Sprint has had an impressive season for releasing attention-grabbing new devices. As if being the only carrier with a new Palm WebOS device wasn't enough, Sprint went ahead late in the summer and announced a second Palm device, the Palm Pixi, and we have our hands-on impressions of this slim new phone. But then, Sprint got into the Google Android game in a big way, launching the HTC Hero and then snatching up Samsung's first Android device, the Samsung Moment. Finally, Samsung jumps on the Windows Phone bandwagon with a simple Windows Phone of their own in the Samsung Inrepid.
Palm Pixi, the Palm you didn't know you wanted
 At the Fall CTIA 2009 show in San Diego, we finally got our hands on the Palm Pixi, Palm's second WebOS-enabled device. We've been using the Palm Pre for quite some time, so we were curious to see where Palm would take their next step. If the Palm Pre is the new Palm Treo, the Palm Pixi is decidedly Palm Centro-like in feel and design. The Pixi is a tall, narrow phone with a full QWERTY on the bottom and a touchscreen up top. There's no ball-button beneath the screen, like there is on the Palm Pre, but in the time we had our hands on the new Pixi, we decided that the button-less design works better, especially for the swiping gestures necessary in WebOS. The coolest part of the new design is a small light bar that swoops left and right, something like the headlamp on K.I.T.T. in "Knight Rider," whenever you make the swiping gesture with your finger.
Even with this slight improvement, we weren't fans of the Palm Pixi design. It's nice and thin, but the long, smooth, glossy face had a bit of a goofy look, especially without the visual break that the trackball provides. Also, the screen is a bit smaller than the Palm Pre's display, and this means the interface gets fewer pixels. Icons were smaller, and some of the more difficult WebOS maneuvers were made harder on the Pixi.
Like they did with the Palm Centro, we expect Palm to target new buyers with the Palm Pixi. If Palm Pre fans are shaking their heads over the Palm Pixi, it's because the device isn't for Pre fans, it's for folks who are looking to step up from a Samsung Rant or LG enV into an attractive smartphone platform.
Palm still hasn't announced specific pricing or availability details for the Palm Pixi, but if we're right that this is the new Palm Centro, we expect a Centro-like price tag of around $100. The Pixi will definitely be in stores in time for the holiday shopping season.
Samsung Moment, an Android phone flexes its specs
 Here at the Fall CTIA 2009 show, Sprint announced their newest smartphone, and surprise, surprise, it's an Android device. Unlike the HTC Hero on Sprint, the Samsung Moment will have a touchscreen up front and a QWERTY keyboard that slides out from the side of the phone. Unlike the heavily customized Hero, the Samsung Moment will use a stock version of Google's Android OS. But that doesn't mean the device doesn't have any compelling features. In fact, the Samsung Moment will be the first Android device on the U.S. market with an AMOLED screen. The device will also use a faster 800MHz processor, a clock speed bump of about 50% over the competition.
We got to spend some time with the Samsung Moment, and we were impressed with the hardware. The AMOLED screen is fantastic and colorful. Samsung is wise to come out in front of this technology, it will surely become more popular as more people see the difference. Since the Samsung Moment was using the stock Google interface, it was difficult to see the advantages of a faster processor, but we never encountered any hiccups or lag in our hands-on look at the device.
The keyboard on the Samsung Moment was very nice. Keys were a bit stiff, but felt solid and discrete in our time typing on the phone. We weren't thrilled with the optical trackpad, but that's probably because we're used to the trackball on other Android phones. The optical trackpad doesn't control a mouse icon, it instead moves the selection cursor. It felt sensitive as we used it, and we could easily get the hang of it.
Samsung Intrepid is all about clean Windows
 Of all the Windows Phones released at the launch of the new mobile OS, the Samsung Intrepid on Sprint is the one that seems to rely most heavily on Microsoft's own interface designs, instead of a design overlay, like HTC's TouchFLO 3D or Samsung's TouchWiz. So, you get the new Zune-like homescreen and the honeycomb Start menu screen, and all of the other minor, but welcome improvements to the design. At first glance, the Samsung Intrepid looks more like an HTC Snap or Samsung Jack, so you might not realize that the phone uses a touchscreen above the keyboard. In fact, the Intrepid is quite a powerful little device, with a 3.2-megapixel camera, EV-DO Rev. A for fast networking, and all of Sprint's 3G services on board.
In our hands-on time with the Samsung Intrepid, we were pleased to find the screen was plenty responsive to the touch. Though all the Windows Phones we've seen so far have used resistive touchscreen technology, the system as a whole has seemed more friendly and responsive to touch, especially on the Today screen and in the new Start menu. Still, the squat form factor of the Samsung Intrepid doesn't offer much real estate to the more tablet-friendly menu designs, so you'll do a lot of scrolling on every screen with this phone.
We did enjoy the keyboard on the Samsung Intrepid very much in our tests. It had keys that were somewhat stiff, with a pleasing snap to each click of the letter. We tried typing out a few lines in our hands-on time and were very pleased with how quickly our fingers became used to the new keyboard. It's a solid design for a business smartphone. We did find ourselves wishing for a more advanced navigation method than a simple D-pad, but we'll have to give it a longer try to see if the 5-way button works well with Windows Mobile 6.5.
|
_pt00.jpg)
_pt00.jpg)
_pt00.jpg)
_pt00.jpg)
|
Archive