. Unless of course Sprint is putting in GSM service for their subscribers.
my girlfriend just got one last night, I want the HERO, but then I saw the QWERTY and Flash Camera, I was sold on the Moment.
I'm with Sprint but my contracts ends on Thanksgiving. I'm ready to ditch them and pay $30 more per month to get the Droid on Verizon. The reception is "good enough" in most places, but half the time I drop a call or have fairly crappy reception. The real killer is the reception in my own house -- it's next to nothing. In fact, more often than not it IS nothing. They gave me an Airave for free for a year, and it helps if you stay without 20 feet of it. Otherwise it will lose the connection and then Sprint will try to connect to a tower which of course will fail with the weak signal and BOOM... dropped call.
If I can't get a good signal in my house then fck it, I'm out.
And AT&T still doesn't have an Android phone. FUCK YOU!!! Stingy bastards. Glad I left and switched to Sprint.
People with reception complaints really ought to list where they live... some of us are considering switching TO Sprint because they roam on a lot of Verizon towers.
1) Sprint doesn't roam on all of Verizons netowrk.
2) When you roam, everything is caped and you do not get Mobile to Mobile and all. Mobile to Mobile will be taken from your anytime mins. If yo go over your data cap you will be charged for it.
3) You will not get 3G roaming off Verizon.
4) Sometimes you won't get any data off Verizon, only voice and text.
1) That's why I said "a lot of"
2) I confirmed the minutes thing. I didn't know that, and that's not cool. As for data, you are limited to less than 50% of your total data usage when your roaming. If you are over this %, your account can be terminated. Seems the solution to me would be simple... if doing a lot of data on roaming, then when back on Sprint, do more. :)
3) You get 3G roaming from Alltel towers that are now Verizon towers. That's basically the entire midwest. I've heard that Verizon has been converting some towers to no longer roam, but I'd expect that to be a break of the 10 year agreement with Alltel. Little has been reported on forums/news that leads me to believe that much will change for a while, and probably not during the 2 year lifespan of the contract.
4) I don't know. I haven't read anything to this effect.
And I guess I should say that I live in Tuscaloosa, AL and travel a lot... mostly to the midwest and around the south. I grew up in KC and still go back there at least twice/year. I've been on Sprint before, and I'd never consider it west of Kansas.
is this the first android phone that doesn't have an offset keyboard. it always seems awkward to type on my friends G1.
I played with one of these at the Samsung Experience in NYC yesterday for a while and the thing felt really plasticky and flimsy in my hands. It had a beautiful screen and I love the Android OS, but it felt and looked SSSSOOOOO cheap.
The Droid and iPhone look better on other carriers, but I'm locked on a Sprint family plan at the moment and I'm long overdue for an upgrade. Which is the best handset on Sprint: Pre, Moment, or something else in the next two months?
Pre has the most potential, Moment has best hardware but is a little rough around the edges,(will be worlds better if/when they update it with Android OS 2.0) the Hero is very user friendly,(already getting Android OS 2.0) Touch Pro2 also has nice hardware but is pricey, $349 after rebate and the Pixi (coming soon) is like the pre but smaller and no WiFi and is also the most affordable of the phones at $100. To sum it up, I'd get the Moment if they give it the 2.0 Upgrade, otherwise the Pre. (But I'm on a SERO plan so I'm gonna be stuck with the Touch Pro2 as soon as I get that big promotion and a 3rd job :)
None. Because Sprint is stupid and won't let you upgrade your phone to the Hero, Moment, Pre, ect unless you move to a family "everything data" plan, which depending on the number of lines will cost you anywhere from $30 - $80 more a month.
Coco, if you can prove me wrong about Sprint getting an HD2 I would be seriously delighted. Feel free to post any sources that indicated that Sprint will indeed actually carry the HD2 within the next 6 months.
just picked up the "moment". i returned my hero for the samsung and im loving it. this thing is responsive! the onscreen keyboard is light years ahead of the hero. i dont think ill be using the qwerty at all. the screen is great AMOLED.
initial pros and cons
pros
much faster than the hero.
screen
led flash camera
no lag so far.
cons :
larger than the hero
i dont think this has a digital compass
no sense UI
amoled has a cool temperature.
bottom line
i would not go back to the hero after this. this phone moves android much like the iphone UI. this i believe is how it should be on the Hero. i was very unhappy with the heros responsiveness. i would misspell alot trying to type the messages and the phone would lag . ( i had the iphone for 2.5 years )also the hero has that thin space between the screen and the bottom buttons. this made me nervous since dirt and unknown substances were getting trapped in there. only a matter of time for dust to go under the screen. the camera on the hero is 5megapixels but it suffers in low lighting. so i believe this cam is more useful. you be the judge.
i really cant tell you if this is a better choice in the long run, but for the same price i rather have this phone. i really cant be waiting around for HTC google and sprint to tighten up the hero. its just not as pleasant as this phones speed. even without the sense ui.
thanks.