Customer Reviews

Samsung Intercept Android Phone, Grey Steel (Sprint)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(28)

 

 

I am someone that works for a Fortune 500 company in I.T. that at the end of the day hates technology! I have refused for years to carry a CrackBerry of any sorts for work (still do) and resisted getting a phone that was a "gadget" for my personal use. I finally broke down and decided on the Samsung Intercept for myself and my girlfriend. We both love it.

This by no means is the perfect phone, but, it does a pretty good job at getting what I want out of a phone done.

The Good:

- The Android OS runs smooth especially when running several apps in the background. I can have Sirius XM or Pandora, Email, web browser, and Sprint Navigation all running and the phone doesn't flinch.
- The video quality far surpassed my expectations. Streaming video looks great and plays flawlessly on YouTube and Sprint TV.
- The slide-out keyboard buttons are larger than most phones and easy to manage. The phone fits nicely in my hand.

The Not so Good:

- As mentioned in another review, the Capacitive buttons sometimes need to be pushed twice.
- The power cord plugs in at the top. I kinda get why, but if I need to charge the phone and talk it feels weird having the cable on the top.
- The battery life could be better, but again, this is a smart phone, of course it will die sooner.
- If you are new to Android there is a learning curve, but it's fairly quick to pick up on.

This phone made me think what the hell have I been waiting for on a getting a "gadget" phone. If you want a quality Android phone, with decent performance, and want to keep the budget in mind, this is the perfect phone. You won't regret it.

The Samsung Intercept is what it is, a casual phone which just happens to run Android pretty decent.
Obviously this isn't meant as an iPhone 4 contender, for that Sprint has the EVO 4G.
Some reviewers seem to forget that the phone is meant for the casual audience.

With the Samsung Intercept you get a pretty nice phone that can handle your Email, Facebook, Browsing, and even App downloading. Its nicely built (feels good in hands), has a nice slide-out keyboard, and a nice responsive screen as well.

Sprint's network is awesome, it really is better than the competition when it comes to value. They just need better phones, to attract more customers.

Pros
- Runs Android 2.1 (Takes some getting use to, but offers lots of customization 2.2 coming soon)
- Decent Screen
- Great Slide-Out Keyboard
- YouTube App, Gmail App

Cons
- Capacitive buttons sometimes need to be touched twice.
- Decent Camera
- 3.5 Headphone jack is on the side, instead of top or bottom.

Bottom Line
If you're a casual user and don't need a huge over sized phone, get the Intercept.
It will be a step up from your usual text messaging phone.

Bought this for my husband recently and so far we love it.. I researched all the prepaid/no contract smartphones (i1, cliq, etc) and this 'sounded' the best but I was still a little nervous from some critical reviews. So far we absolutely love it.
Keep in mind some of the critical reviews are most likely from people who've owned the newest/top of the line smartphones who now want a less expensive phone and monthly bill... It's unintelligent to think you can cut your costs in half and have the same extremely high level of performance that the newest iPhone has.
This is our first smartphone and we love it - unlimited text & internet & 300 minutes for $25/month with Virgin Mobile.. we were probably spending that much on my husband's crappy tracfone.. As long as VM has good coverage in your area this is an awesome deal & a great phone. Bought it at Target - heard a rumor that you can't return activate prepaid phones there but 2 different employees @ 2 different stores told me that I could return it in 90 days w/the receipt. No regrets here.

I love it! It does everything I wanted a smart phone to do. I love the slide out keyboard. It's big enough for my sausage fingers. I love the one button photo upload to my facebook account. It's like having a mini computer in your pocket. It also comes in pink, my wife loves that. Not a real technical review, but I'm not a real technical guy.

I have had this phone for a week now. My first "smart" phone so I am starting from a dead stop. So far it is just great for my needs. I am not a power user. I use the phone a lot but not with the heavy demands of video, and gaming, and u-tube and such.

I wanted something that feels good to hold, is small enough and smooth enough and light enough to carry in my pocket, and has a crisp screen. This phone fits the bill. The Samsung Moment is bigger and the screen is not as crisp so I chose the Intercept. The Intercept also has a great slide out key pad, better than the Moment's.

Mostly I use the phone for email (sometimes with embedded photos from the phone), messaging, news, stock quotes, appointment calendar, weather, navigation, facebook and web searching (great voice instead of typing search feature). All of this is just fine on this phone. The wifi works well although the phone is not very powerful when capturing a wifi signal. The phone syncs without effort to your laptop gmail calendar and contacts. However when first setting the phone up it will automatically grab all your email contacts and exiting phone contacts and dump them into one contact data base. It took me an evening to go through my email contacts on my laptop to clean out all the duplicates and make sense of it all. However as soon as you make a change or correction to your contacts on your laptop it also changes the database on the phone which is good.

The battery life is OK as long as you are not using the built in GPS function too much. I have not had any problem with the hot buttons not working as others have had.

The android 2.1 OS is quite easy to use once you figure out some of the basic features. There are plenty of apps, the status bar at the top of the screen works great as well. It is easy to change all the phone's settings. The voice in and out quality is good.

Problems are perhaps android related, you can't completely close applications!!! There is an app download to help make sure you are not running things in the background. It is called "Advanced App Killer" which I use several times a day. A must have. Strange that apps cannot be closed within the app.

The volume rocker button is so large it is easy to move accidentally when you are using the slide out keypad. Once in a while I press the photo button as well, which is also a bit larger than necessary.

Other than that, this is a great small, smart phone that is of course not an EVO but it is not trying to be. If size (and the extra monthly service fee) was not an issue I would get an EVO but if I had an EVO I would darn well know it was in my pocket, with this phone it seems like it is hardly there at all.

I wanted a light phone with a physical keyboard that gave me a better internet/app experience than the Blackberry I'd been using (oh, and didn't cost a freaking fortune even with the upgrade and rebate credits from sprint). The Intercept met the criteria and has far exceeded my expectations! I've had no problems with the buttons, screen (the resolution is very nice) or anything else, for that matter. Its a very nice phone for the price, but if you're on the fence, get it from Sprint, use if for a couple of weeks and return it if you don't agree.

(9/18/10) - After nearly a month, traded mine in for an Evo and the other two for Palm Pixis. Going from this phone to the Evo is like trying to dig a swimming pool with a hand shovel to digging with an excavator! DO NOT BUY THIS PHONE! Trust me, it's not even worth the $.01 price. I gave it a good effort...

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I should have gone with my instincts and fellow reviewers NOT purchased this phone. I purchased three of them to replace expensive iPhone data plans and how could I pass it up at $.01? It was a toss between this and the Moment as I don't want to drop a few hundred dollars for the EVO or Epic and the additional data costs. I was frustrated that the Moment (with better reviews) won't be getting any additional support or updates from Sprint or Samsung even though it's a better device (faster modem, better display, camera flash).

After a few days of playing I have discovered the Android OS to be much better than iOS, in fact, I feel somewhat liberated being out from under Apple. However, the phone is poorly done. Reviewers are correct in that there is a definite lag with the haptic feedback on the softkeys. Of the three we purchased, my daughter's phone never has lag. The two for my wife and I continually have lag and problems. I assume this must be a hardware issue and later production lines were resolved. The best I can hope for is to exchange the phones and see if the replacements work as they should.

Samsung missed the mark with this phone by offering a sub-par product as a replacement to the Moment. More than that, it's extremely frustrating as a consumer to have a choice of coal or diamonds, nothing in between. It's obvious Samsung and Sprint dumbed down the Moment with the Intercept to force customer's hands to the more expensive data plans w/ the Epic.

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'UPDATE' 9/2/10 - I've downloaded ADW Launcher and it performs much better than the standard launcher. In fact, the problem w/ the soft keys has all but gone away. The application soft key button on my wife's phone was almost unusable but w/ ADW launcher, it works almost every time. I am not revising my rating, however, as Samsung doesn't admit to the problem nor is there a common fix. The fact this phone (marketed as the Moment II) is actually a downgrade keeps the rating where it is.

Big giant fail in my opinion.

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'UPDATE' 9/9/10 - The soft key lag was still there, my wife's phone being almost unusable. Amazon shipped replacements for two of the three Intercept phones and they have worked flawlessly. After 24 hours of use I haven't had a single instance of lag. In fact, side-by-side w/ the original phone there is quite a bit of difference. Both replacement phones work fast (even w/ all same software loaded) and the soft keys work every single time. My wife was ready to throw hers through a window, drive over it w/ her car, and then put it in a blender. She's happy now. Granted, it's been only one day, but the original phones were laggy out the box. I'll up another star as the phone and Android work quite well, but it's still sub-par as a replacement to the Moment (camera flash, slower modem). For $.01, you can't go wrong. Even the hassle of sending phones back, etc. It's still $.01 and a much cheaper phone rate than the competitors. BTW, so far I have had exceptional customer service from Sprint. The rep even called me back (to a land line) after I hung up on her when activating the new lines. I'm optimistic of this new relationship.

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'UPDATE' 9/14/10 - Ok, after a few weeks of using this phone, and a week of my replacement phone with the soft keys issue resolved, I'm dropping my rating to a single star. Android I prefer, I like it, it has potential. The soft keys work, I can navigate the web, email, etc. just fine and I haven't had any bad experiences. It's been fun to learn and play around with. The problem: this phone SUCKS as a phone. The main reason to have a smartphone is to have a, well, PHONE!!

The past three or four days have been unusually busy at work and I've had lots of calls. This has given me some good experience using the phone, not just playing w/ Android (and focusing on the functionality of the OS). My wife finally couldn't take it any longer and switched to a Palm Pixi as calls were being dropped left and right and it's more work than any phone I've ever used just to make and receive calls.

Let me lay it out for you...

1. It takes about 2 seconds to bring up the phone app when you hit the phone hard button. Twice yesterday I timed it at a whopping 10 SECONDS just to bring the phone application up! SOOOO frustrating, especially when you need to make another urgent call.

2. Phone app defaults to the call log. So far I haven't found a way to change the settings. I don't care to go there, I prefer to go to the 'Favorites screen' or the dialer screen. This wouldn't be an issue if...

3. Switching from the call log to the dialer/favorites lags at least 2 seconds, sometimes longer. Once at the dialer it's easy to make a call, dial and send. From the Favorites, not so much...

4. On the Favorites menu you select a name and it takes you to their list of numbers, and THEN you hit 'Call'. I found a setting to resolve this as you can list a 'default' number for each contact in your favorites. Even though the number is checked off as the 'default', it doesn't 'default' dial to that chosen number. MADDENING! What's the point????

5. The absolute most frustrating thing is after completing a call the phone ends (lag) and then pops up a screen w/ the call summary (a photo of the person and two big buttons, 'call' or 'mail'). There is no way that I've found to avoid this screen. You simply have to wait 2-5 seconds for the screen to go away until you can place another call.

So, in a nutshell, to make a simple call you must: Hit the power button, slide to unlock, hit 'phone', select either dialer or favorites, select contact, select number, then select 'call'.

I've tried to have hope for this phone and exchanged them twice, but I've given up, it's ridiculous. I'm going to contact Amazon.com again today for an exchange, but not before going to the local Sprint store to physically try other phones, even non Android phones. I'm coming from an iPhone after 1 1/2 years and, although I do like Android over the iOS, it needs to be first and foremost A PHONE!

Do NOT buy this phone. Like my headline says, I should have listened to my gut.

update 9/10/10: Had the phone for a couple weeks now. Still like it. Sometimes the soft keys stop working at all, which is frustrating BUT I believe this is more of a software than hardware issue. It happens to me maybe once every other day, and lasts about 10 seconds, then everything goes back to working. I believe it has something to do with applications or processes that are running and bogging down the processor. It usually happens when I first turn on the phone and when multiple apps are running. If I take a deep breath and wait a few seconds, then everything works fine. There might be a chance that this will improve after 2.2 update. But since I am used to PDA phones, a minor glitch like this doesn't really get under my skin. 98% of the time everything works exactly as it should. Can you say the same about your PC or laptop? :)


I have been using windows PDA phones since they were created, but wanted an android phone (Sprint) and had a tough time choosing between the Hero, the Moment, and the Intercept. I test-drove the Hero but found it difficult to use the touch-keypad. The moment was bulkier when I handled the phones in the store, and of course will not be supported with android updates. I read 1000+ reviews about these three phones, and went with the Intercept, although they all had their share of complaints. My phone has been great. No soft-key problems. Fast web browsing (it's all relative but it seems fast enough to me), no freezing up, no problems at all, really. The battery will last a full day with moderate amounts of talk, texting, email and some streaming TV and web browsing. The GPS works great, the camera as well. No complaints at all from me.

This is the absolute sorriest excuse for a smart phone I have ever had the misfortune to use. I don't know how Samsung, Sprint or anybody else can sell this piece of garbage with a straight face. I purchased 2 of them, and have had them for three months. This is not a kneejerk reaction to minor problems with a new phone, or just a defective phone. Both of my phones have the same issues, that just seem to get continually worse. Oh, and if you make the mistake of purchasing this phone through Amazon with a new Sprint contract, you are just screwed because Sprint won't take it back because you didn't buy it from them, and Amazon will gladly send you a replacement of the same phone (with the same problems), but you can't change to a different phone because you're under contract with this one. After countless phone calls and e-mails to both Sprint and Amazon I've learned a valuable lesson, and will never do this again. It's not worth the money I saved to be stuck with this piece of crap for a year. Especially considering the cost of buying a different phone (or 2)at full price, which is what I'm about to do.

The problems are too countless to list all of them, but I'll give it a shot.

The touch screen is complete junk. Sometimes so sensitive that you can't even scroll up or down because it instantly opens whatever you touch. And at other times so completely dead that you can't use it with hammer!

Even with an app killer, it just randomly opens apps that run in the background and slows the phone to a crawl. You can go in and manually close everything, close the settings menu, then open it back up without doing anything else, and apps have restarted. Not only does it slow everything down, but it drains the battery.

I had a 9 pound bag phone back in '92 that dropped less calls than this piece of $#%^

The term "force close" has become a part of my daily vocabulary since buying these phones. Apps are constantly locking up, and having to force close, often requiring me to restart the phone to be able to use anything.

It also likes to open the wrong thing. For example, if I touch to open a text that I just received, it will open an old text from a different person. Or touch to open a specific app, and will open a different app. And I'm not talking the one right next to what I touched on the screen, just some random app that may not even be on the screen at that time.

Speaking of random, don't be texting any sensitive information, because it randomly sends your texts to different people sometimes. I have sent a text to someone, and literally received three responses from three different people asking what the hell I'm talking about. And the intended receiver didn't even get the text!

Keep this phone on your person at all times if you want to receive a call. You can't count on it to ring. It might ring, or it might just vibrate, or it might not do anything at all, and you'll just see a missed call. Oh, and don't count on it to get you to work on time either. A functioning alarm is not an option on this phone..... There is an alarm on it, it just doesn't freakin' work!

I'm sure I'm forgetting some things, and I'm sure that within minutes of posting this my phone will remind of something that I forgot, instantly sending me into a fit of rage that has also become all too common with being the proud owner of such a miserable useless piece of equipment.

For those of you who are a little slow on the uptake, let me state it clearly for you. DO NOT BUY THIS PHONE! THE ONLY USE I HAVE FOUND FOR IT THAT IT PERFORMS RELIABLY IS THAT OF A PAPER WEIGHT!

I have found this phone to perform all the functionality I need from it flawlessly (including streaming video, games, and internet radio). However, it doesn't make financial sense to use this phone with the sprint service. Virgin Mobile uses the same data network as sprint and offers unlimited data and text for $25 / mo. Even with the cheapest unlimited data plan sprint costs $1716 before tax over the 2 year service contract ($70 x 24mo + $36 activation fee). Compare that to Virgin Mobile at $850 before tax ($25 x 24mo + $250 phone). There are advantages to Sprint service, but they're small compared to the price difference.

I strongly advise you consider the Virgin Mobile service if you think you would use this phone: Virgin Mobile Samsung Intercept VMM910SMKIT18L.

Edit:

I like the keyboard arrangement on this phone, all the numbers have their own keys and all the important symbols are easily accessible. However, the space is located between 'V' and 'B' in the bottom row of letters, which takes some getting used to. My old phone required you to press a function key to type numbers, which turned out to be a major inconvenience.

When applied carefully the screen protector for this phone isn't even noticeable. Wiping the screen of the phone carefully with rubbing alcohol can remove any skin oil, and the small cloth provided with the screen protectors can remove dust. (3-Pack Samsung Intercept Moment 2 M910 Combo LCD Screen Protector for Samsung Intercept Moment 2 M910)