Welcome to Cell Phone Reviews, a part of infoSync Reviews. Here you'll find in-depth cell phone reviews from AT&T Wireless, Verizon Wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile. From time to time we also offer cell phone reviews of unlocked phones. If you don't find what you're looking for here, please check out the following resources: Resource Center for Cell Phones, Ask The Editors and Expert Guides.
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| Samsung Moment |
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 The Samsung Moment is a solid piece of Android hardware with some specs that put it at the top of the pack. That AMOLED screen, for one, is the best of any Android phone we've seen, and you'll love watching movies or just flicking around the interface on the sharp, rich display. The phone lacks the heavy customization and extra features of other new Android phones, especially the Motorola CLIQ and HTC Hero on Sprint, but the secret to Android is that, if you're willing to do a lot of research and digging through the Android App Market, you can find almost all the features you're missing, often for free. If anything, we miss great video support the most, especially with that large, sharp display, and we'd like to see more apps and widgets to bring our favorite social networking services up to the desktop, and into our address books and calendars. But the Moment is still a solid piece of hardware, and even if it doesn't match the others in interface design, it sets a new bar for speed and hardware features on Android. Release: November 2009. Price: $100.
Pros: Great AMOLED screen makes videos and Web pages look sharp. Android is a highly customizable and extensible OS.
Cons: Very large device. Lacks many necessary apps, though most can be found in Android App Market.
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| RIM BlackBerry Storm 2 |
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 If you are already decided on the BlackBerry Storm and you've only been waiting for RIM to fix the long list of problems with the first model, fear not, because the BlackBerry Storm 2 addresses almost all of the complaints buyers had with the original. The BlackBerry Storm 2 is faster, more responsive, built better and more feature-packed than the first Storm. Even so, the interface was wildly inconsistent, as if the phone could never remember when you're supposed to press and when you're supposed to lightly tap; when you're supposed to swipe or when you should just point. Sometimes, it simply didn't work. Sometimes, the interface design was so counterintuitive that we decided to give up. Even with the improvements, and they are significant, using the BlackBerry Storm 2 was a real chore, as the extra pressure required to 'click' makes every action a bit harder compared to other touchscreens. The interface design was continually frustrating, even while newer phones, like the HTC Hero on Sprint, manage to surprise and delight with clever and adaptive touchscreen interface ideas. All the basic BlackBerry features are present in the Storm 2, like the great integrated messaging inbox, the deep access for IT managers, and newer features like the BlackBerry App World and the tightly integrated Facebook app. Plus, the screen on the Storm 2 is one of the best we've seen on a phone, and it's great for watching movies and videos. But if you want BlackBerry features, buy a classic BlackBerry with a keyboard, and if you want a touchscreen phone, there are much better options on the market. Release: October 2009. Price: $180.
Pros: Faster, more responsive than original BlackBerry Storm. Fantastic display quality, great for movies. Well-organized messaging.
Cons: Interface design is frustrating and cumbersome, even when SurePress works well. Browser still lagging. Some features could use a serious graphical boost.
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| Motorola Cliq |
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 The Motorola CLIQ is the perfect phone for the true social networking junkie. If you like being bombarded with information from your friends, followers and favorite Web sites, the Motorola CLIQ does the best job keeping you in touch with everything. It can be daunting at times, with faces on your desktop changing at random and text bubbles popping up from everywhere. You can customize, since this is Android, but Motorola hasn't done much beyond the deep social networking integration. Besides the frenetic status updates, it's a fairly basic Google Android system, and a disappointing piece of hardware, as well. The phone design lacks any of the tight fitting lines and striking angles of Motorola's RAZR legacy, and instead feels wobbly and cheap, a real disappointment. The Motorola CLIQ isn't as refined as other modern smartphones, notably the HTC Hero or Palm Pre, but it's the perfect phone for a real social networking fiend, and we think that's a growing audience. Release: October 2009. Price: $200.
Pros: Keep all your status updates for all your networks and feeds up top. Easy to update multiple networks at once. Great custom widgets for Android.
Cons: Wobbly hardware design made touchscreen use frustrating. Phone was a bit buggy or unresponsive at times. Battery life poor. Multimedia experience sub-par on Android.
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| HTC Tilt 2 |
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 Like the other phones we've seen based on the HTC Touch Pro2 design, the HTC Tilt 2 on AT&T is Windows Mobile at its best. For business users, the phone packs calling features that put it leagues beyond the competition, with conference calls that sound great and innovative in-call screens that put relevant info about your contacts at your fingertips. All around, the phone does a very nice job, and HTC's TouchFLO 3D interface is an improvement in every way over the standard Windows Mobile 6.5 design. Unfortunately, we encountered some serious problems and bugs while using the HTC Tilt 2. The interface lagged behind better versions of this same phone, and some annoying bugs caused notifications to fire endlessly, or caused applications to crash frequently. The Web browsers had response issues that made them tedious and almost unusable. Though we usually like TouchFLO 3D, on AT&T's Tilt 2, it seems that some of our favorite features, like GPS navigation or video playback, were hidden while the tabbed menus were overloaded with redundant choices. Plus, compared to other new WinMo 6.5 smartphones, the HTC Tilt 2 lacks important features, and you'll have to do a lot of digging and downloading to add, for instance, an IM client or the Microsoft MyPhone service we liked on the Samsung Intrepid. On its own, the HTC Tilt 2 is an impressive phone, and it's our favorite full-QWERTY phone on AT&T's lineup, but compared to the versions you'll find on other carriers, it doesn't measure up. Release: October 2009. Price: $300.
Pros: Excellent keyboard. Great calling features, especially for business users. Windows Mobile 6.5 adds Mobile Marketplace (app store) support.
Cons: Device was buggy and unreliable in our tests. Some features buried, some menus redundant. No IM client or MyPhone service on board.
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| Sprint Hero |
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 The HTC Hero on Sprint is the best Android phone to date, and one of the best smartphones on the market. This isn't a novice smartphone. The Sprint Hero will take some time to learn, but the device rewards patience. The interface running on top of Google's Android, HTC's Sense experience, is thoroughly enjoyable and intelligent. In almost every way, from the intuitive contextual menus to the desktop widgets to the detailed calling screens, HTC gets things right with the Sprint Hero. It's not an Apple iPhone killer. It handles some functions much better than the iPhone, like integrating and managing social networks. But in other ways, like multimedia playback or even camera performance, the Sprint Hero still comes up short. That said, if your phone is a conduit to your social network, the HTC Hero on Sprint does a great job delivering the information to you, and helping you connect with your online friends. Release: October 2009. Price: $100.
Pros: Fantastic interface design. Great Twitter and Facebook apps and widgets. Solid messaging features. Desktop-grade Web browsing.
Cons: Multimedia playback, especially with pre-recorded videos, was difficult to manage. Camera was disappointing. Design could be more exciting.
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