Eleven photos of the entire unboxing and booting of the Samsung Intercept, the first 3G prepaid Android phone in America.
Got questions? We’ve got the device… ask away in the comments.
Christopher Price
Christopher Price is the Founding Editor of PhoneNews.com. Today, he leads the team building Console, Inc. - a new kind of Android™ device. He still likes to pontificate... a lot. You can visit his personal blog at ChristopherPrice.net.
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i am writing this using my lg rumor 2 and i am wondering how much better this would be if i was using a samsung intercept…anyway what is the diffrence between android 2.1 and android 2.2??
Just activated my VM Intercept today. USB tethering is a breeze, but Bluetooth DUN appears to me to be either hidden turned off or not installed? Anyone know if it can be turned on?
@ Jo L. Will Click on the Menu button on the left side of the phone above the dial button, next click settings, wireless & networks, press on bluetooth and it should be enabled.
@ myself there is another way to enable the bluetooth and wifi. At the desktop menu pull down from the top of the phone.
I bought one last week, and a second one for my wife this past weekend. The processor seems to get behind sometimes, and the phone is not responsive to operations such as the back button or home button, but the features seem to work well. There is a problem with Bluetooth in which you get a very obnoxious loud feedback tone when trying to use voice dialing. I believe Bluetooth will work OK after the call is established, but making calls with a Bluetooth headset paired with the phone is clumsy. ATT does it better. But everything considered, $25 per month can’t be beat, which is why we now own two of these phones.
Okay, so, last year for Christmas I got my first cell phone. The ONLY plan my family could afford was the sidekick prepaid, so I was plagued with a Sidekick 08. I have since been VERY dissappointed. $250 for the phone and a dollar 50 a day (includes about 4 talking minutes) for service, and it RARELY works for ANYTHING except calling and texting. I have to literally turn it off then on again to get any app to even load. Plus the market pricves are ridiculous. CLEARLY having a DROID phone for the Same price and a BETTER monthly deal (Minutes and 3G!) is a HUGE step up for me. Now I just have to get on the nice list and get this for Christmas THIS year! What a rip off the sidekick was!! I would have ditched it if it were not the onlyt affordable plan. But now, the only issue Ive got is the $250, but that can be my only Christmas gift. So I cant wait!!! But, I have some questions about it features.
1.) Is there an option to send the same text to ALL ccontacts?
2.) Can I have a different ringtone for certain contacts? (Both Question 1 and 2 are things my sidekick doesnt have that I wish it did).
3.) Does it have a little hole for cell phone charms? (Just curious.)
4.) Are backrounds the same size as the motorola droid?
Thanks in Advanced!!!
-Provehito In Altum
Does it come Fully Charged when you buy it?
Phill, phones rarely are fully charged when you purchase it. That’s actually bad for the phone, as it can cause damage to the battery while it is sitting in a warehouse after manufacturing.
The Intercept is charged up enough to activate the phone and begin using it, but you should discharge and recharge the battery a couple of times to begin achieving proper run times. Don’t ever judge a phone’s battery life by its first charge.
Okay, I have VIrgin mobiles Rumor Touch, i HATE it. Would it be a good idea to get this phone? If so Can you put music on it easily or is it as bad as the rumor touch?
Please Respond, Thank you
Darn they had it on the virgin site and it got sold out anyone know if Radioshack will carry this phone?Can I tether it to my ipod touch?thanks anyone who can answer.
I notice some small led’s by the Samsung logo in the upper left. Are these email/text/missed call notification led’s? Signal service led?
thanks-
chris or anyone!
I’ve had my intercept for less than 2 weeks…and, the battery has stopped taking a charge!
i have been using generic chargers as well as the charger that came with the phone…but how is this possible!
thanks
Called VM 10/19/10 since the intercept was sold out online.
Asked by rep “how much You want to pay for it?”. I said $150. I ended up getting it for $220. This was the weirdest question I ever heard. Felt like I was buying a Car, instead of phone.
Got email 10/21/10 that phone had been shipped.
Verified by tracking number that it indeed shipped and will arrive in late afternoon 10/22/10.
2:47pm today received the phone. Powered up and running on network already. everything seems to be working with fast Wi Fi and Sprint network connections.
less than 72 hours from phone call to VM , until phone up and running is pretty awesome. Especially since this phone was unavailable on line at the moment.
Did I mention I shipped to family member in the next town over and saved $8 off due to my local taxes being so high?
Fed Ex track #
000120670665306
what is the phones serial number
So i was planning to get this phone but then i decided to switch to a family plan on at&t and i am planning on getting a iphone 4,sure beates this phone
be careful for your hand placement when using your fabulous Iphone 4 on the outrageously priced plan
They are on sale at Radio Shack (in stores only, through 11/20) for $199.00 less a 10 off 40 coupon available from “the shack” for signing up for their spam = $189.00. Take a detour through a sales tax-free state, like DE, and save even more. The going price on (fle)ebay is around $230/pop + delivery, so you could actually start churning a profit on these if you have time.
I can’t get on the internet and my gmail isn’t syncing. how do i fix?
Bought a VM Samsung Intercept at Target today. They are priced at $249.99 and they’ll give you a $20 gift card with the purchase (automatically comes up at the register). I had them price match with Radio Shack’s advertised price of $199. I applied for a Target credit card to get another 5% off. Total was $190.99 + tax and that included a $20 gift card!
Yes i was wondering is the button in the middle purple sometimes because in some of your pictures when you zoom in its purple or some color like that
The middle button is a trackpad. As such, it is translucent black. Some of our photos make it appear purple because of the flash, under extreme light, the translucent plastic appears purple.
You can also see a faint red dot at times, this is the laser that drives the trackpad functionality underneath the trackpad cover.
so this has wifi like the sprint counter part…. and will this root like the sprint version and wifi tether?
It can be rooted, similar to the Sprint version, but you will need a kernel that is customized for the Virgin Mobile USA variant. Do not follow any guide to root the device unless it explicitly says it was written for the Virgin Mobile variant of the Intercept.
[…] has led the mobile media in covering the Intercept, from the first unboxings to groundbreaking VoIP […]
quick question: this phone can be used as a router to provide WiFi to a computer?
So if this phone is offered at $175 at Virgin Mobile, do you think any other retailer will also lower the price? Or atleast match that of Virgin Mobile?
Jennifer, to use the phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot, you would have to root the device. But yes, it can be done at that point, with the Barnacle WiFi Legacy app (available on Android Market).
As to price matching Steve, no idea. Retailers earlier this week were selling it for around $175 with gift card, so it’s possible… but also possible that the price will be exclusive to virginmobileusa.com.
Tim, yes, the Samsung Intercept is Google-approved, and does include Google Maps Navigation. You can also use third-party GPS apps from the Android Market.
Chris, about the Samsung Intercept on Vmobile; I have been with T-Mobile for a while now, because they were a very cheap cell provider with a solid well known company (good coverage). Compared to the other big guys. But recently the offer on the table is now becoming a more expensive company. My extra $10unlimited internet service add-on to a regular cell plan is discontinued, but still have it, and now there is an extra $15 tethering fee for Samsung Vibrant which would have been the best speed and price you could buy if they did not slap on a $15 fee to open the gateway to tethering. I have been using the Samsung Gravity T(t669) which is similar to the Intecept as far as features go, but I think performance is much better. With the current phone I mentioned I am able to tether(unsupported by carrier) through usb with this phone by downloading Samsung Studio software need that includes proper modem driver to work once connected and then just set up a dial up-connection with extra initialization commend prompt. I can achive internet performance speed on my computer of(download-25kb/s &upload speed-3-10kb/s) which is very good but still is not a full blown high-speed connection. This is all on EDGE data coverage speed with fair to low signal strengh. The processor is 184Mhz. I don’ know what to expect when I am in a 3G coverage area because I never tryed it before, but I assume it must be at least twice as fast(50kb/s). Now going back to Virgin Mobile and this Phone Samsung Intercept; besides that I hate to loose the $10internet i am getting right now from T-mobile with a voice plan cheapest cost $37.45 including taxes(total) plus $10internet service; with this you also get 500minutes voice and unlimited after 9pm and weekends and mobile to mobile, overall Virgin Mobile is a better monthly value starting at $25 for unlimited internet and 300whenever minutes/$40for 1200minutes better value. I am very knew to Vmobile but research through the website very throughly and this phone. The good thing about switching or trying Vmobile besides the pricing;for tethering is that I believe my area is covered for 3G data speeds(24586) were as T-Mobile doesn’t(only EDGE) plus using this phone (Intercept) is more than just a phone but an Andriod phone with 800Mhz processor. So I expect the tethering internet should be superior internet speed once set-up technically to work around Vmobiles unsupporting the functionality. This is almost as fast as the Samsung Vibrant for T-mobile or the Samsung Epic 4G for Sprint with 1GHz processor. The only thing bad about what I have read about this phone and phones like it(Samsung Moment, Transform) is that it is not a very stable phone when using it in itself and always thoughtthat there would be no software work to be done with the computer or phone to work properly that it would PDA-Sync and automatically pick up the internet without setting up a dial up processes, like a WiFi connection. From what I have read though this sounds like it is not a true Andriod performance phone. Like T-mobile I thought that Andriods required a data purchase plan with the phone to work at all. It seems like this phone and others may work on a lower level of data plan and is not required, which suprised me, although the $25 plan from Virgin Mobile comes with some kind of data that works with all phones and is not specially dedecated to Andriods. My question is from your experience and by going to speedtest.net and changing site settings to kilobytes per second read what is the download speeds max out after running the test a couple times without stopping between tests too long and upload speed(WHEN TETHERING THE SAMSUNG INTERCEPT), also what kind of download speed results do you get if you download music from a peer 2 peer network like SHAREAZA with alot of users or hosts on that one music file and re-order sources after giving it time to warm up when downloading. Just wanted to know this to compair it with what I am getting right now which I said is (25kb/s & 3-10kb/s upload) even though I am very impressed with the value of Virgin Mobile I still don’t know what kind of call quality and service to expect from this company with this phone??? It might be the next best thing, because it is a partner company of a major cell provider (Sprint network) so I expect it to be a good way to get Sprint service at an unbeatable and affordable price. Please note the few providers that offer Wireless Internet separately with usb internet connect at the $40 UNLIMITED PRICE WHICH IS CHEAPER are T-MOBILE, CRICKET WIRELESS(bad coverage though), and VIRGIN MOBILE, maybe others. This company Virgin Mobile has very good coverage thanks to Sprint at an affordable price, unlike Cricket wireless and other small wireless carriers. Again my question always falls back on what prooven speed results have you seen when tethering Samsung Intercept??? Also after downloading and installing the software drivers from Samsung site do I still need to send certain offical files to the phone itself to properly work with the computer??? Is it going to automatically pick up the internet like a LAN/WifI or will I still need to manually configure dialing-up on my computer like I do now and if so what should the settings be(APN code) for extra initalization command prompt for modem and other numbers to dial work best in order to manually dial-up into the network??? Thanks Kent
T-Mobile does not offer $40 MiFi/USB data. They may offer such a plan to employees, but not consumers.
Also, Cricket is a regional carrier, and as policy we do not make extreme efforts to list plans which are typically not available to everyone in the country.
CDMA does not require APNs or other configuration data. Once you have activated your phone (follow the instructions that came with it), it should be connected to 3G/EVDO within minutes of activation.
Does VM use the same network as Sprint? Is it the same coverage and call quality. If it is it seems like a no-brainer. To get any android phone on Verizon would push my family plan (only me with internet) to 130 a month. That seems just crazy! We pay 75 a month right now, nothing added-not even messaging. Looking to go elsewhere, VZW has the best service but high priced!
so is this phone any different than the one you get on contract with sprint. if it is how. And also how would call people. Does it have a menu or is the pull up bar the menu.
TimJ, Virgin Mobile is part of the Sprint prepaid group, and uses the same CDMA/EVDO network. There is a QoS control, so that Sprint customers have priority over VM customers in high data usage situations.
This is rarely an issue, but if you’re at CES or a Sprint developers convention, you can see the VM phones are running slowly compared to Sprint handsets.
Keysomay, the phones are nearly identical firmware-wise. The only major differences are that the Sprint version has native support for USB tethering (you have to use PDANet on the VM variant), as well as the loss of Sprint Navigation and Sprint TV (you can still use Google Maps Navigation however). Finally, the Sprint version has more adaptive firmware update support, you may need to use a PC to update the VM variant down the road.
To call people, you simply hit the physical call buttons at the bottom of the phone, or launch the Phone app.
HEY DOES ANYBODY KNOW HOW TO MAKE MY INTERCEPT GO BACK TO THE LOCK VIEW AS THE ONE SEEN ON THE PIC INSTEAD OF FACTORY DEFAULT SLIDING TO THE SIDE TO UNLOCK???
This phone after 4 months of use has been a horrendous experience….. It got a little better after installing sprint’s 2.2 froyo but not much better… its slow and the network is unusable but now I know its not all VM’s fault because I ran a speed test on an EVO today and it was also getting 10-20 kB/s up and down data… I would have to say my friend is mad! His speeds are just as bad as mine! LOL
My mom just sent me a few ringtones via text message, I am new to this phone, how do I save the ringtone to my phone from the text? I have a 2 gig sd card in it.