The Intercept is definitely a looker, as you will see that the frame is classy and elegant while the screen reminds crystal clear and the back is styling Gray Steel. One look at this beauty and you’re sold. It has about everything you can ask for, full slide-out QWERTY keyboard, touchscreen, and thousands of Android apps to choose from and on a great network too. This little cutie is available at Sprint for $99.There have been many high end phones just shooting out of the market with thise high prices we just can’t stand. Well if you really want a new phone that won’t burn a hole in your wallet, can keep you connect with everyone, and look sexy, well then The Samsung Intercept just might be the phone for you.
Design
Like the Moment, Samsung’s first Android phone for Sprint (and which is now $99, too), the Intercept sports a slider design with a physical QWERTY keyboard. But there are some pretty stark differences between the two devices. The Intercept’s 3-inch screen is much smaller than the the 3.6-inch LCD on the Moment. On the plus side, the Intercept is considerably lighter than the Moment (4.8 vs. 5.7 ounces) but it’s also thicker (0.6 vs. 0.4 inches). The front of the Intercept has a glossy black border for the display, and the top half of the device is rimmed with cool chrome accents. Underneath the screen you’ll find four haptic touch-sensitive buttons (Menu, Home, Back, Search) above the physical Send and End keys; in the middle is an optical trackpad. The sliding action is smooth, but doesn’t feel as refined as, say, the Devour. The back of the device is gray, but consumers can also opt for pink. On the right side of the phone is a 3.5mm headphone jack and a camera button. The top has a microUSB port, and the left has volume controls and a microSD card slot; we like that it’s accessible without having to remove the back cover.
Keyboard
The QWERTY keyboard is very tactile, I enjoyed using this, it was easy and the buttons didn’t stick. Before the day was up I could message with no hesitation. The only thing I wasn’t a big fan of was the spacebar being in the middle of V and B, it was kinda akward at first. I kept messing up words, it was a very frustating process until I finally got the hang out of it. Then again if you can always just use the touchscreen keyboard. I had no problem with the four buttons below the touchscreen that Android phones always have – menu, home, back, search.
Display
Not only is the Intercept’s 3-inch screen physically tiny compared to the likes of the 4.3-inch Evo 4G, the Intercept’s display has a relatively low pixel count of 400 x 240, which is even less than the Moment (480 x 320) and BlackBerry Bold 9650 (480 x 360) . As such, every icon on screen looks pixilated; text especially suffers. Still, it’s decently bright, although it was a bit difficult to see content in direct sunlight.
Features
The Samsung Intercept comes with Android 2.1 right out of the gate, which is great news if you want a modern Android OS smartphone. You get voice-to-text capabilities, Google Maps Navigation, and the option for live wallpapers. We’ve always questioned if the Samsung TouchWiz interface fit well within Android, and thankfully the Intercept just has the standard Android UI.
Camera
The camera was alright. With a 3.2 megapixel camera, you wouldn’t except that pictures to be the best but they aren’t the worst either I guess. There’s no flash on this phone, so whatever pictures you may take at night will probably come out very grainy. There are a few editing options on the plus side; scene mode, white balance, color effect, metering, picture size, picture quality, and focus mode. There is also the video feature, well that works well if you really must take video.
Performance
This isn’t the world’s fastest Android phone, but the Intercept’s 800-MHz ARM 11 processor (with 256MB of RAM and 512MB of ROM) runs Android 2.1 pretty well. Pinch-to-zoom worked fine in the browser, programs launched quickly, and page swipes were smooth. Occasionally, though, there would be a lapse of a second between pressing one of the haptic keys and it registering on screen. Callers reported good call quality, saying there was no hissing or static noise, and they said our voice sounded great and natural. During speakerphone calls, the quality diminished somewhat–callers said they heard more background noise and a slightly fuzzier voice quality–but it wasn’t a deal breaker. On our end, speakerphone quality was fine. The volume was loud enough and though callers sounded rather tinny, it was nothing we didn’t expect.
Tags: Android, Google, Google Maps, MicroSD, QWERTY, Samsung Intercept, Sprint, Touchscreen