Sprint and the Samsung Moment

So I picked up Sprint's Samsung Moment back in December because it was time to move to a modern phone OS. I've been a Windows Mobile user since before it was called Windows Mobile (Pocket PC 2002 was my first version), and had several Windows Mobile phone I liked overall and knew well. But I also knew their limitations, performance, and base functionality were not going to be compatible with the general way smartphones were meant to be used. While I won't buy an iPhone, I'm not clueless about the advantages, and while I could defend Windows Mobile's reasons for the way it did things until I was blue in the face, there were other matters that were hard to ignore.

So I made the decision to move to Android. I'm a Sprint user, and overall I've been very happy with Sprint. They've had their moments, and I've considered leaving on occasion, but they've always made good on their issues and their rates are good. So that narrowed my selection down to only two Android phones. There was just the HTC Hero and the Samsung Moment; no Droid, no Nexus One. And since I'm pretty hard set on having a QWERTY keyboard (or at least was at the time), and the Moment has an 800Mhz processor instead of the more common 600Mhz, I decided to go that route.

Both phones were “crippled” (exaggerating, I know) with Android 1.5. Not that it's a bad version, but we had phones with 2.0 and some hitting with 2.1 already, not to mention many on 1.6, and yet these two still had a version that even Google was not supporting in half their app releases. That said, Sprint promised an upgrade to 2.1 in the first half of 2010, so I made the jump.

In general the phone was fantastic overall. While it had issues to overcome, its Market apps allowed me to plug in and tie in functions and features that resolved nearly all complaints, and performance was mostly fantastic, although randomly as bad as my Windows Mobile phone at times. Still, it changed the way I used my phone in general and made me pretty happy. Battery life was dreadful, though, forcing me to buy an extra battery, since NOBODY makes accessories for the Moment. It also had an annoying habit of randomly dropping my connection overall, sometimes during a call, but usually while doing nothing. It would pick it back up shortly after, but it would kill anything I was streaming or browsing.

Eventually leaks of 2.1 for the Moment hit, which I ran and was instantly enamored with. Pretty much every remaining complaint I had was resolved and performance went way up. Minor nagging issues remained, though, like GPS would almost never lock on, and stability was iffy.

Now Sprint caught a lot of flack for how much they delayed the 2.1 update. I won't give them that crap myself. The reality is I can't imagine how difficult it is to build and ship a stable, functional update to an OS like this. And while they did keep delaying it, in the end Sprint did release the update in the first half of 2010 as promised, and overall it's great.

But there are a few rather serious catches, and they have me concerned. For one, GPS is still awful. Randomly it will fail to find my location, or take five-plus minutes to do so, or even force me to fully power-cycle the phone before I can get a lock. And then once it does work, it's extremely flakey. I can be driving along the freeway and suddenly be informed that I'm on a side-street near the freeway and be given directions to get back on the freeway I'm already on. This isn't terrible on long stretches, but if I'm already near my destination, or on streets, it can completely break my ability to follow the directions. Wasn't like this on 1.5.

Another bigger issue is what's being referred to online as data lockup. Randomly, but usually when the phone's connection is being pushed by large downloads (such as Market updates) or streaming music/video, the data connection will completely lock up. I'll get the up-arrow on the EVDO symbol locked on, no Internet will work, and then eventually the whole EVDO symbol will disappear and the phone will be without Internet until I pull the battery (shutting down isn't enough) and then reboot the phone. And then it could be as soon as five minutes after I start it up again before it happens again.

The thing is, no matter how happy I am with Sprint overall, I know their patterns, and I wouldn't be surprised to see these issues go completely ignored. In fact, I suspect this may be the last official update we receive for this phone before Sprint moves their focus to the upcoming Moment 2. And that seems unreasonable to me. Perhaps I'm wrong. Maybe we can expect another patch. But after how crazy it was to get this one, I can't imagine them putting that much more effort into a phone that's about to be EOLed (end-of-lifed). Which leaves those of us who sunk $200 into this phone SOL until we can afford to sink another $200+ into their next phone once we qualify for an upgrade on this one, and who knows how we'll be treated then?

This is one place where I have to begrudgingly give Apple some credit for the iPhone. By being the only manufacturer, and by having only one (albeit crappy) provider, they have a lot more control and accountability for issues like this. I'd like to see Google make some efforts to improve matters like that. Even so, I can also imagine this would be less of a problem if it were an HTC phone. They have a better track record when it comes to this sort of thing, and I expect we'd get better support.

We'll see what happens going forward, and I'm hoping Sprint steps up and manages to do right by their users on issues like this. And I hope Google does a little more to improve the upgrade process for their hardware developers so there's less random disparity. Meanwhile I have my eye on the HTC EVO 4G. It doesn't have a keyboard, but it's going to be a current-gen phone with HTC's weight behind it. Unfortunately I'm not up for an upgrade again until December, so unless Sprint resolves these Moment issues, I'm going to be stuck with them until then. Prove me wrong, Sprint, please.