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CTIA Fall 2009

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Moment Omnia II Intrepid Behold II  

Oct 7, 2009, 1:13 PM   by Eric M. Zeman & Rich Brome
updated Oct 8, 2009, 6:38 PM

Live from San Diego for the wireless industry's big fall event. Hands-on with the new Samsungs, Nokias, HTC HD2, Pantechs, and the PCD Razzle, including hands-on video.

Our hands-on photos of the Samsung Moment Android phone for Sprint:

Samsung Moment body  

As you can see, it has a 3.5mm headphone jack, and the memory card slot is unfortunately located where you must remove the battery to change it. However, the slot supports up to 32 GB cards, so you can put in a very large card, and with the standard micro-USB connector makes it easy to move files on and off the phone.

The phone itself is a decent size; not large, but not surprisingly small. It feels good in hand, with a good slide mechanism. Having touch keys along the bottom instead of physical keys is annoying for us, but they work fine. It has a dedicated search key like the Hero, but it's located on the QWERTY keyboard, which makes a lot of sense. The keyboard is good; not great, just good.

The active-matrix OLED display is gorgeous, of course. We're getting used to that on high-end Samsungs, but it's still a wonderful thing.

The Moment also sports Wi-Fi and a 3.2-megapixel auto-focus camera. There's an optical trackpad (like the Omnia, and instead of a physical trackball.) An 800 MHz processor keeps things speedy (and they are.)

The interface is pretty much stock Android. (Prototypes we tried ran version 1.5, but Samsung promised that it will ship with 1.6.) What's curious is how little customization they've done. There's no TouchWiz, no fancy widgets, no expanded or custom home screen... just standard Android. That's not a bad thing - stock Android certainly has its fans. It does have the full Google experience, plus important extras like support for Microsoft Exchange. Naturally there are also standard Sprint apps loaded, such as Sprint TV, NASCAR, and Sprint Navigator.

Samsung Moment UI  

One area that could really have used some customization is the camera. Unfortunately, even the camera app is stock Android, meaning the ONLY setting is to turn the flash on or off. Samsung knows how to do a great camera interface on a touch-screen phone, and the Omnia II is a great example. It's a shame they couldn't bring that to Android on the Moment.

Here is a quick video of the Samsung Moment for Sprint:

About the author, Eric M. Zeman & Rich Brome:

Eric has been covering the mobile telecommunications industry for 17 years at various print and online publications. He studied at Rutgers Newark and University of Kentucky, and has a degree in writing. He likes playing guitar, attending concerts, listening to music, and driving sports cars.

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Comments

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This forum is closed.

larue26

Oct 8, 2009, 7:49 PM

these phones suck...

I live in San Diego and I must say these phones really suck. Where is the innovation? Most phones look like iphone copy cats. Time to be creative!
It seems that way, but, when a company is producing an all touch phone, it's hard to make something that doesn't look like the iPhone. Unless you get some really oddball shape. I think Samsung and HTC do a pretty good job of coming out with stylish ph...
(continues)
CrazyCraig01

Oct 8, 2009, 1:24 AM

Slow day

I was really hoping to see more new phone announcements from this show. Maybe an official release of the Tao/Droid/Sholes or something.
yes, when's motorola's turn?
FAUguy

Oct 7, 2009, 5:50 PM

Samsung Omnia II

We're you able to try out the Samsung Omnia II that will come out for Verizon?
...
 
 
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