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Suddenly Android phones are popping up everywhere (OK, except on AT&T as of this writing): Verizon has the Moto Droid and T-Mobile has three Android phones. The Samsung Moment is Sprint's second Android Google OS phone, following up on their September 2009 release of the very capable HTC Hero. What does the Moment offer that the Hero doesn't? An 800MHz CPU, hardware QWERTY keyboard and a vivid AMOLED display. What does the Moment offer that no other Android phone in the US offers to date? That obscenely colorful and striking AMOLED screen. Though we expect the Samsung Behold 2 on T-Mobile to offer an AMOLED display (but no keyboard) when it ships sometime later this year.

The Samsung's specs are good: an 800MHz ARM 11 CPU (previous Android phones went with the ultra-common 528MHz Qualcomm CPU, except the Droid which has a spiffy Cortex CPU), a 3.2" capacitive touch screen running at the same 320 x 480 resolution as HTC's Android phones and the iPhone 3GS, WiFi, a GPS that works with both Google Maps and Sprint Navigation, EV-DO Rev. A, a 3.2MP autofocus camera and Bluetooth with A2DP stereo. Not bad for $179 with a 2 year contract after rebates.


In terms of looks, the Samsung isn't sexy nor is it slim. It's solid and functional: call it the Toyota Camry of phones. There are plenty of Samsung TouchWiz phones that look similar (Samsung Rogue, Samsung Impression), so you won't be unique on the information and telecommunication superhighways but you know you can trust your ride. Samsung does nothing to hide that this is a plastic phone but it doesn't scream "plastic" like the MyTouch 3G. The downside is that the Moment feels chunky and brickish, though it's really not huge; rather the design isn't slimming. The smartphone may not be huge but it is large, and that affords a decent keyboard that's better in terms of key travel and spread than the Moto Droid. The keys are clicky and grippy and the layout is mostly normal. This is a 4 row keyboard with a dedicated number row and the oversized space key sits in between the v and b keys. The Fn key nudges in on the left, shifting the a key to the right a bit which doesn't take all that much getting used to. There's only one shift key (left) and four arrow keys on the right that don't require an Fn key press.


The phone has standard mechanical call send and end buttons and touch sensitive (non-moving) Home, Menu and Back buttons. These work fine but unlike the Moto Droid they lack haptic feedback so you get absolutely no tactile feedback when touching them which is disconcerting. The AMOLED display is stunningly colorful and bright-- hands down it's the prettiest Android display on the US market, though it's not the highest resolution-- that award goes to the 480 x 854 pixel Droid. Photos and videos look better than they really are and web pages pop.

The Moment has mid-level reception and very good voice quality. Calls are clear and natural sounding on both ends and the volume is good. Nuance's very good voice command software is included and there's a dedicated button for safe dialing on the go. Nuance uses speech recognition so there's no need to record voice tags. The phone supports Bluetooth headsets as well as stereo headsets using the A2DP profile. Android phones support favorites and you can put shortcuts to folks in your address book on the 3 screen desktop. There's a proximity sensor on board so the phone's screen turns off when you hold it against your face and turns on again when you move it away from your face. Bye-bye cheek dialing.

Data speeds over Sprint's EV-DO Rev. A network were good as per usual and the Moment loads web pages quickly. WiFi is there just in case you're out of Sprint 3G service range and we had no problems connecting to public and encrypted WPA WiFi networks. The Samsung uses Google's Webkit-based browser and it does an excellent job of rendering desktop sites accurately and quickly. You can zoom using on-screen controls or by double-tapping a web page (there's no multi-touch pinch and zoom). Android doesn't yet have Flash support but it does support mobile YouTube format via the dedicated YouTube player and for videos embedded in web pages. The high quality setting looks quite good and fills the screen. As per usual with Android, there are separate icons for Gmail and email. You can set up multiple email accounts in the email client and Samsung includes Moxier's Exchange ActiveSync client that supports push email with Exchange Server 2003 and 2007 as well as contact, calendar and task syncing. If you use the MS Exchange feature you'll also get an icon for work mail and work tasks. Finally there's Messaging which handles text and MMS (Picture Mail in Sprint-speak).


Sprint TV is on board-- they manage to get this client on every one of their phones, no small accomplishment. Video fills the screen but tends to break up into a blocky mess for a second or two every 30 seconds, which isn't that unusual with Sprint TV. When we tested Sprint TV we had half full bars and a decent -db signal. Doubtless with a very strong signal, we would have seen less blockiness. Still, Sprint has a great selection of channels with sports, news, TV shows and movies that will fill the void that commutes and long lines create.