Mid-range devices may not be the sleekest or most powerful phones on the market, but they constitute an important niche for individuals who want all of the features and functionality of a smartphone, but who don’t want to spend over $200 to get it.
The Samsung Intercept falls right into this category, mostly. This Android 2.1 QWERTY slider is only $99 with a new 2-year contract (after $150 instant savings and a $100 mail-in rebate), or $349.99 outright. It features a 3.2-inch TFT disaply with a resolution of 240 x 400 pixels.
It also has an 800 MHz Samsung S3C6410 processor, 160MB RAM, a 3.2MP camera, 1xEV-DO rev.0, Bluetooth 2.1, Wi-Fi, and microSD expansion of up to 32 GB. Given the 800MHz CPU, some may want to lump this into a category somewhere between mid and high range devices. However, given the amount of RAM, lack of flash for the camera, and mediocre display quality, I feel comfortable labeling this as a mid-range device. Now, let’s take a look at what comes with the box.
Aside from the phone itself, the Intercept comes with an AC charger, mini-USB cable, microSD card (already installed), microSD adaptor, “Get Started” guide in both English and Spanish (not pictured), “Basics Guide”, Terms & Conditions, and a recycling bag to send your old phone back if you so desire. Nothing too unusual here, but it is nice that they included a microSD card with the phone.
Physically the phone feels pretty sturdy despite the fact it appears to be made entirely out of plastic. The sliding mechanism on the keyboard feels solid, and the physical buttons on the front of the phone have a defined aspect to them, although the “select” button in the bottom center area feels a touch wobbly.
Camera
With only a 3.2MP camera and no flash, the Intercept is really lacking in the photo-taking department. You are limited to taking photos in areas with plenty of natural or artificial light, case in point, the photo taken below.
The camera certainly fairs better in better lighting situations, but still produces slightly grainy photos. The bottom line here is: do not buy the Samsung Intercept for its less than stellar photo taking abilities.
Keyboard
The keyboard is unfortunately one of the biggest drawbacks of this device, especially when compared to other Sprint QWERTY phones like the Epic 4G. First of all, there are only four rows of buttons compared to the five featured on the Epic 4G. Now because of that, the space key and a few others had to be crammed down on the bottom row of keys, with the space bar placed right in between the “v” and “b” keys. This makes for a fairly awkward typing experience at first, and definitely gives this device a bit of a learning curve in regards to the keyboard.
Another problem I have here is that the function key, which enables you to use all of your secondary characters on the keyboard, is placed in the very upper left corner of the keyboard. It may not seem like a huge difference between placing it in the lower left area of the keyboard, but it really does make it awkward to use your right thumb to try and use some of the characters located directly next to or under the function key. Again, this was done because of the four rows of keys, and while I was able to get used to this, I still would have preferred the function key to be in the lower left portion of the keyboard.
In spite of the issues mentioned above, the keys themselves are actually quite nice. They are responsive and emit a nice “click” sound when pressed, and the spacing is pretty comfortable. It really is too bad that the space key is so awkwardly placed, because the actual keys themselves are pretty nice. Now, let’s take a look at some of the software that is unique to the Samsung Intercept.
Software
I have never been a fan of manufacturer UI’s, and TouchWiz is no exception. It feels sluggish and a bit disorganized, and the phone felt more usable with a home screen replacement like Launcher Pro. Other than TouchWiz, the only unique software that comes pre-installed are the different Sprint offerings, which are Sprint TV, Sprint Football Live, and Sprint’s NASCAR app.
Sprint TV is actually a pretty nice app, and something I would definitely recommend if you find yourself stuck in an airport or on a bus with some time to kill. There’s quite a bit of network content to choose from, and the couple episodes of the Daily Show I watched came through in pretty good quality with only a few moments of lag.
NFL Football Live is a nice little app for Football fans, including scores, stats, clips and highlights, and a Fantasy Football tab for those who are into that sort of thing. The video quality of the is not nearly as good as what I experienced with Sprint TV, but it works.
I’m by no means a NASCAR fan, but if I were I would probably enjoy having Sprint’s NASCAR app. It features results for all the different races going on, and a live radio broadcast so you can listen to live commentary. Overall, I found these Sprint apps to be a nice addition to the phone, and helps give the Intercept a few extra selling points.
Call Quality and Battery Life
I used the Intercept to make a couple conference calls just to test out the overall call quality. While it was not as clear as my Droid Incredible, for the most part I could hear the speaker on the other end loud and clear. I’m not as big a fan of the speakerphone, however, which sounded a bit muffled. However, other than the speakerphone I don’t really have any major complaints with the Intercept’s call quality.
In terms of battery life, as long as you’re not doing something really CPU taxing (like playing 2 hours of Angry Birds), the battery life is pretty decent on this thing. I only lost about 10% battery life after using Sprint TV for about 30 minutes, which isn’t too shabby. After about an hour of talk time, some Sprint TV use, email, web browsing, and some Angry Birds, I still had about 50% of the battery. All in all, for a device with an 800MHz CPU, the battery life is pretty decent.
Benchmarks
Before you start to grimace at some of these benchmarks, keep in mind that this is a mid-range device which is only sporting a 667 MHz chip. That being said, here’s how the Intercept holds up against some of the higher-end devices.
First up we have Google’s V8 (no, not the juice) Benchmark version 5, which measures a phone’s JavaScript performance typically while web browsing.
As you can see, the Intercept performs pretty poorly here compared to some of these other devices. Up next, we have BenchmarkPi, which basically tests CPU performance while crunching the digits of Pi. In this particular case, lower is better, so again the Intercept comes in last (this will be a continuing trend here).
Next up we have Linpack, which is another CPU intensive benchmark. The results here are a little strange, as such a low MFLOPS number should have resulted in a much higher total in seconds. I ran this several times, and they all averaged out to about the same. I really can’t say for sure what’s going on here, but I thought I would include these results anyways.
The next three benchmarks, NeoCore, fps2d, and Quandrant, all failed to run on the Samsung Intercept. These are tests designed to show off the GPU capabilities of a device, and this little guy just couldn’t keep up.
Conclusions
A few months ago, I probably would have felt a bit better about recommending this phone to people wanting a mid-range Android device on Sprint. However, with the recent release of the LG Optimus S, unless you are dying for a physical QWERTY keyboard I would probably have to recommend the LG. It has a brighter screen, Android 2.2, and is $50 cheaper than the Intercept. I am honestly a bit surprised that the Intercept hasn’t been bumped down to $50 or less for a new 2-year contract, and I would expect this to happen in the next month or two.
My overall impression after using this device pretty extensively is that I would not be satisfied paying $100. Would I feel better paying $50? Probably. I think the phone really suffers because of the low amount of RAM, which causes it to bog down pretty easily. The keyboard feels nice, but again is hindered by a poor placement of the space and function keys. The screen, while fairly responsive, has a pretty low resolution and looks overly pixelated.
The bottom line is: If you’re dying for a Sprint Android phone with a QWERTY keyboard but don’t want to shell out for an Epic 4G, I suppose this is the device for you. In all honesty though, I would take a good hard look at the LG Optimus S before buying an Intercept.