With the exception of the Palm Pre, Sprint has basically been focusing on cutting costs this year. As such, the carrier hasn't had the opportunity to release a ton of great phones like the other carriers. The BlackBerry Tour (check out our review of the Verizon version here) should have arrived in Sprint stores now though. Let's hope we'll see more from Sprint in the second half of 2009. In the meantime, here are the most significant releases in the first half of the year:
The Palm Pre is a very good phone, and an exciting addition to the smartphone world. We enjoyed our time with the phone, and would have no trouble recommending the phone. But to who would we recommend it? iPhone users might be put off by the less intuitive interface, which would be a shame because they would miss the snappy feel of the e-mail and address book apps, not to mention that hardware keyboard. BlackBerry fans might gripe about the smaller QWERTY with those grippy keys, the lack of long settings menus and the easy trackball navigation. That would be too bad, because the Palm Pre does all the great consolidation of e-mail, contacts and messaging that BlackBerry users take for granted, but extends these to social networking and Internet search, as well. So, here's how to know if you should buy the Pre. Do you use Gmail, Exchange and a variety of e-mail and scheduling services? Do you text, twitter, Google Chat and send messages over Facebook? Do you have dozens of duplicate phone book entries that need some organization? If so, the Palm Pre is an impressive way to bring a lot of disparate services together in an organized, intelligent way, and it might be the smartphone for you.
The HTC Snap on Sprint is a nice phone with some solid features, but it may just be outclassed by the competition. We like the solid scheduling and messaging features, and we would have liked the Inner Circle feature if it had worked properly. We appreciate the improved Web browsing with Internet Explorer 6, which finally brings Windows Mobile a little closer to the best browsing phones on the market. We loved the extra large battery, and the slim form appealed to us, even if the specific plastics and materials didn't. Problem is, two other versions of the same phone were already announced, the HTC Ozone on Verizon Wireless and the T-Mobile Dash 3G. Both of these have all of the best features of the HTC Snap (aside from Inner Circle, which we don't consider a best feature), and go farther with Wi-Fi. Plus, the starting price for the Sprint HTC Snap seems awfully high in comparison. The improved features and rounded look mean this phone is ready to compete with the BlackBerry Curve, but really it's biggest competition might be itself.
Like the original, the new Samsung Instinct S30 is supposed to go toe-to-toe with the iPhone as an easier, feature-rich alternative. In some ways, it still holds up. Sprint's 3G network has been faster than AT&T's network in our tests. The Samsung Instinct S30 has great turn-by-turn GPS navigation, a feature the Apple iPhone 3G lacks. But while Apple's device has exploded with extra apps and possibilities, the Samsung Instinct family has remained stagnant, falling behind competition even from Samsung itself on other carriers. The Instinct S30 may look better than its predecessor, but it needed to see improvements in the camera, the music and video player, and even in the messaging apps to remain compelling. We like the Work E-mail app that let us check in with our Microsoft Exchange accounts, but this feature is a nice bonus on the Instinct, while multimedia is much more important. As the top of Sprint's multimedia phone range, the Samsung Instinct S30 is a good phone, but not as good as it easily could have been.
With the Palm Treo Pro, Palm has created a competent piece of Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional hardware, but we're less enthusiastic about WinMo 6.1 every day. The Palm Treo Pro on Sprint seems an anathema to the ease of use and simplicity that Palm has always championed. Where Sprint got involved, adding trial programs and bloat by the handful, things are confused and redundant. Where Microsoft took over, with the underwhelming Internet Explorer 6 and the Windows Mobile interface, the phone is unreliable and sluggish. It wasn't all bad. The phone looks great from the outside, and we enjoyed the fast networking speeds and GPS performance. For pure business purposes, Windows Mobile is still tops for scheduling and productivity. That said, even Microsoft acknowledges that Windows Mobile 6.1 is behind the times, and if the Palm Treo Pro was the last Windows Mobile phone Palm produced, we would be satisfied closing the door on this chapter in the company's history.
The LG Rumor2 is a sequel to one of the original compact messaging phones with a full QWERTY keyboard (check our comparison of recent compact QWERTY phones here.) The LG Rumor2 gets the design part mostly right, but ironically fails to keep up with the Samsung Rant, a phone that is a better sequel to the original LG Rumor than the LG Rumor2. We think that budget-conscious messaging users might be enticed by the phone's Outlook Web Access for corporate e-mail and contacts, and those folks won't mind the lack of 3G, as well as the lack of the Sprint Music Store and Sprint TV. But the younger crowd will miss the social networking and fun applications that make the Samsung Rant a better choice. Until Sprint drops the price (to $0), or adds One Touch functions, we say go for the Samsung Rant. Overall, the LG Rumor2 is simply an underpowered clone of a phone that stole the show it wrote.
The Motorola i9 is the most powerful multimedia phone available on the iDEN network, which is kind of like bragging about a new sports car that uses leaded gasoline. The iDEN network is great for walkie-talkie calls, and the Moto i9 gets all the Nextel Direct Connect features business users and Boost Mobile fans crave. But buyers looking for an impressive multimedia device should look elsewhere, as the Motorola i9 comes up short in all of its advanced functions. The music player was basic and difficult to manage. The camera was lousy, and the external controls hardly helped us. Even the phone's design seemed out of touch: an amalgam of the dated RAZR styling with a touch of the Moto ROKR E8's controls. Not a winning combination, if you ask us. We wish Sprint had ditched the iDEN network altogether and stuck with the newer PTT services on their faster EV-DO Rev. A network, the technology used in the more appealing Sanyo Pro 700 phone, as this seems a better fit for the multimedia ambitions of the Motorola i9. If you need a multimedia phone for the Nextel Direct Connect network, the Motorola i9 is your best option by default. But if this is the best Sprint can offer, perhaps iDEN just isn't meant for music and pics.
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