Sprint’s Overdrive is the first 4G-powered mobile hotspot. All predecessors from other carriers have only supported 3G networks to date. Sprint’s 4G coverage extends only to 27 markets at this time, but they’ve announced plans to expand to Boston, Huston, New York, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. this year. You can check if you are in the included coverage area here. Fortunately, the Overdrive is entirely backwards compatible with Sprint’s 3G network as well. Although slower, it’s widely available nationwide.

So here’s how it works. Just press the power button and wait a few seconds for the device to turn on, connect to Sprint, and start the local hotspot. The SSID and secure key appears on the display. Just turn on any WiFi enabled device such as a Laptop, Netbook, Sony PSP, Nintendo DSi, Zune, or iPod Touch. (Even works with the iPhone’s Wi-Fi if AT&T’s network is being spotty.) The Overdrive allows up to five simultaneous connections. Portable hotspots, unlike embedded mobile broadband chips and external USB cards, offer the freedom to share internet access with more than a device.

Sprint was kind enough to lend us a 4G mobile broadband card while we were in Las Vegas for CES, one of their 4G markets. Although I’ll leave the details in the full review of the U300 4G card, speeds often reached up to 6MB/s. (Theoretically 10Mb/s!) That’s faster than many home DSL lines and is plenty of bandwidth for streaming music from Pandora, videos from Hulu, and Skype video calls.

Sprint has sent us a sample unit for a full review, but it’s still in transit. However, a couple of unique features worth mentioning now. The Overdrive has a microSD card expansion (16GB max) to create a mini network shared drive for connected devices. The LCD displays active users, signal strength, battery life, and a few more details. Sierra Wireless, the manufacturers of the Overdrive, claims a 150 foot WiFi range. In regards to battery life, it’s expected to last up to 3 hours in use and 36 hours on standby. If you run out of juice, there’s a microUSB cable to recharge the device. The device just hit stores on January 10th and will run you about $99 after signing a two-year contract and sending in a $50 mail-in-rebate.

For more details on this and to read our full review, stay tuned. You can subscribe to our RSS Feed or sign up for Email Subscriptions. If you haven’t heard, we’re also on Facebook and Twitter!

Links: Sprint.com/Overdrive

Palm Pixi Specifications:

• Provider: Sprint
• Operating System: Palm webOS
• Display: 2.63-inch 320×400 multi-touch
• Camera: 2.0 Megapixel Camera + Flash
• Music: MP3, WAV, AAC/AAC+
• Video: MPEG4, H.263, H.264
• Memory: 8GB internal
• Dimensions: 4.37L x 2.17W x .43D inches
• Battery: 5 hours talk time | 350 hours stand-by
• Other: Bluetooth 2.1+ | 3.5 mm Audio Jack

The Body: 4/5 stars
The Pixi weighs only a few ounces, looks thin and sleek. The body has a soft feel and offers a good grip. It’s probably one of the better looking phones I’ve come across. There’s a volume rocker, a switch to silence your phone, and a microUSB port on the right side. Accessing the charging/data USB port was a bit of a nuisance. There’s only a tiny sliver of space between the flap and the body of the phone. Even if I did manage to get it open, it immediately snaps back due to stiffness and the magnetic piece. After about a week of struggling with this, the magnet actually just fell out, now the flap doesn’t even close properly. I think it’s Palm’s plan to get us to buy their Wireless Touchstone charger. The back of the phone is essentially a rear “face-plate.” Palm offers various artistic designs. There’s no microSD expansion and the only thing under the rear cover is the replaceable battery pack. The 2 megapixel camera, flash, and speakers are on the upper rear portion of the back side. The power button and a standard 3.5mm headphone jack are on the top. The front face of the phone sports the QWERTY keyboard, a gesture area, and a 2.6 inch display from bottom to top. Overall, it’s a great design and Palm has truly reinvented themselves with a new generation of hardware. I hope to see more device following this cue.

Gesture Area: 5/5 stars
There’s a thin touch-sensitive slit embedded into body between the display and keyboard. It’s unique and makes using the phone much more intuitive. For example, moving back a page in the browser requires a quick swipe to the left. The pad illuminates the the direction you swiped with a neat little animation right after. To get back to the home screen, just swipe up. The Pixi also lights up the gesture area to indicate that the phone is busy performing a task. It’s definitely a more intuitive innovation that the physical home button the iPhone that needs to be double or triple tapped to perform certain commands.

The Display: 3.5/5 stars
The multi-touch screen performed pretty well for the most part. The screen was fairly responsive and looked beautiful. The 2.63 inch display is about a half inch smaller than the one on the Palm Pre. The interface seems to have scaled well to the 320×400 pixel display without any major drawbacks other than loss of screen estate. While I thought that the interface, text, images, and videos all looked bright and crisp, the display actually has only 18-bits of color versus the 24-bits on the Pre. Keep in mind, if I didn’t learn that from the spec sheet, I probably wouldn’t have known. It looks just fine. The device supports multi-touch gestures such as pinching with two fingers to zoom in or out of an image or web page. I was however disappointed with the accelerometer. It was not exactly responsive. It often didn’t rotate a web page at all. Plus, at other times it would enter the landscape mode when I was holding it vertically. That’s especially a pain since I’ll have to type with the physical keyboard which is facing in another direction. the gesture pad also would change functionality from back and forward page swiping to scrolling. While the display looks great, there’s still a few problems that could be addressed with a future software upgrade.

The Keyboard: 5/5 stars
When I first saw the Pixi, I expected the keyboard to be a pain to use. However, I quickly found out that I shouldn’t have made such a quick judgment. The buttons may seem really small and that’s because they are. But despite that, even with by large thumbs that could easily cover half the keyboard, it took me less than about 10 minutes to get accustomed to it. Everything is well placed and they keys have a nice click feel to them. And of course, they are backlit and light up automatically. (Controlled by the ambient light sensor.) While the phone does lack a good virtual auto-correction feature, I was still able to type text messages and reply to emails with little to no errors. Plus, since the keyboard is hidden with a sliding mechanism as it is with the Palm Pre, the Pixi is actually faster to use in many ways. The keyboard is probably one of my favorite aspects of this device.

Operating System: 4/5 stars
A Smartphone’s ability to multitask seems to be an essential feature. Fortunately the Pixi can, which even the iPhone can not. However it’s not all fun and games. The device’s performance begins to lag and hang when running more than one application at a time. In fact, some even froze and crashed. At times, if I had multiple applications open, I couldn’t even make or receive a call. It got too slow at one point that the phone wouldn’t even recognize my several attempts to end the call even though the visual interface seemed to recognize it. I was at least glad that I liked the home screen interface. I was able to rearrange and customize the 5 default programs listed at the bottom. If you click the expand key, it opens a list of all the available programs. The applications were organized into three categories: downloaded, commonly used, and system applications. Launching anything, for example Sprint TV, the current screen is minimized and the program appears. This is great since I can use the ’swipe up’ gesture to return to the home page. It’s now easy to switch to another running window or launch another program. I also loved how you simply “toss” and application up to close it. There were unfortunately no widgets as found on Android devices, but you could customize the background unlike the iPhone. Asides from the lack of performance, Palm has developed a marvelous webOS and I hope to see major feature additions. Hopefully as early as January ‘10 during their press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Synergy & Messaging: 5/5 stars
Wow. It’s that awesome. The Palm Pixi’s webOS offers one central interface to pull information in from a variety of accounts. These include Google Sync, Facebook, Microsoft Exchange, LinkedIn, and Yahoo. My Calendars, Contacts, and Emails were imported from all of them. Instead of creating havoc with a mess of duplicate contacts and data, the Synergy technology handles it quite well. It merges duplicate contacts without destroying your data. Any changes made on you device are automatically relayed to the server and back onto other devices as well. All my Facebook contacts were pulled in with profile photos, email addresses, and phone numbers. This was by far the easiest and most convenient way I’ve come across to import information. As for messaging, the Palm Pixi has a neat notification system. It alerts you with popups and notification icons for emails, texts, missed calls, and voicemails at the bottom of the display. Clicking on one immediately launches the respective application. Composing and reply to emails was an easy task with a great keyboard. My calendar would even display Facebook Events I had replied to as attending and everything from Google Calendar. Text messages are well organized. Conversation logs are separated by name and date. The option to forward items was a handy feature. You won’t even need to copy and paste. The Palm Profile, which you are required to create, automatically performs backups of you device’s data. If you were to loose or break a device, a one-time login will immediately fetch everything.

Call Quality + Network: 4/5 stars
Although I rarely saw full reception in the Sacramento Area, I almost always had at least a bar or two. Surprisingly, I did not experience any dropped calls. The iPhone hilariously has repeated failed calls even though it reports full signal on AT&T’s network. I was able to hear the person on the other end well and they also reported the same. I can make a call by keying a number or a contact’s name with the keyboard. Although I could browse through the contact list, the first method was much faster. There’s also an on-screen dial pad as well. There’s also a log of incoming, outgoing, and missed calls within the call application. Things were especially easy since all my friend’s names were imported from both Facebook and my personal contact list on Google Contacts. The interface even displayed my contact’s profile picture for incoming calls and during one. Downloading data wasn’t as fast as Verizon’s 3G in our area, but was still consistent. For the most part it was sufficient for what the phone offers. As some one who’s always in areas with WiFi connectivity, the inclusion of that component would have been truly appreciated. Hopefully Palm will take a hint from customer feedback and make that addition.

Multimedia: 5/5 stars
The Palm Pixi streamed videos impressively well from Sprint TV. The application features some live channels including the Disney and NFL channels. There’s also a selection of recorded programs. If you pay extra, there’s always more. The phone also supports the major video formats.The Palm Pixi synced smoothly with both my Ubuntu desktop and my Windows 7 Laptop. I just plugged it in using the modular microUSB cable that doubles by connecting to the AC adapter to charge. It’s simply a mass storage device. Just drag and drop items. Once copied over, it automatically recognizes media. The phone also supports Bluetooth AD2p stereo profiles for devices such as the Jabra Halo or Altec-Lansing BackBeat. Speaking of music, Pandora worked quite well with this phone. I had it connected to my car’s stereo through an AUX jack. It streamed music impressively well without any major pauses for buffering. While it’s still no iPhone when it comes to multimedia, it should cover most entertainment grounds.

Camera & Camcorder: 2/5 stars
The Pixi only has a 2.0 megapixel camera, which isn’t much for a smartphone. The Palm Pre has a 3.2 megapixel camera. The quality was merely decent. Images just seemed weirdly colored. They weren’t crisp or clear. The only option available was for the flash. No special effects, resolution settings, or anything else. The turnaround time for a shot was fortunately pretty quick. Images looked best in well lit situations, even despite the flash offering. I was bummed to find that the webOS doesn’t support video recording. While this isn’t the most expensive smartphone, it lacks features even the nearly free Samsung Reclaim has. There’s a lot of work Palm needs to put into this element of the phone. In my opinion, this was the lowest ranked element of the device. If imaging is important for you, this won’t be the right fit for you.

Battery Life: 4/5 stars
The specifications state about 5 hours of talk time, however I’d say that’s a bit of stretch. Especially if you are someone who’ll be using other features that the phone offers. And if you buy a smartphone, why wouldn’t you? And that’s a good thing. I found myself wanting to use this phone. I would browse the web or try new applications. While there’s a claim of a 350 hour standby, that’s nearly impossible. It might be if you don’t touch your phone at all and have it set not to check for emails or have anything running. But that’s impractical. Though the battery life isn’t as great as a non-Smartphone, it should last through a day just fine. It’s a bit better than what the iPhone offers. It’s especially impressive if you consider how small this phone actually is.

Conclusion:
Palm is definitely back in the game. Both the Palm Pre and Pixi have plenty to offer. It may be under-shadowed by the recent advancements of the Android platform, but I’m sure Palm’s got something in store. The only major drawbacks with this phone would be the exclusion of WiFi and poor Camera. However the hardware, keyboard, webOS, and phone features are all great. It’s definitely a step down from the Palm Pre, but the Pixi is available for a third of the price through many retailers. While that still won’t save you from the necessary data plans, it’s a unique phone that everyone else won’t have. The platform is evolving and it has plenty of potential. A simple software upgrade could give it another boost and that’s something Palm seems to embrace that idea. If you are ready to grab one, it’s available for as low as $25 through Amazon.com for Sprint with a new two-year contract.

Links: Palm.com Pixi | Sprint.com Pixi
Buy: Palm Pixi for $25 on Amazon

Note: I’ll be publishing a review of the Palm Pixi Touchstone Charger Soon!

Verizon Wireless: Motorola Droid

The Motorola Droid is probably the most powerful phone offered through a domestic cell phone carrier. While there may be a few critics, the majority of reviews are favorable about the Droid and tout it as superior to the famous iPhone. While I could go on about the features it sports, here’s a few for starters: Touch Screen, QWERTY Keyboard, WiFi, GPS Navigation, Camera, and plenty more. While that’s my number one choice, if you’re looking for another good alternative on the Verizon Wireless network, check out the HTC Droid Eris. It’s lighter, looks friendlier, and costs a fraction. The Eris will be receiving the Android 2.0 update that the Motorola Droid uses early next year.

Buy: Motorola Droid $150 | HTC Droid Eris $10
Links: Motorola Droid Review | HTC Droid Eris Review

Sprint: Palm Pre

Palm’s device is a fairly new entry into the Smartphone market. After being announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, it made  official debut on Sprint’s network this summer. It runs on Palm’s fresh WebOS that offers multi-tasking, streamlined interface, and organizes your data. There’s even an App Store with a few steps behind the Apple App Store and the Android Marketplace, but still has a good selection. With QWERTY keyboard, WiFi, GPS, and a 3G network, there’s plenty this phone has to offer. If that’s not in your taste, check out the HTC Hero. It was a hard choice deciding between the two, but the HTC Hero was also one of our favorite picks. It also sports all the essential features to make a good Smartphone and will even be getting the Android 2.0 update in the near future.

Buy: Palm Pre $80 | HTC Hero
Links: HTC Hero Review

T-Mobile: myTouch 3G

While T-Mobile is a fairly open network and can accommodate devices such as the iPhone unofficially, they don’t exactly have a best Smartphone. Sure, they offer the HTC Touch Pro2, but that’s not exactly the most ideal device as we pointed out with our review for the Sprint version. While this was a hard call, I would recommend the myTouch 3G. It’s compact, looks good, and has plenty to offer. With a good battery life, 3G network, WiFi, a 3.2 mega pixel camera, and running on the Android OS, it’s definitely a great device. If there’s another device I would recommend, I’d pick the BlackBerry Bold 9700 for business users and the Motorola Cliq if you’re looking for a cheaper Smartphone.

Buy: myTouch 3G $99 | Motorola CLIQ $99

AT&T: Apple iPhone

If I had to choose my favorite smartphone asides from the Motorola Droid, there’s no question it’s the Apple iPhone 3GS. It’s that simple. What’s there the iPhone can’t do? With over 100,000 Apps in the store, you’ll probably never get bored. Despite AT&T scoring last for 3G network quality, there’s always WiFi. With every iPhone supporting software upgrades, it’s fairly future proof. Just keep in mind, rumor has it that a 4th generation iPhone is almost out the door. If security and enterprise features are essential or necessary, the iPhone is probably not the best choice. I’d highly recommend the BlackBerry Bold 9700 as it’s a more traditional business phone. And of course, although not as fancy, it still has a 3.2 mega pixel camera, multimedia player, a web browser, and even an App Store.

Buy: Apple iPhone $200 (16GB) | BlackBerry Bold $0

Unlocked Device: Nokia N900

If there’s a device I’d have to select that isn’t available through any U.S. cell phone carrier, there’s no question that the Nokia N900 is my current pick. In all honesty, I wouldn’t know where to begin with this phone. It seriously has that much to offer. If there’s a feature available on the iPhone or Droid, this phone probably has it or can do it even better. With 3G, WiFi, a slide out keyboard, a 5 megapixel camera (plus another front-facing camera), unrestricted Bluetooth, 32GB of storage, microSD expansion, a Mozilla-based web browser, multitasking, Linux-based Maemo OS, and extensive media file format support, it’s simply a robust device. Unfortunately you won’t get a subsided price when picking one of these up. It’s now goes for about $500 through Amazon.com.

Links: Nokia.com N900 | Skatter Tech N900 Unboxing

This is a part of our ongoing Skatter Tech Holiday Gift Guides.

The Hardware – 4/5 stars
I was quite interested with the Samsung Moment since I first noticed the large display and the physical slide-out keyboard when it was announced. Initially it does appear to be bulky, but once you get handle it for a bit, it’s not too bad. It’s actually not that bulky and relatively light weight too (5.67 oz.) The Moment is coated with a metallic chrome finish that complements the black trim well. Sliding the phone’s keyboard out feels solid, however it is a bit flimsy when slid-out. The two different pieces wiggle slightly. I’m not sure if it was just my unit, but other slide out devices such as the Motorola Droid didn’t have this issue. On the front face you’ll find a physical Call and End button. There’s also the Home, Menu, and Back keys right above a touch pad. It’s a well appreciated alternative to the trackball found on BlackBerry and HTC devices. The optical joystick registers your finger’s touch just like a regular touch pad. I found it worked well and at times more preferable to use than the touch screen. There is a dedicated button on the right side of the phone that brings up voice recognition as well as the camera. On the left side there’s a volume rocker. I was glad to see a standard 3.5mm headphone jack at the top and a flash included with the camera on back. Overall, the phone is definitely a bit larger than other smart phones, but won’t make much of a difference when carrying it around.

The Display - 3/5 stars
The touch display on the Samsung Moment is a 3.2″ AMOLED (320 x 480) wide-screen. When I first used it, it looks just fine. It’s a bit recessed into the phone’s frame, but isn’t an issue. However, once you compare the display to an iPhone or HTC Hero, you’ll be in shock. The colors on the Moment has a blue tint to it while other phones seem to have much warmer colors. It’s still better looking than the display on Sprint’s most expensive device, the HTC Touch Pro2. The screen was slightly lacking in terms of responsiveness. I often had to flick panels or items slower deliberately for it to detect my command properly. The Android OS interface seems to run a bit smoother (less choppy) on the HTC Hero and the Droid Eris. I don’t know if I can attribute that to a display issue, a software bug, or a processor lacking, but it’s there. To sum things up, the screen just doesn’t have that vibrant spark that you sense when you first look at other cell phone displays.

Slide-Out Keyboard - 4/5 stars
Don’t get me wrong, I love my touch-screen device these days, but I often become frustrated with its shortcomings. I sometimes do yearn for the original speed and feel of that physical keyboard. On the Moment I was pretty satisfied with how texting played out on my fingers. The keys are for the most part well mapped out and placed. It did at first take me a while to get used to the bottom row of keys which were positioned slightly to the left. It doesn’t pose much of a problem but you’ll have to tuck your thumb if you need to hit the ‘Z’ or ‘X’ buttons. The keys are well-sized and offer a bit of an edge over a touch-screen keyboard that sometimes won’t register your keystrokes properly. Plus it’s easier to have the physical feel when multitasking and can’t keep your eye on the device at all times.

Camera & Camcorder - 3/5 stars
Something that was left out and that I was longing for with my current phone is a camera with flash to complement it. To that end, the Samsung Moment does oust my HTC Hero. The Samsung moment sports a 3.2 megapixel camera with auto-focus. I took some outdoor shots with the Moment and the iPhone 3GS. The Moment resulted with brighter images, but the colors were slightly washed out. While the colors weren’t as rich as with the iPhone 3GS, it still looked better overall. Unfortunately the viewfinder isn’t as snappy as the iPhone. When held side by side and panning in different directions, the Moment was clearly a fraction of a second behind. The inclusion of the flash definitely does help with dark shots. The largest problem comes in with the software. It lacks any custom settings or features. The only available options are to enable geo-tagging, choose Hi or Low for Video Quality, and enable Flash. There’s not even an auto setting for the Flash. There’s no custom resolutions for images either. Even cheap camera phones offer some special effects and settings, this phone doesn’t. I should not that, it does allow sharing images with web services, email and MMS. There’s also an image crop feature built in. Overall, there’s still a lot of room for improvement for Samsung to do with a future iteration of this phone.

Music, Media and Syncing – 3.5/5 stars
Music playback through the phone’s speakers as well as the standard 3.55mm audio jack both sound great. The jack is protected with a plastic cap cover which I found to be a bit annoying and cheap-looking, nonetheless it’s there. Especially seems like a small complaint, when they finally adopted a standard earphone jack. The Music app that comes with the Moment is fairly basic. There’s no fancy album cover flow features as found on phones like the HTC Hero/Eris. Graphic layout aside, it is easy to navigate through, browsing by albums, artist, and songs. There’s also the standard play all or shuffle all option. Music on the Moment functions well enough and audio quality comes in at an enjoyable level. Being that it is an Android OS phone you have the option of downloading more enticing music apps and services such as Shazam, Pandora, and Last.fm.

User Interface – 3/5 stars
Perhaps I came into this review with the expectation bar set too high , but after using the Samsung Moment’s interface for a few days I began to appreciate the interface on my HTC Hero more. The Sense UI that HTC has customized Android is truly marvelous. On the other hand, the default interface on the Moment is quite bland. The only extra custom widgets are from Sprint and aren’t exactly too attractive. Some even look like 8-bit Nintendo era icons. Well maybe not that bad, but you get my point. There’s just not that WOW factor. That being said the phone does come with some extras. These include an Instant Messaging, Nascar Sprint Cup, NFL Mobile Live, Sprint Navigation, Sprint TV, and a few more. This aspect is quite neat since other Android devices from competing providers don’t include these features by default. I also did all my data syncing with Google this time around. I was able to instantly pull in my Calendar, Contacts, and Email from the ‘cloud’. The Google features worked smoothly.

Battery Life - 3/5 stars
Just like with my current HTC Hero I feel that the Moment is a bit pressed on battery life. The projected 5.5 hours of continuous talk time is a bit ambitious. I felt as though I reached a lot for the charger through my day-to-day tests. I would recommend having most services turned off  when not in use (GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth). This will just mean not checking your email and Facebook updates as often throughout your day. Additionally, I would consider the option of investing a little money in a portable external battery to take with you if you do run a little low on juice. That being said, most smart phones are known for their horrible battery life. The Moment isn’t an exception. Even the famous iPhone 3GS gets rendered useless in no time.

Bottom Line
My initial reaction to the Samsung Moment was definitely positive curiosity. After spending time over my week with it, to be quite honest there were definitely some shortcomings. None that would at all impede the average user who just needs a little bit more control over the features of their phone. The physical keyboard adds a nice functional flair to the phone and will be likely appealing to the heavy texting crowd. I know I voiced my complaint over the interface to be bit a little bit lacking as well as the battery life, but when it works, it does just about everything you want it to do. The display’s colors was a bit odd to get used too, but if you don’t have another device to compare it with, you won’t notice. The Samsung Moment comes packaged with Micro-USB charger, Headphones, and Micro-USB transfer cable and documentation. I would have to say that the Moment is a mid-range Android phone. It certainty isn’t as well designed as the Sprint HTC Hero. Even the Palm Pre offers a lot more for nearly the same price. Speaking of cost, the Samsung Moment will run you about $179 with a new 2-year agreement after a $100 mail-in-rebate.

DEAL: Samsung Moment for $80
Links: Sprint.com Samsung Moment

Interestingly enough, the majority of iPhone owners on AT&T stated that they would buy it again if they had the choice. The real question is whether they would be willing to buy it with AT&T if it were also available through another carrier. The answer for me is: YES. Here’s why:

Just this past weekend, after spending time with family in the Bay Area (San Jose, CA), I drove back up to the Sacramento Area (Davis, CA). I had both my Apple iPhone running on AT&T and the Motorola Droid on Verizon Wireless. The Droid was able to provide voice-guided turn-by-turn directions and even display satellite and street views. My friend, also in the car, was able to multi-task and use the web browser with no issues. We randomly joked about the I Am T-Pain App for the iPhone. So we decided to buy it. It took nearly 10 tries and over an hour before it finished downloading. While I made a quick stop in the Berkeley Area, the iPhone couldn’t place calls, load Google.com in the Web Browser, or even finish downloading that App. AT&T’s network just didn’t work. It interestingly even displayed full signal, plus or minus one bar. My iPhone 3GS was fully charged and has all the latest updates. The Motorola Droid on the other hand breezed through any issues, other than for one or two brief “GPS signal loss” messages. While the unit did get somewhat warm and loose battery quickly due to heavy processing from the Google Maps Navigation App, it simply worked seamlessly with the Verizon Wireless network.

While I haven’t used Sprint’s or T-Mobile’s networks nearly as much, they are both outperforming AT&T as well. I have never heard too many complains about those two either. If you buy a Cell Phone, you should be able to make calls with it. Unfortunately that’s where the problem lies with my iPhone tied to AT&T. If I had the choice of purchasing a smartphone today, I’d definitely get the Motorola Droid no questions asked. If the iPhone were also available on Verizon, I might have a debate with myself to decide which to buy. For now, it’s probably best to stick with Verizon Wireless if you can.

Related Links: Consumer Reports

The Body – 3/5 stars
HTC kept the front Touch Pro2 clean and simple. There’s a large 3.6 inch resistive touch screen, a touch zoom strip, and physical keys for Send, End, Start Menu, and Back on front. Along the sides, there’s a completely flush volume toggle button. A slot to store the stylus for the display is in the bottom right hand corner of the device. The proprietary USB charging port is right besides a standard 3.5mm headphone jack on the bottom. It also supports up to 32GB microSD expansion, but no card is included, which is a bit dissapointing. If I had to describe this phone with a quote, it would be: “Business in the front, party in the back.” While not describing a mullet for once, the clean-cut front is offset by an odd array of square perforations on the back surrounding the camera and an oddly placed microphone button. Although these perforations may be able to collect dust, they’re actually openings for the fairly respectable built-in speaker. There’s a full-sized QWERTY keyboard that slides out from under the display. Once extended, the screen can actually prop up at an angle, similar to a laptop. Although it is a neat way place on a flat surface to watch Sprint TV, I felt as though it just made the entire mechanism weaker was quite awkward to use when held. I also should mention this phone is huge. It’s thicker and weighs more than just about any smartphone I’ve come across. It’s at least 0.2 inches thicker than the HTC Eris and weighs about 2 ounces more than the HTC Hero. While there’s a demographic that’s needs this type of a phone, I would imagine that most consumers would prefer carrying a more compact device.

The Keyboard – 4/5 stars
The QWERTY keyboard has large buttons which have a “papery” feel. For some this means comfort, for others it may come off as cheap. While the 5 rows of keys were well spaced out, it would have been nice for them to have a more positive “click” when typing. While most phones have an on-screen indicator for Caps Lock and Function modifiers, the Touch Pro2 had real LED indicators as found on traditional keyboards. There’s also a sensor that turns on the back lighting when dark.

Speakers & Headphones – 4/5 stars
In regards to speakers and all things audio, the HTC Touch Pro2 does not disappoint. With decent reception, all calls sounded clear with through the earpiece. It was difficult to use this phone in even moderately loud areas as audio gets drowned out since the ear piece volume doesn’t get loud enough. It would be preferable to have a louder earpiece that needs to be turned down than having to struggle at max volume. Fortunately the speaker on the back is excellent. It’s just as clear a the earpiece, but the speaker-phone mode gets pretty loud. It’s not just for phone calls, but quality was quite impressive for both listening to music and watching Sprint TV. While it may not be the best for audiophiles like me, lacking punchy lows and articulate highs, the average business user won’t even notice.

The Display – 3/5 stars
As with any smartphone these days, the most notable feature is the display. The HTC Touch Pro2 sports a 480×800 pixel WVGA (Wide-VGA) resistive touch screen. Resistive touch screens utilize  layers of conductive material that registers inputs when pressed with either a finger or stylus. Unfortunately this is now a fairly old technology and is quite frankly being replaced by more advance multi-touch capacitive display technologies such as the one on the Sprint HTC Hero. Some people living in colder areas often prefer styluses since capacitive displays, such as the one found on the iPhone, will not work when wearing gloves. The downside of the Touch Pro2’s display includes needing to figure out how hard to press on the display, lack of multi-touch, and it can get activated and accept inputs while in your pocket. The phone ended up accidentally dialing a few of my contacts. Despite that, it was still quite accurate and I rarely missed an item or key when put to use.

Operating System – 2/5 stars
The HTC Touch Pro2 runs on Windows Mobile 6.1. The most recent version of Windows Mobile, 6.5, just missed being available for this phone by a few months. The use of Windows Mobile is also the reason the phone uses a resistive display rather than a capacitive one. It just doesn’t support it yet. For the most part the operating system can adequately handle all of the HTC Touch Pro2’s features, but it’s far from being the fastest or most efficient mobile operating systems out there. It’s just too hard to even begin to explain how much further and advance competing operating systems such as Google’s Android, Apple’s iPhone OS, and Palm’s WebOS are. While HTC has added a beautiful TouchFLO 3D interface to overlay the outdated Windows Mobile interface, you still run into those menus and pages. It’s often sluggish to respond when switching through menus, opening programs, and even performing general tasks. It’s simply not as initiative as the next generations of mobile operating systems that are now available. HTC’s hardware is great as we’ve seen on the Hero and Sprint’s network is fairly reliable, it’s the outdated software that’s holding this device back. No one want’s to look at or use “Windows 98″-esque menus.

Sprint TV – 5/5 stars
One feature Sprint touts with this phone is their popular Sprint TV application. It offers numerous channels from Disney to motorcycle racing. It should have something for just about everyone. There’s even live TV for the major channels and full length episodes for primetime shows. To enable Sprint TV, you must first, annoyingly, disconnect from Wi-Fi networks. It only works with Sprint’s 3G network. I can’t possibly imagine why both can’t work in coexistence, but I’ll blame it on the Windows Mobile OS. Despite that, Sprint TV was quite impressive. Even with low reception, I had a crisp and clear image and smooth audio. While AT&T and Verizon are in a war over 3G coverage area, I should note that Sprint’s 3G network is also impressively quite fast. Plus, I’m eager to test their new 4G network.

Wi-Fi & Web Browser – 2/5 stars
I faced issues a couple of times logging into a secured WiFi network that requires authentication through a browser. After several repeated attempts, it finally worked. Once connected, signal strength was quite strong. However it was a bit of a painful process compared to other smartphones that will have you connected in a click or two. I was also unimpressed with the built in browser. It’s behind in several ways: speed, compatibility, and navigation. It takes longer to render pages than on other devices. Even once rendered, it has issues displaying many web pages that work just fine on the browsers on the iPhone, Droid, and Palm. Navigating wasn’t much easier. With out the increasingly popular pinch-to-zoom function, you’ll need to resort to using the touch sensitive strip below the display. Scrolling through pages was not as snappy as other mobile browsers either.

The Camera – 2/5 stars
Should you ever need to use your James Bond-like reflexes to whip out the HTC Touch Pro2’s camera to snap a license plate number, you’re better off not even trying. It takes way too long to load. And even when you’re in the viewfinder mode, it’s still laggy. While the HTC Eris’s 5 megapixel camera performed impressively well, the HTC Touch Pro2’s 3.2 megapixel camera looked about as clear as a 1 megapixel camera on my ancient Audiovox phone. Even with auto-focus, capturing a quality image of an object only a yard away proved difficult. Seeing how far camera technology has progressed, the results of this camera was quite disappointing. While it can record video, I won’t bother explaining that.

Messaging – 4/5 stars
Text messaging and email both worked smoothly on the HTC Touch Pro2. Email was easy to set up and updated itself as scheduled. POP, IMAP, and MS Exchange are supported. Emails are displayed as physical envelopes and are neat to interact with. Replying to messages was easy, but switching between messages required a bit of fidgeting with the touchscreen or the help of the stylus. Text messaging are displayed in a thread format continuing off of the last message sent in the conversation. While it didn’t offer great interface that the HTC Hero does, the HTC Touch Pro2 did prove functional.

GPS Navigation – 0/5
If you are looking for a device to replace a traditional car mounted or built-in navigation system, the HTC Touch Pro2 isn’t the answer. Although the HTC Touch Pro2 advertises GPS Navigation, it’s far from delivering it reasonably. I tried to get the GPS to locate my position, but just about every attempt failed even after trying from many different areas. I repeatedly saw a “Signal reception is poor, please go outside and stand still.” Even if it connected, I wouldn’t be standing still when driving. While the Touch Pro2 repeatedly had issues, the Google Maps app on the HTC Hero worked perfectly in the same locations at the same time. Compared to the navigator on the Motorola Droid which has voice commands, voice-guided turn-by-turn directions, satellite/street views, traffic data, and much more, this phone seems like it’s in the stone age.

Battery Life & Charging – 4/5 stars
The battery life on the HTC Touch Pro2 proved to last about a day and a half with normal use. I would make  some calls, read some emails, send a few texts, load some web pages and show off the Sprint TV on average. This is about average for a smartphone, nothing impressive. Once you receive the low battery notification, you have about 10 minutes before the phone powers itself off. The devices claims about 6 hours of talk time and it sounds about right. Standby is apparently 11 days, but even with slight use, you won’t get nearly as much. You need to charge the phone with the included USB cable. I liked the modular feature since it can connect either to your computer or the port on the AC adapter. I do wish HTC used a miniUSB or now standard microUSB port instead.

Bottom Line:
Overall the HTC Touch Pro2 is a great phone for business users. It has many of the features to be a mobile office in your pocket. The most important aspect, calls sounded great and signal strength was stronger than on other Sprint devices. The build quality is fairly good and the QWERTY keyboard is useful for composing messages. It’s still nowhere as intuitive or “fun” of a device compared to competing smartphones, but that’s mainly due to Windows Mobile 6.1 being truly outdated. The HTC Touch Pro2 also has the largest touch screen Sprint offers. I wouldn’t recommend this phone to just anyone. It will run you nearly $349 with a new two-year contract, making it the most expensive phone Sprint currently offers. It’s not for average dad, mom, or student. They will find the HTC Hero a much more pleasurable device. However for business users, it’s probably one of the best phones out there.

Links: Sprint.com HTC Touch Pro2

While you are waiting for the review of the Droid Eris to go live, please feel free to subscribe to our RSS Feed or sign up for Email Subscriptions. If you haven’t heard, we’re also on Facebook and Twitter!

UPDATE: Droid Eris Review is here!

Body Design: 4/5 stars
Keeping with the environmental theme, the Samsung Reclaim is available to customers in two colors: “Ocean Blue” and “Earth Green”. Although the colors are quite bright and standout, it has a nice glossy feel and texture. Plus, it stands out and is a nice change from the standard black and silver trimmed phones that most phones have today. The Reclaim has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, which is great for texting. Although they keys were somewhat narrow and cramped, it should be fine after some getting used to. There are dedicated left/right soft keys and send/end buttons. A speakerphone key, okay, and back key are also included. The large size and color almost reminded me of Fisher Price toys, but they are solid and comfortable. There’s also a volume rocker and a camera shutter key on the side. I was also truly surprised to see a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, which even some smartphones launched earlier this year didn’t offer. There’s also a standard microSD card expansion and an micro USB port concealed under a plastic cover. Other than that, sliding out the keyboard reveals a 2 megapixel camera on the back. The device is fairly compact to fit into just about any pocket.

Display and Interface: 4/5 stars
The Samsung Reclaim sports a 2.6-inch QVGA 320×240 pixel display. Although the colors and graphics aren’t stunning, it’s appropriate for a phone in this price range. The phone uses Sprint’s fairly new “One Click” user interface. Everything is controlled by the directional pad and text entry with the slide-out QWERTY keyboard. The UI is well polished, fairly responsive, and even has an “eco-friendly theme” incorporated. It’s fast to navigate, easy to use, and you’ll find the usual array of address book, calendar, world/alarm clock, calculator, memo, and stopwatch programs. Furthermore, there is even a chat client (AIM, Live, Yahoo), Facebook, MySpace, and a Mobile Email client. Although the Web Browser isn’t anything to get excited about, staying informed and even updating Twitter statuses is painless.

Camera: 3/5 stars
I didn’t expect too much out of the Reclaim’s camera when I picked it up. The quality is mediocre, images lacked color and were a bit blurred even with a steady hand. I did like the dedicated capture key on the side, which was convenient. The max capture resolution is 1600 x 1200 pixels. Fortunately, the user interface was quite impressive. It has plenty of options including self-timers, brightness setting, custom tones, night shot, and a few other fun features. The phone surprisingly also offered the ability to share images by uploading Facebook or Flickr as well as MMS. The Reclaim can also capture videos, however quality isn’t any better than taking photos. A newer iteration could use a few improvements.

Music Playback & Sync: 3.5/5 stars
The multimedia features were quite impressive for a phone in this price range. With a standard headphone jack and microSD expansion, this can easily be turned into a fairly decent MP3 player. Although the included card was unfortunately only 512MB, picking up a 8GB microSD is just $20. The phone supports playback of most major formats (MP3, AAC, & WMA) including support for Amazon MP3 and iTunes Plus Tracks. Transferring media over is quite simple with a micro USB cable, which I wish Sprint had included with the packaging. The Samsung Reclaim also has access to Sprint’s Music Store. It’s also compatible with Stereo Bluetooth Headsets such as the Jabra Halo.

Phone Calls + Texting: 4/5 stars
The most important feature of any phone is making calls. The Samsung Reclaim fell a bit short compared to other devices with slightly worse signal strength. Despite that it didn’t lack on quality for the most part. The person on the other end could hear me just fine. The speaker phone was a bit choppy at times. The phone battery can last through about 6 hours worth of calls with a full charge. When not in use, it should last at least 2-3 days on standby. Plus, with a full QWERTY keyboard messaging others is quite a snap. It was quick to send text messages and even using the instant messaging features.

Environmental Benefits: 5/5 stars
If I wasn’t told this was a recycled phone, I wouldn’t have known. The build quality is pretty impressive and it’s actually better than many other phones in this price range. If there’s a way to get people to “Go Green,” this is one of those. While most eco-friendly devices are over priced or lack on features, the Samsung Reclaim doesn’t linger on either. Sprint has taken the initiative to cut down on technology wastes in the next several ears. Along with Samsung, they managed to manufacture a device from bio-plastic, making the phone 80% recyclable. Even the packaging is entirely recycled materials and the printed ink is from soy-based materials. Although cell phone chargers don’t consume much power, Samsung even emphasized on the Energy Star approved AC Adapter. The phone is also pre-loaded with a number of links to Guides to living a healthy eco-friendly lifestyle. Sprint also donates a few dollars of the proceeds made with each sale to programs that help benefit the environment.

Bottom Line:
While most people are caught up in the smartphone trend, devices and initiatives such as these are often overlooked. Non-smartphones such as this Samsung Reclaim still account for the vast majority of mobile phone market share. The price is probably the best part. It’s available for just $49 with a new two-year contract. It’s probably even free if you are eligible for an upgrade. This phone has just about all the features an expensive top of the line device had just a year or two ago. I wouldn’t recommend this phone for Business or tech savvy customers, however it’s beyond excellent for students, those on a budget, or those looking for an environmentally friendly device. The Reclaim doesn’t sacrifice any important features. I would definitely love to see Sprint push this initiative further and apply it to even the smartphones that are becoming increasingly popular. If you are looking for a new device to make calls, text, and even to listen to music, definitely take a look at Sprint’s Samsung Reclaim.

Deal: Samsung Reclaim for FREE
Links: Sprint.com – Samsung Reclaim

The Hardware: 5/5 stars
Although the HTC Hero shares similar elements of style from it’s European predecessor, this model has a new and revised body. The distinctive bottom lip (Jay Leno chin?) that characterized the original Hero has been replaced with a more traditional rounded edge. I never spent much time handling the chin-ed version, but I’m satisfied with the comfort the new HTC Hero offers. There’s a large illuminated trackball centered below the display. A send and end button are on the far left and right of the bottom portion, respectively. A Menu and Home key are on the left of the trackball while the search and back key are on the right. The mini USB port is on the bottom, the camera is centered on the top portion of the back side, and the headphone jack is on the top of the phone. The trackball was quite responsive and the inclusion of physical keys for answer and ending calls suited my taste. The phone isn’t the most fancy device on the market by any means, but it’s smoke gray coat with gun-metal accents look elegant. The phone’s also has a great grip to it and feels durable enough to survive a few small drops.

Touch Screen Display: 4/5 stars
The HTC Hero features a 3.2 inch 320×480 HVGA display. I should note that this is one of the few Android devices that supports multi-touch gestures. Even the Motorola Droid on Verizon lacks it. The screen is pretty bright and sharp. It isn’t extraordinary, but meets the standard of other smartphone displays. The default touch sensitivity was just right and was quite responsive. Since the phone doesn’t have a physical keyboard, the on-screen keyboard is the only option. It takes a bit of getting used to especially if you are moving over from a device that had a physical QWERTY keyboard. Even with a bit of practice, it’s still isn’t as easy to use as the virtual keyboard on an iPhone. The screen is a bit smaller and slower to respond. Photos and Videos either captured by the phone or transferred over all looked great on the display.

Battery Life: 2.5/5 stars
After using the phone for about a week or so, I have become quite disappointed with the battery life. A full charge should be able to last at least a full day. And of course, bearing in mind that you only run a fair amount of applications at a time. I found myself having to cut back down on checking emails, refreshing Facebook, and browsing Twitter just to save enough charge. Although HTC claims 5 hours of talk time and 360 hours of standby, I can testify that it didn’t last nearly as long. I did however see standby time improve after disabling the GPS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, however features such as those are what make this phone a good phone. I feel as though improvements could be made as easily as by releasing a software upgrade to manage power usage better.

User Interface: 4/5 stars
The user interface is a distinguishable factor of the phone. Dubbed “HTC Sense”, the interface is composed of seven customizable panels. These provide a wrap around panoramic view of everything going on. The panels are fully customizable offering you the power to select which widgets or application shortcuts appear. I found that the preloaded layout to be quite adequate for the average user, but it’s fun and useful to spend a few minutes and pick the things that fit your needs and taste. I wish more freedom was offered to rearrange items on the home screen. Overall, the interface looks quite wonderful, colorful, and exciting. Plus the widgets offer plenty of information on those panels without even having to open applications. The HTC Hero runs on v1.5 of the Android OS, but rumor states that an upgrade to the v2.0 OS will be possible in the near future.

Messaging + Email: 4/5 stars
The preloaded messaging app has a solid set of features. For SMS, it displays history of conversations between you and your contacts. Following a threaded message is more convenient than a mess most phones call an inbox. The default options such as quick text and attaching files are available. Unlike the the iPhone prior to the 3.0 OS, the Android supports copy and paste. Multimedia messaging worked seamlessly with Sprint’s network. Although the casual texter should be satisfied with the default app and a quick search on the Android Market will uncover more powerful messaging tools for the power users. Email on the Hero was quite remarkable. The setup process was easy and I didn’t have any configuration issues with any of the accounts I added in. The Mail App even provides the ability to consolidate multiple email accounts into a single view. Emails can also be tagged or labeled for organization. The Android 2.0 OS takes it a step further with more features, but even the current version offers just about all the features anyone would want on a mobile device.

Camera + Camcorder: 4.5/5 stars
The HTC Hero offers a powerful 5.0 megapixel camera with auto-focus. Unfortunately, a flash is missing and would have been a welcome addition. Photos can be shot in either landscape or portrait mode. Images max out at resolution of 2560×1920 pixels. There are a number of other features found in the setting including self-timer and timestamps. Photos in your library can also be easily uploaded to web services including Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. The camcorder functions almost as well. It wasn’t remarkable, but decent for a phone. Recorded videos can also be uploaded to YouTube or shortened clips can be sent out through a MMS.

Music: 5/5 stars
The Hero comes preloaded with an easy to use and functional music app. A widget displays the album cover and offers a few basic controls. Tapping on it will launch the full application. There’s a cover flow view similar to what iPods offer. There’s also a list view which allows browsing by Artists, Albums, and Genres. The phone even has a built in tool to create custom ring tones with your own music, take that iPhone! Sound quality through the speaker was decent. The quality with standard headphones plugged into a 3.5mm headphone jack is a lot better. No cumbersome headphone adapters required! And since Android can handle multitasking, you can do just about anything else you want while listening to music. This is especially handy with Pandora. Once again, iPhone can’t do that either. The Hero utilizes Amazon MP3 as it’s primary music store just as the iPhone does with iTunes.

App Store: 4/5 stars
The Android Market offers over 10,000 applications. That may sound like a lot, but that’s still a 10% of the 100,000 found in Apple’s App Store. Despite that, the quality of the applications I found were quite impressive. The interface allowed an easy way to browse, find, or search for programs. The reviews and ratings also help making decisions towards purchasing paid ones. Installation is as easy as tapping a button. The Android Market continues to grow and I’m fairly confident that with more Android-based phones hitting the market, there will be even more quality applications coming along.

Other Features: 5/5 stars
The web browser is fairly powerful and is close to what the Palm Pre and Apple iPhone offer. It utilizes the same pinch gesture to zoom in and out of web pages. There’s a tabbed interface to browse through different pages. Although it jerks at times, it isn’t too much of an issue. If you have decent amount of signal, pages load fairly quickly on Sprint’s 3G network. Plus with WiFi built in, everything becomes a whole lot faster. I was happy with the GPS performance on the Hero and the ability to use two very powerful navigation tools is a huge advantage over some other phones. Other features like the Sprint TV and Navigation package is a very nice benefit for being with Sprint. With Sprint’s Everything Data plans you have unlimited access to both.

Bottom Line:
The HTC Hero is a powerful smartphone and has a lot to offer. The hardware is excellent and the Android software is truly flexible. If you are currently in the market for a new phone, I would highly recommend taking a look at the Hero. I would definitely rank the Hero as one of Sprint’s best phones along with the Palm Pre. I wouldn’t suggest it for customers that aren’t tech-savvy, want a cheap plan, or don’t need business features. The packaging includes an AC adapter, a USB cable, a 2GB micro SD card, and documentation. If you are ready to grab one, it’s priced at $179.99 with a new 2-yr contract.

Links: Sprint.com HTC Hero | HTC.com HTC Hero Info

The Pixie shares a lot from Pre, but has a few changes. The form factor is similar to BlackBerry-esque single candy-bar device. The Palm Pre has a slide out keyboard. The display is a bit smaller, but still is a fully capable multi-touch interface. The Pixie will also be compatible with the Touchstone cable-free charger. There will even be new and updated social networking applications including an upgraded version of Facebook. A new version of Synergy which syncs contacts with all your networks, will also connect with Yahoo. The biggest difference might be the lack of WiFi. Despite that, Palm hopes to reach a larger market by introducing another webOS device with a new form factor at a lower price-point.

Links: Sprint.com | Palm.com Pixie

In the meantime, subscribe to our RSS Feed or Email Notifications to be one of the first to see the reviews. If you have a Facebook or Twitter account, you can find us over there as well!

Links: Sprint.com

The Apple iPhone will be getting another competitor very soon with the launch of the Samsung Instinct for Sprint. The phone features a large 3.1 inch touch-screen display with tactile feedback to improve the interface experience. The Samsung Instinct utilizes Sprint’s network to allow owners access to GPS Navigation with Traffic, Live Search, Sprint TV, and Sprint’s Music Store. In addition the phone features EV-DO Rev. A, which means it can be used as a modem with your computer brining speeds of up to 3.1 Mbps for downloads and 1.8 Mbps for uploads.

“Instinct brings customers what they want with the immediacy they want. Every decision during the development process focused on simplifying the user experience,” said John Garcia, Senior VP of Product Development and CMO for Sprint. “The end result is a great-looking phone that makes the value of Sprint’s fast NOW Network come to life, but most importantly, it is fun and easy to use.”

The phone also takes some moves out of the iPhone’s play book with features such as visual voicemail, but also has stuff the iPhone lacks such as a powerful voice-activated dialing and actions. The Samsung Instinct sports a POP3 client, multi-tasking capabilities, Bluetooth 2.0, a web browser, a 2.0 mega pixel camera/camcorder, and micoSD expansion of up 8GB. For convenience the phone uses a standard 3.5mm headphone jack and a standard USB cable for syncing music/data. Sprint has not yet set decided on either the pricing or the date for this phone, however we do know that monthly plans will begin at roughly $70 which might be a bit too much for most consumers. There’s a lot of iPhone-like phones coming out, not to say that the iPhone was entirely original either, but most of them such as the LG Voyager have failed to perform in most factors.

Links: Samsung Instinct From Sprint (nowisgood.com)
Download: Samsung Instinct Data Sheet (.pdf)

Yesterday LG Electronics announced the availability of their new phone titled “Rumor” for Sprint customers. The LG Rumor sports a full QWERTY keyboard, email access, and instant messaging services (AIM, MSN, & Yahoo!). The phone also boasts access to social news websites such as Facebook. The unit is available in white with silver or black with blue.

“We are excited to introduce Rumor by LG because it is great-looking, easy-to-use and very affordable,” said Danny Bowman, Sprint VP of Product Development

The LG Rumor will also support Sprint’s new messaging services which allows sending texts to landlines phones. (recipient hears the text in audio) Other neat features include a built-in fully functioning GPS navigation system with on screen turn-by-turn directions. As for now standard features it includes a 1.3 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, microSD (4GB), MP3 player, and access to Sprint’s music store.

The Rumor by LG will be available later this month for $79.99 after a 2-year-contract and a $50 mail-in rebate. It’s going to be interesting to see how this stands up to LG’s enV which we reviewed last year. LG is also releasing an iPhone competitor, the Voyager, which is being launched on Verizon’s network and will be easily over double the price of the Rumor. We’ll try to get a hold of one of these so check back!

Links: LG Rumor FactSheet | Sprint.com
Related: Sprint LG Muziq (Review)

If you are a long-time Verizon Wireless customer, you should be quite aware that you have the ability to upgrade your cell phone every two years. Normally customers were offered a total of $100 towards a new phone if they agree to sign another two year contract with Verizon and had maintained a monthly plan of $30 or more. However this is no longer the case. With Verizon Wireless’s “New Every Two” plan, pretty much everyone with any sort of contract has to pay more to upgrade to a new device.

The new plan goes as follows: If a customer has had a monthly plan of $35 or more for 2 years , they then now qualify for only $50 towards a new phone after signing another 2 year contract instead of the previous $100. To receive a total of a $100 towards a new phone, as it was before, the customer must be paying at least $80 or more for their monthly plan for the entire two years or the last three months before becoming eligible to upgrade. Even though some may be eligible to get a $100, they will still be stuck with a new contract. In addition those who are thinking because of their family plan, everyone can new phones, WRONG, only the primary line will be eligible.

Verizon, in their defense, claims that the cost of cell phones has been “drastically” dropping over the last 10 years. I have to agree that prices of any electronic gadget does drop over time as it becomes cheaper to produce. BUT when the price of the new popular Motorola RAZR 2, which will be a hit during the holiday season, is on sale at a price of $250 with yet another 2 year contract, I have to disagree. What do you guys think? Is Sprint, Cingular, or T-Mobile handset upgrades any better?

Links: Verizon Wireless New Very Two | FAQs

Last week Sprint announced the availability of LG Muziq (LX-570), the successor to last year’s Fusic. To begin with, the main feature that sets this phone apart from others is the built-in FM transmitter, which allows broadcasting music muziq to your car stereo wirelessly! We’ve been messing with the phone for about a week and we have been pleased with its overall performance.

LG LX-570 Specifications:

• Provider: Sprint (1.9GHz/800MHz CDMA)
• Form Factor: Flip Phone w/ external controls
• Dimensions: 3.80H x 1.94W x 0.61D (inches)
• Weight / Battery: 3.14 oz / 4hrs talk-time
• Screens: Internal 176×220 | External 128×160
• Camera: 1.3 mega pixel camera w/ flash
• Storage: microSD up to 4GB (64MB included)
• Others: Bluetooth v1.1 | Multitasking Capable
• Special: FM Transmitter (88.1-107.9 MHz)
• Price: $80 via Sprint w/ New Plan

LG Muziq Body: 3.5/5 stars
The Muziq is a major improvement, when compared to its bulky predecessor the Fusic. The LX-570 is slim, compact, easy to hold, shiny, and lightweight. The Muziq shares a similar appearance with the LG VX8600 Chocolate flip-phone. Now for the drawback, the phone’s glossy finish attracts TONs of fingerprints and dust. The keypad’s buttons are nice and large for easy typing, however since they are flat typing without looking at the device becomes difficult. We also hated the fact that the volume toggle and camera buttons (side keys) were awkwardly placed on the upper portion of the phone, besides the screen, making them hard to reach. Finally the power port (also the data port) can be found on the left, while the microSD slot and the 2.5mm headphone jack are on the right.

Music Playback: 4/5 stars
You’d expect a phone called the “Muziq” to have a set of stereo speakers, but for some reason it doesn’t. After formatting the microSD card and loading about a 100 songs, the phone was able to get right into playing songs within a few seconds. The external display didn’t display album art, but showed the song name and artist. The main problem we found was that the UI for browsing through your songs was not exactly well developed. All songs are lined up in one long alphabetical list. (no search function) Since I had a 100 songs, it would take a 100 clicks to get to the last one. Although the phone allows sorting by albums, it’s still a mess. Sprint seriously needs to develop a new UI which is something like the ones available on most Verizon phones today. This means a decent search function as well as the ability to browse by albums, artists, genres, and songs neatly. The online music store has a large selection of music and songs can be purchased over the air for just $.99!

Displays: 4/5 stars
Both the inner and outer displays are decent. The inner screen’s resolution (176×220 pixels) could have been higher, but doesn’t look bad. The outer screen is excellent mainly because it is much larger than the external displays found on most flip-phones. One thing we didn’t like was that we couldn’t find a way to reduce or increase the screen’s brightness.

Speakers: 3/5 stars
Once again for a phone that’s called the Muziq, you’d expect it to have a set of built-in stereo speakers (it doesn’t) . The quality is decent, however it begins to crack at loud levels. The speaker preformed pretty well during voice calls. The speakers aren’t the greatest for music, but if you use a set of bluetooth stereo headsets or even a wired one using the included stereo headset adapter, quality isn’t a problem.

Digital Camera: 4/5 stars
Although most phones will have a 2.0 megapixel camera by the end of this year, the Muziq still has a 1.3MP one. The photo quality was mediocre since the image was a bit blurry and colors were washed out. The camcorder allows recording clips of unlimited length (limited by the storage space), however only clips under 20 second can be mailed. The phone also has a neat little LED light which can be enabled while recording video clips. (same light flashes for photos) The camera and camcorder have a set common set of light filters, color tones. Self portraits can be taken via the external screen.

Interface: 5/5 stars
Ignoring the music playback portion of the UI, the rest works smoothly. Although the original “Sprint” theme enabled when the phone is first turned on looks horrendously ugly, the included “LG” theme is a lifesaver. The colors, fonts, text size, and icons all look great. The menus load up smoothly and quickly without any delay. The interfaces for the browser, call history, messaging, contacts, and settings are neatly laid out as well.

MicroSD and Sync: 5/5 stars
The microSD storage works like a charm and access to the card is easy. In addition as a BONUS the LX-570 supports the use of 4GB microSD cards, while most phones on the market still are limited to 2GB. When the included USB data cable is plugged in a menu pops up on the Muziq prompting to either Sync Music, become a Mass Storage device (a thumbdrive!), or function as a Modem. Sprint also bundles a CD with some software and drivers for Windows in case the phone isn’t recognized by your computer when connected. Syncing music with Windows Media Player 11 worked perfectly. Mac OS X users will need to directly transfer music to the microSD card using a SD card reader. Deals: 2GB microSD just $20

Bluetooth: 3/5 stars
While most phones being released today are now using Bluetooth v2.0, the Muziq is still using v1.1. (not even v1.2) Despite this it successfully paired with the Samsung WEP200, a Lexus IS250’s built-in handsfree system, and a HP dv6500t laptop. In addition it also supports the use of wireless stereo headsets. The only problem we had was that getting the devices to pair was a bit confusing. Unlike normal bluetooth phones and devices the Muziq first requires adding a found device to a “trusted list.” Then only after this can the two devices be paired by entering a pin.

FM Transmitter: 4/5 stars
To clarify for those who didn’t read the “FM” portion, the LG Muziq has a FM transmitter not a FM tuner. This means that you can broadcast the music on your phone to radios, however you will NOT have the ability to tune into your favorite stations. The most common use of this feature is to play your phone’s music through your car’s stereo. If you plan to do this a lot, you should probably purchase a car charger since battery life will drop drastically. The transmission feature works as advertised. Only annoyance we found was trying to find a clear frequency to broadcast on because it required us to go through multiple menus to try each station. (Once it’s set there won’t be any more hassle.) Transmission quality was clear and it worked best when within 5ft range of the radio.

External Controls: 5/5 stars
The touch sensitive buttons work as well. To activate the controls the keypad lock must be deactivated by holding down the camera button. Once activated, when a touch-sensitive button is pressed the phone vibrates providing feedback to the user. When playing music The red backlight is bright and the buttons are clearly visible. Only problem is that it takes a bit of getting used to since you keep hitting the wrong button when trying to navigate.

Email Client: 5/5 stars
We added this new category because this was one of the first phones we’ve seen of this price range to include a built-in push email client. Setup is extremely easy for average users since the phone already knows all the mail servers for AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo!, and Gmail, therefore only requiring a username and password. POP and IMAP users may enter their server information and login. The simple email client loads only a small amount of text/links. You will still need to get to a computer to view any images or other media. Accounts can be setup to push new messages to your phone as they reach your inbox or to be manually checked. The client also supports replying and sending new messages consisting of only plain text.

Other Info:
Sprint bundles a good amount of accessories along with the phone and the charger. They include a USB data cable for syncing music and other files, A adapter with a microphone for use with standard headsets, and a 64MB microSD card and SD adapter. The phone’s signal strength was also impressive and was one of the better ones we’ve had in a while (It maintained at least 2 bars in places where we usually get disconnected). The phone has a contact backup feature which is now becoming quite common for new phones. We were instantly able to retrieve all the contacts from a previous Sprint phone we had instantly from their network (Only downside is the $2/month). Another bonus with this phone is the ability to use J2ME apps. This allows access to a ton of free applications such as Google Earth, Gmail, GPS Navigators, Pandora, and thousands more!

Overall in a sentence this phone is pretty good for the price you pay, but isn’t exactly the best music player. Even cheaper phones from other service providers like Verizon have better playback interfaces. Also unless you really need a phone that’s got a built in FM transmitter, there are plenty of better phones available. I’d personally purchase a better phone and then buy a cheap FM transmitter to go along with it. This phone is now available from Sprint.com for $79 with a new 2 year contract and after a $50 Mail in Rebate. It’s a good deal considering the included a microSD card, USB cable, and headset adapter.

DEAL ALERT: LG Muziq for FREE! (w/ new Sprint Contract)
Links: Sprint.com | LG LX-570 Fact Card
Offical Product Shot: Front Side | Flipped Open
Help & Support: fourms.skattertech.com

Last week Sprint announced the availability of the Samsung UpStage (aka SPH-M620). Sprint was kind enough to provide Skatter Tech with a unit for review. The dual-sided UpStage is notable due to having a phone on one side and a iPod-like Mp3 player on the other.

Although the phone is extremely compact, at first glance, the front side of the phone looks dull due to the tiny LCD display. However everything changes after turning the unit around to the backside. In terms of basic features the Samsung Upstage features a 1.3MP camera, MicroSD, Bluetooth, and background Music Playback. As a bonus Sprint’s service allows access to 99 cent music downloads, Live TV, Internet Radio, Games, Web Browsing, and other Power Vision services.

Samsung SPH-M620 Specifications:

• Provider: Sprint Exclusive (CDMA)
• Form Factor: Dual-Sided Candy bar
• Dimensions: 1.73W x 4.07H x .37D inches
• Battery: Up To 6.3hrs Talk Time with Wallet
• Screen: Front 176×65 & Back 176×220 pixels
• Digital Camera: 1.3 MP with 5x Digital Zoom
• Storage: ~53MB Internal + MicroSD (2GB max)
• Sound: Standard Headphones with Adapter
• Others: Bluetooth v1.2 + 4hr Wallet Battery
• Price: $150 + Tax w/ New 2-Year Contract

UpStage Body: 5/5 stars
This phone is tiny, measuring only .37 inches thick, making it thinner than the Motorola RAZR. Although a bit larger, the phone resembles the shape and form factor of an iPod Nano. The front side of the phone has a Alpha-Numeric Keypad for making calls or text messaging. The back side looks like an iPod Nano, but with a large screen and an square touch pad. The phone is small enough to fit in most pockets and can be placed flat on its back or front. The phone almost doubles in size after placing into the battery wallet, which I assume most people plan to use. Although the case allows access to both sides of the phone, it still becomes quite tedious to keep switching back and forth. Despite the fact that the unit is harder to hold with the wallet, the flexibility of removing the case is an advantage.

Displays: 4/5 stars
The front display is extremely small only 176×65 pixels making it hard to read text. Navigating the front display is quite difficult since it can only fit about one-line of data on the screen at a time. Luckily most functions of phone are performed through the large/bright 176×220 pixel screen on the back side. Unfortunately since there is no keyboard on the back, you will find yourself having to “flip” back to the front side for data entry.

Music Playback: 5/5 stars
The UpStage supports playback of DRM-Free MP3s, WMA, AAC, and WAV in addition to music purchased through Sprint’s Music Store. Sprint now offers .99 cent over-the-air downloads of high quality tracks (with a data plan). Music can be sorted by Songs, Artists, or Genre in the interface, however due to the lack of a search function, scrolling through hundreds of track is tedious. We still prefer Verizon’s standardized music playback application, which works on most of their phones. One big bonus is the ability to “hide” the music playback app while listening to music and continuing with other tasks such as browsing the web or playing games. Album Art is displayed during playback in addition to the track title, duration, and artist/album. Also supports playlists & shuffling songs.

Speaker and Sound: 3/5 stars
For a “music phone” the lack of a decent set of stereo speakers might be problematic. The phone’s single (mono) speaker does a mediocre job, which functions as a speaker for calls and music. As the volume level increases, the sound begins to crack. Although this should be fixed in a future model, the issue should be non-existent since most people will use headphones for music. (Adapter for standard headphones included.)

Digital Camera / Camcorder: 2/5 stars
The camera on the UpStage remains a mere 1.3 mega pixels while most new phones on the market are now 2.0. When the camera is activated, you must flip the phone around and use the large LCD on the back as the viewfinder. From our results, the image quality was mediocre and images were blurry even in well lit situations. Video clips may be recorded for a duration limited only by MicroSD capacity, however clips longer than 30 seconds may not be mailed. The small front LCD functions as a tiny viewfinder for self-portraits.

Battery Life: 5/5 stars
Unlike the majority of phones on the market today, the UpStage does not have a removable battery. Instead, the UpStage has a battery built into the unit. Since the unit is small and the talk time is only about 2.5 hours long, Samsung provides a battery wallet with the phone. When the phone is in its case, the talk time increases by over 4 hours. (up to 6.5 hours) Since the case is easily removable, you’ll have the freedom to choose whether you want the additional battery life or light-weight phone to carry around.

Usability & Interface: 4/5
The interface on the front is a joke, it only allows performing four menu actions: view call history, find contacts, add a contact, or send a text msg. Other than that, the only other use of the front is to display caller id, date/time, battery life, signal, and Bluetooth status. The interface on the back is a different story. The back is controlled by using the square touchpad at the bottom. UpStage users must make up & down motions on the left/right sides and left-to-right motions on the top & bottom instead of using circular motions to navigate as you would do on an iPod. (Apple Patent!) In addition the top left/right corners act as soft keys while the other labeled parts are the Menu, Back, and End buttons. The only hark key is the center Select/Play button. Although navigating becomes quite easy after a bit of practice, data entry will remain a hassle. For example, while browsing the web (back side), you’ll have to flip over to enter the URL text and then flip back to view the page. Some applications support an onscreen keyboard, however you’ll find yourself flipping back & forth a lot.

MicroSD: 4/5 stars
Like most phones on the market today, the M620 supports up to 2GB MicroSD cards. Since Samsung intends this phone to double as a MP3 player, as a bonus, they include a USB data cable, which most cellphone makers do not. The included CD assists installing the necessary drivers. When placed in “Sync Mode,” the phone appears as a disk drive. Windows XP users can either manage data themselves or use the included application. Mac OS X users must manage the data on the MicroSD themselves since the included software is Windows Media Player based.
P.S. 1GB microSD cards cost only about $12. 2GB microSD for ~$25

Bluetooth: 5/5 stars
The Samsung M620 uses Bluetooth 2.0, which supports the use of Stereo Headphones for music playback, in addition to standard headsets. The Bluetooth can also be used for transferring contacts, printing photos to wireless printer, and to connect to computers for use as a wireless modem. Another new feature is Audio Caller ID, which reads out a name or phone number when using a bluetooth headset. From our testing, sound quality was excellent there were no issues with pairing devices or other features.

Sprint Power Vision: 4.5/5 stars
At this time most Chatting, Navigation, and Gaming apps are not yet available for the M620 due to compatibility issues because of the unique controls, however new working versions should be available soon. Applications such as Google Maps Mobile and Opera Mini work great. The On Demand section provides access to News, Weather, Movie Show Times, Maps and more. Sprint Power Vision offers access to thousands of clips and Live TV channels such as ABC, FOX, MSNBC, CNN, and Comedy Central (plus radio). One of my favorite features is the built in Podcasting client, which streams any podcast you choose directly to your phone without the need of a computer. Saves the hassle of having to sync new files.

Designs similar to that of the UpStage have been available in Asia for a while, yet this marks the release of the first dual sided phone in the U.S. Although we like this phone a lot for its new innovative and compact style, text entry remains a hassle and is probably the #1 problem. Other than that, another thing we found frustrating was that songs you own may not be used as ringtones. Anyways this is one of the best phones Sprint has had in a while, therefore if you are ready to upgrade you should consider this. The Samsung UpStage is available in Sprint Stores and Online now for $150 + tax with a new 2-year contract. In my opinion this is quite a good deal since Sprint includes the Battery Wallet, headset adapter, USB Sync Cable, and a 64MB microSD all of which is not normally included.

DEAL ALERT: FREE Samsung UpStage (M620)
Links: Sprint.com | SPH-M620 Spec Sheet
Product Shot: High-Resolution UpStage Image
Help & Support: fourms.skattertech.com

If you are a Sprint customer you’re in luck. Sprint has just announced the availability of both the Motorola KRZR K1m and SLVR L7c through their service. Although Verizon Wireless has already had the KRZR since late-September, Sprint did however beat them in getting the new SLVR. Also as another bonus for Sprint users, phones offered through Sprint will retain the original user interface unlike Verizon’s phones.

Motorola KRZR and SLVR Features:

• 1.3 Mega-Pixel Camera
• Bluetooth Wireless
• TeleNav GPS Directions
• Phone as Modem EVDO
• MicroSD Storage
• Speaker phone
• Voice Dial + Caller ID
• Downloadable Java Apps

Both Moto phones will have access to all of Sprint’s new Power Vision services such as Music, Movies, and TV. Customers will have access to over 50 channels through Sprint TV, about 45 full-length movies such as “Spider-Man 2″ and “National Treasure” through Sprint’s pay-per-view Movie service, and thousands of songs through Sprint’s Music Store. All of which can be purchased and downloaded directly to the phone (no computer necessary).

The KRZR K1m is already available through Sprint’s online store for $199 with a new service plan, however Sprint hasn’t yet announced pricing or the exact launch date for the SLVR. When we tested out the KRZR K1m for Verizon, we didn’t exactly give it the best review because it literally had no new features over the RAZR other than the external music controls. However lets hope that these Sprint phones have something more to offer since they aren’t limited to Verizon’s software user interface.

Links: Sprint.com | KRZR K1m | SLVR L7c
Related: Verizon KRZR K1m Review

Sprint recently contacted Skatter Tech and offered us an opportunity to participate in their “Ambassador Program”. The program is for Sprint to help themselves learn more about their products and services; they do so by selecting individuals to test out their products. We replied and agreed to join the program and we were immediately accepted. In their confirmation message they stated that they would be sending us a Sprint Power Vision phone and would also provide 6-months of all-access service. (means unlimited free calling) They will also provide allow unlimited access to their Music Store, TV Broadcasts, Games, and Web/Data Access. All this in return for our feedback. (we may also get a TiVo Series 3 for testing soon)

We later received another message stating which phone we would be receiving. It turned out to be a Samsung MM-A920, which retails at $300 on Sprint’s Store. The phone should arrive within 2-3 weeks. The phone seems to have the the top hardware specs: bluetooth, extra memory, 1 megapixel camera w/ flash, speakerphone, and more. This looks like a great phone and we hope it will be. We will throw up a full review of the phone and their new services as soon as we it.

Links: Sprint | Samsung A920