It was the nightmare of every owner of a new and pristine gadget. I was visiting family for Christmas and while doing a little woodworking, a family member picked up the mobile phone I had received the day before and accidentally dropped it. The phone fell some four feet to the concrete floor of the workroom with a thud. I approached it with dread, knowing the phone would be scratched, dented or worse. Upon picking it up, however, and after a brief inspection, I found the phone entirely undamaged. How is this possible? I asked myself. I had only Samsung to thank.
The phone was the Samsung SPH-A900, a sleek (and sturdy) handset released in December 2005 as an alternative to the wildly-popular Motorola RAZR. By surviving the fall, I was a believer in the the durability of the A900, but over the next week I also came to recognize it as one of the most functional phones I’ve ever used. Because of the quality of the phone’s construction, its ease of use and its range of connectivity options, I’m a fully-satisfied mobile phone user for the first time in years. Samsung, you have a winner!
Introduction
First, a brief rundown of the features of the SPH-A900: The A900 is a CDMA handset with full EV-DO 3G high-speed network support. It has Bluetooth wireless built-in, which makes it compatible with Bluetooth headsets and other Bluetooth-enabled devices like Pocket PCs and laptops. There’s a built-in 1.3MP digital camera with LED flash, and a beautiful 18-bit color primary screen for viewing both pictures and video. The A900 also boasts built-in MP3 audio playback software, a flash memory storage system for storing and moving files, a basic planner, a memo pad, speech-to-text SMS... the list goes on and on.
At present, the SPH-A900 is available only to Sprint customers. Sprint sells the phone as the MM-A900, but that’s just a marketing tool; because the SPH-A900 is compatible with certain audio files and Sprint’s new music download service, Sprint has branded the phone with the “MM” for MultiMedia.
With a 2-year contract, the A900 can be yours for a little as $199 directly from Sprint, but there are other companies letting the handset go for a good bit less.
