Samsung Intercept
Phone Scoop Review
Jul 27, 2010 by Philip Berne
The Samsung Intercept is a cute little Android phone, and one of the few with a full QWERTY keyboard. Is it a better choice than the bigger, older Samsung Moment? read review ›
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Samsung Intercept
Previous phones:
Kyocera Lingo (Virgin Mobile) : 6/15 - 11/22/2008
Lg Voyager (Verizon) : 3/19/09 - 11/12/10
I had purchased this phone because it seemed like a cool looking entry level Android device. During the first week it was running smoothly then afterwards things just went down hill!
I mean it was always freezing on me! 99.99% of my calls were dropped, and other problems! (I read in some forums that Android 2.1 might have been then cause of the freezing and call drops). In December my phone received an OTA update to Android 2.2 and some of the problems I had experienced on 2.1 had gone away...Or so I thought...
In short after getting 2.2 my apps are freezing up on me, my phone freezes and I can't receive calls or texts. I think it's a major pain and a big inconvenience on my part. My Voyager's screen was coming off and it worked alot better than my Intercept.
It may seem like a wallet saver but unless you want constant trips and phone calls to sprint support I suggest you get a more reliable Android or any other smartphone.
I honestly would love for Sprint to pull this phone from it's stores/online and let customers who own this phone upgrade to an Epic or Evo 4g for free. It's just a personal opinion. These are the horrors of what Samsung calls 'Intercept' you have been forewarned readers...
Not very smart, actually
First, the good things:
It's Android, the camera takes sharp pictures, the mp3 player works, build quality is nice, networking is fine, QWERTY keyboard is good. Call quality is quite nice. The screen is bright and the speaker is loud. Reception seems fine.
Bad things: The Intercept is full of bugs and slow as molasses. As of November 2010, the Samsung Intercept can't be considered anything but a beta release. It's not acceptable. In addition to being ultra slow, it crashes often (several times per day), each time emitting a very loud, childish 'Virgin Mobile' tone that (unbelievably) cannot be turned off. It's incompatible with Windows 7, as I found out after many hours of screwing around with it. Even the camera (with just 3 mp) is wildly slow. Be prepared to wait for 8 full seconds from when you hold the camera button down to when it finally takes a shot. That doesn't sound so long, but it is. Close your eyes and count... one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand...
The pull-down settings menu w/ BT and wifi options works about 80% of the time. Get used to rebooting!
I got Opera Mini and a separate app to help kill the background processes that bog this thing down so easily, so its tolerable. barely. The screen's tendency to ignore touch inputs doesn't help. The little buttons on the front are the worst - they may or may not work. The phone is so slow that you can never tell if the button actually worked for a couple seconds after you push it. What a half-baked mess.
I must admit, I'm not much of a smart phone expert. My roommate has a 3gs which I played with a few times, and another guy had a HTC something or other and both worked so beautifully that I decided to go out and try a smart phone. I tried to get a good prepaid phone to get a better total price over two years, but you get what you pay for, I guess!
Confused about slow response
Per specs this phone should respond quickly with 800 Mhz compared to 600 Mhz or less on many android phones prior to latest top end models. I expected to flick easily to calendar, camera, settings, etc, but buttons often don't respond. I stopped all apps possible & performance still lousy.
I've also dropped Internet connection several times with strong signal. I thought I was moving up from lousy Rumor Touch. The Intercept is better, but this phone is poor reflection on Virgin service. Some posts reported good performance; there must be some difference in quality among phones.
I will try AppKiller and anything I can to get her faster. If this had OS 1.5 or earlier, I could understand the quirks. I've seen phones with 528 Mhz and OS 1.6 performing much better than this. I've tested other androids that respond when buttons are pressed.
I plan to hard reset. If that doesn't improve performance, I will request a replacement. I've been checking for Froyo update which is reported as faster. Froyo up for this model has been slow coming.
Other suggestions welcome.
Pros: Screen, phone quality, processor speed, keyboard
Cons: Home, Back, Menu Buttons often non-responsive, drops Internet
Samsung Intercept-Entry Level
I came to this phone from the palm pixi, then to the htc hero then to the samsung intercept, and back to the hero.
I had to junk the palm pixi bc it was slow and it was being a POS But I loved the WEB OS!!. I wanted to get the bb9650 but decided Ill try android since I already tried the 8530 and didnt like BB OS!... I decided on the hero, but then I heard the samsung intercept was coming out and it would be in pink, so I traded in my hero for the samsung intercept, and heres my thoughts.
The screen resolution is HORRIBLE, the screen is Nowhere as wide or smooth as the HTC HERO. The Pixels on the screen ARE HORRIBLE! The Home buttons LAG SOOO MUCHHH, you have to repeatedly press on them. IT DOES NOT HAVE HTC SENSE!(I LOVE SENSE and missed it!) The phone is not faster then the hero, you can't even tell the processor is faster. I honestly do not think this phone will get the 2.2 update FROYO in the future. The hero and moment should get it BEFORE THIS! This phone feels like an upgrade of the Samsung Exclaim honestly. The OS isnt that great. They keyboard is kinda crammed, and its not organized! I used to like samsung phones, but after playing with this one, Samsung needs to step there game up. The camera is okay. Nothing great. Its great phone for a high school student who wants apps, and a rapid texter, and girls who love pink and can't type on touch screens with their nails. Otherwise if your considering switching from the hero or the moment, definatley not an upgrade. Keep your hero, and get the Evo or Epic or wait!! Im waiting till January or christmas to get a new phone and see what they have to bring in the up and coming months.
Perfect Phone for the Technologically Challenged!
I think this is one of the best Android devices out there. Its not the most feature packed phone, but its a very simple device packed into such a nicely sized package.
I have owned the Moment, Hero, Evo, and now the Epic. My wife hated each one; just too much going on for her. She hated using it in any way. She just wants a simple phone thats easy to use.
Enter the Intercept
When I got the Epic, she wanted to upgrade her 2.5 yr old Samsung Exclaim (THAT was the perfect phone for her. She only used it for phone calls, texting, and sometimes photos. Battery life is INCREDIBLE!)
At the Sprint store, the Intercept immediately caught her eye - she liked the size of it, and was fond of the slide out keyboard. When I told her it was an Android, she immediately started looking at other phones instead.
I got her to use it a little, and she seemed to think it was fairly simple. I noticed the phone in the store had a slight lag to it but she didn't seem to mind. Anyway, we took advantage of Sprints 30 day policy and she picked the pink one.
At home the first thing she had to do was set up a Gmail account. She was already becoming frustrated at the extra steps required just to get functionality out of it. I set it up for her and she was off and running.
Now its funny - Ive never seen her spend so much time with an electronic device! She was up into the night with it - way after I went to bed. The next morning before she got up, I played with it a little, set up her Facebook, email, installed some apps, games, and the HTC clock/weather widget, etc. While using it, I have been seriously considering replacing my Epic with this thing. Its a VERY nice phone!
Pros: Nice size, slide out keyboard has a great feel, simple UI, battery life is better than any other Android Ive used.
Cons: It lags a little, but TaskKiller seemed to help with that. Also, it has lost internet several times, but I think that might be the taskkiller interfering - I'll figure that out
Solid entry-level smartphone
There's a bit of misunderstanding about the expectations of the Intercept; let me clear things up: this is an *entry*-level Android device. I've seen comparisons of the Intercept to the EVO, Galaxy S, and other high-end Android phones, but it's apples to oranges. This phone is great for first-time smartphone buyers or for users who don't intend to do 3D gaming, HD video playback/recording, or other resource-intensive applications.
I like the fact that Samsung didn't modify the UI into something totally unrecognizable; it's essentially a stock Android install. Though there's lag at times, the software is relatively smooth unless you plan on going crazy with widgets and multitasking. Apps in Android Market such as LauncherPro allow you to modify the UI to look easier on the eyes, but do significantly slow operation of the phone.
The hardware itself isn't anything to write home about. Decent camera, speaker-phone, and ear-piece quality. The physical keyboard is actually quite nice and responsive, though the position of some of the keys is odd. The optical track-pad is practically useless. The menu/home/back/search touch-sensitive keys are also somewhat disappointing, often requiring multiple presses for an action to take place. I really wish Samsung would've installed physical keys instead (like the ones on the Hero).
PROS:
*mostly stock Android, soon to be upgradeable to 2.2
*physical keyboard is one of the best I've tried
*affordable price-point
*an ideal option in the entry-level smartphone market
CONS:
*touch-sensitive menu/home/back/search keys leave something to be desired
*display resolution could be better
*EV-DO rev. 0 (but there's honestly not much of a speed increase in rev. A)
*overall, UI is a bit slow
CURRENT UNRESOLVED BUGS:
*for some users, Facebook contacts sync is unusable or completely breaks the phone (known issue affecting other Android devices)
*WiFi sometimes disconnects when phone is idle (only remedy is turning WiFi radio off, then on)
The phone that wished it could....
I bought the phone for my wife before reading the reviews because she just had to have the pink one. BAD IDEA! I am taking the phone back. Keep in mind she has only had the phone for 3 days now.
PROS: the phone would be a good starter phone for someone buying their first phone. This is a low level phone.
CONS: Battery life (horrible), slow in responding when you rotate the phone, it locks up and says "anodroid.com has stopped unexpectedly" and you have to force quit which it then locks up and you have to take the battery out, you can NOT transfer files via bluetooth... In general not a great phone to upgrade too.
I'm either going to wait for the Epic to come out or I'm getting her the Moment.
**This phone was just released by samsung and it seems they took 3 steps back with it. **
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This phone is a piece of junk.
CONs:
I was using this phone on Platinumtel. It is difficult to use. It is very slow. It likes to freeze up. The battery is terrible. (I have replaced it with an HTC Incredible with TFG service). I now just use the Inercept for occasional WiFi access. I would sell it on Ebay, but I would feel like a scam artist and I don't want the bad feedback that I would receive, so I am stuck with this piece of junk. I came close to tossing it into the duck pond.
PROs:
The phone works okay for voice. The sound quality is okay and Sprint signal is good here in Minnesota. Those things are of course at the mercy of the occasional freeze up and are dependent upon my watching the battery level carefully, since battery life on this phone is not good.
I do not recommend this phone.
Slow and un responsive touchscreen
First I got this phone a s cheap replacement for my Palm Pre, which was hard for me to do, I had multiple platform, including windows CE and Palm OS. My Pre was a easier to used and the multitasking feature and intuit software has yet to be top by iOS or Andriod.
The good thing about this phone is that it has Android (2.2) and all the apps that come with it. Full integration with Google apps is great. The camera is good even though it is 3 mega pixels the auto focus feature is very good and takes good picture; forget about taking pictures in low light though. Another feature I like about this phone is the full size keyboard, some people donât like this feature, I love having a physical keyboard.
Screen Resolution of the phone is not the greatest but I tolerate it. Lack of internal memory makes it a pain in the butt to transfer information such as contacts or apps to external memory. This limits what you can do with the phone because some apps canât be transfer to the memory.
It has a compatibility problem with my Mac (snow leopard), so I am not able to transfer any file, or music from my Mac I can from my PC windows 7. Android does not have multitasking capabilities of Web OS (Palm Pre or HP Pre) which to me is a real downsize since you have to go back and forward from the app to the home and then find the app to start a different application. Which leads me to my last complaint about this phone, and what I hate the most about this phone it that it lags too much, I like to multitask and this phone takes FOREVER to load and app. I have never had such a slow phone in my life. This phone is for people that have time to waste. And does basic app use, good to introduce you to android, though I would not recommend this particular phone.
Dissapointing
I've had this phone for 3 months and I'm at whits end right about now.
Pros
Back cover feels nice
Cons
Battery life is a JOKE. Not only that but my phone can't read/display the status of that battery correctly.
Firmware upgrade: I would rather still have 2.1, the 2.2.2 upgrade is extremely buggy.
Ram is amazingly low. This is one of the main crippling factors of this phone is it's utterly useless amount of ram for the give processor and firmware. If this phone had 512mb or 256 at least, the phone might be usable.
Touchscreen is garbage. It feels like it's not responsive at all. It's very plastic feeling and really feels like a toy.
HERE'S THE KICKER:
I got stranded out in the middle of literally nowhere and needed to call to arrange a ride. I not only had full bars but I had 3G ready too. I placed a call only for the phone to go dark, and the call button on the phone itself and embedded in the firmware not want to respond. This is scary. I can handle not always connecting to the internet and such, but what I cannot handle is that this phone has a hard time doing what every phone is designed to do: place and make calls. This is scary and Samsung and Virgin Mobile need to fix this problem as soon as possible. I would push for a RECALL on this phone, it's a hazard.
