Decent mid-range Android phone October 13, 2010

Reviewer:  Y. Nakai  (New York, NY United States) -

First, please note, this phone is NOT PINK. I don't know what joker put that in the technical specifications above, but it is your standard black / grey / chrome phone.

Before I purchased the Samsung Transform, I spent a good hour testing other Android QWERTY phones on Sprint - mostly the Epic 4G and the Intercept. While the Epic 4G was noticeably more responsive and had better screen contrast and more pixels, it is also significantly more expensive. The Intercept is slightly cheaper up front, but also feels a lot cheaper. So the Transform strikes a decent middle ground, and with the upcoming Froyo (Android 2.2) upgrade, the speed should improve significantly.

This is my first Android phone, and I'm very pleased. The keyboard and other physical design elements are solid and well thought out. The battery life is decent for a smartphone, and the MicroUSB charging port makes it inexpensive and easy to share cords with your other devices. Since the operating system is almost pure stock Android (with the addition of Sprint ID, which I haven't tested), it should be highly compatible and easy to modify. And the price is very reasonable.

The only reason I give it 4 stars rather than 5 is that the software, Android 2.1, is not as responsive as it should be, and because every phone should have physical keys to answer and end calls. The softkeys below the screen, and on-screen keys, are too unresponsive and hard to use without looking. This is a common problem, but even the Samsung Intercept accomplishes this basic usability task, so Samsung should know better.

Could be great, but is way too slow December 16, 2010

Reviewer:  S. Chung  (Bay Area, CA USA) -

I've owned smart phones since 2000 - had a Kyocera 6035, Samsung i300, i500, and a few generations of Palm Treo's, so I have some preconceived notions on what to expect from a smartphone. This is my first Android phone, and based on the specs it should be a great phone. Compared to the higher end Samsung Galaxy S Android phones, this pretty much has it all except for a few key differences:

1. slower 800 MHz processor (vs 1000 MHz)
2. smaller RAM size 256MB (vs 512MB)
3. lower resolution 480x320 screen (vs 800x480)
4. lower resolution 3.2 MP camera (vs 5MP)
5. smaller 4.6"x2.4 face size (vs 4.9"x2.5")
6. older OS Android 2.1 (vs Android 2.2) as of 12/21/2010

Besides being watered a down a little on specs, it pretty much has EVERYTHING else - full slide out keyboard, both front and rear cameras, LED camera flash, wifi, etc. If you look at the 6 things above, it is still pretty good - 800MHz isn't much different from 1GHz, plus it consumes less power. 256MB seems enough to run all the apps I've tried. 480x320 is the same resolution as the iPhone 3G, and it still is pretty darn good. Using a tiny lens, pictures captured by the 3.2MP CCD aren't much different in overall quality than ones captured with a 5MP CCD. The smaller form factor was a big plus for me (same size as an iPhone, just a little thicker to accommodate the slide-out keyboard) since the Galaxy S phones feel too bulky in my pocket. This phone also costs a lot less, and with Sprint it doesn't carry that idiotic $10 monthly add-on fee for the "privilege of owning a higher end phone". So why isn't this a 5-star phone!? Well, mainly because of item #6 - the older Android 2.1 OS runs the UI (user interface) so slowly, with so much lag, that it's almost unusable, at least from the point of view of the "power user" who wants to get things done quickly without much fuss.

On my phone it is common to see lag times in the 3-5 second range after tapping on something on the screen before the phone responds. Often the phone is too slow to track the movement of finger swipes across the screen properly so if you are trying enlarge a web page, answer the phone, turn on speaker phone, etc., you often have to try 2-3 times to get it to work. Also lots of "native" apps that you can download from the Android market are actually built as web pages that run off the built-in webkit engine, and they use a lot of javascript. Well, the experience with those apps isn't great, javascript is agonizingly slow.

In addition to the UI performance, there are a few design oversights which may or may not be an issue for other users. The biggest one for me is the lack of an LED indicator to tell you when there is something pending. So to check if you missed a call or if you have a new text, you have to turn on the screen, authenticate (which I have to do slowly so the phone can keep up with my finger movements), and pull down the status bar, and unless there is something pending you did it for nothing. In contrast my old smart phones used to just flash an LED which meant "you need to check something", so you could tell whether or not you needed to turn the screen on at all. Another peeve is that answering/hanging up a call is done via "swiping" your finger across the screen (i.e., with software) as opposed to having a hardware button to push, which means I have to be looking at my phone whenever I answer or silence a call - I can't just reach into my pocket and push a button. Finally, the battery life isn't very good, and it charges slowly (~2 hours). I have to charge my phone every day, and keep a charger in the car to make sure I don't run out of juice, but I suspected this would be the case before I bought the phone based on reviews of other Android phones.

Based on the performance improvements featured in the Android 2.2 release (just-in-time compilation, V8 javascript engine) and the reports of users with other Android phones that saw a remarkable difference when they upgraded to 2.2, I would speculate that this would be a great midrange phone if/when Samsung finally releases an upgrade to Android 2.2. They promised a release by the end of the year, and it's 12/21 and still nothing, so it's quite possible they decided to focus their resources elsewhere and we may never see Android 2.2 on this phone. Most likely their folks are working on getting the new Android 2.3 working on their higher end phones first. So, until Samsung releases Android 2.2 for this phone, I would recommend you stick with a different phone that already has Android 2.2+ on it.

Hate it. November 20, 2010

Reviewer:  Pinkeee 

This is the worst phone I have ever owned. I loved it at first, but have since seriously considered throwing it out of my car window MANY times. I won't go on about how sucky it is. But if you like to be able to, you know, answer or hang up a call, get a phone that lets you do that. Or say you just want to open the screen with the slider bar. Basic phone stuff. Forget about it. Don't even buy it for a penny.

First and last Samsung phone. Entry level phones should try help build customer loyalty for the next purchase not destroy your name brand.

Did I mention I hate this phone?

Slow, buggy, freezes a lot May 30, 2011

Reviewer:  DC 

I've had this phone for about 6 months and have been extremely disappointed. Besides being slow, it also freezes a lot and has a number of applications that don't work on it. On top of that I still haven't received the upgrade to Android 2.2. I contacted Sprint customer service about it and was basically told it wasn't their problem and to contact Samsung to pursue the manufacturer's warranty.

Slow and buggy October 23, 2010

Reviewer:  Vee  (NY) -

I really wanted to like this phone but the Samsung Transform is mediocre at best. The phone physically is quite clunky. It's not good for small hands but if you have medium to large hands, you should be fine with the size.
Despite having a processor speed of 800Mhz, this phone still manages to be almost as slow as my previous 528 MHz HTC Hero.
The battery life is not that great. Plus when charging the phone, it will charge to 100% but if you don't take the charger out of the phone quickly enough, your phone will go down to 98%. Very strange. You have to recharge in order to get back the other 2%. A real pain if you charge overnight.
Apps don't always open on this phone. You have to reboot your phone to get apps to open correctly.
The phone is quite limited in features despite the price tag.
The notification sound is the sound for everything except the ringer and the voicemail. No individual ringers for alarm, calendar, etc. There's also the annoying feature where every time I'd plug the phone in to be charged or into the USB port, the notification alarm would go off. I saw no way to shut this off.
I'm not a fan of Sprint ID and rarely if ever use it. All it does is take up valuable space on the phone.

The positives I have are that phone dialing is fast. Call quality is good. Plus, since it's vanilla Android and there is no TouchWiz hogging the memory, there's quite a bit of space for apps now.

Overall, I don't recommend this phone. If you're on a two-year contract or even a one year, you won't want to be stuck with this. I exchanged it for something else.

I hate this phone May 4, 2011

Reviewer:  RATMdrumer  (Reston, VA) -

This phone is garbage!!! It's not even right to call it a phone because that would imply that one could receive phone calls on it. When a call is incoming, the phone often freezes and later reports a missed call or the screen takes so long to display the call for the user to answer it that the call is already missed. There are no physical buttons to overcome this defect. One the occasion that I am successful in sending or receiving a call, the voice quality is very good, but the device is unusably slow and has an inferior processor. Angry Birds does not work right because of the cheap processor. The device freezes all of the time and often reboots instead of recovering properly. I've been using it for over three months now and I hate it more every day.

The battery life on this device is so poor, that in airplane mode after a transatlantic flight (~8 hours) of not being used, it was almost dead. I dimmed the screen as much as possible because that seemed to be using the majority of the battery life and it still cannot make it through a day with limited use. It lacks RAM and internal storage. I moved as many applications as possible to the SD card, regularly delete text messages, regularly use the application manager to close applications that did not close properly and still frequently get notifications that the device is low on memory. The application experience on an Android device is promising, but this device cannot deliver it. The orientation sensor is so unresponsive that I can't find any activity for which I am willing to wait for it to rotate. Just about the only thing positive that I can say about this device is that the keyboard is very spacious and easy to type on. However, with Swype, the keyboard is almost unnecessary except for when the device is so slow that Swype does not work properly and the physical keyboard is a necessity. I was interested in using the front-facing camera, but the performance of the Transform is so slow that I wouldn't dare to use an application that would integrate voice and video services at the same time.

Forget about Sprint ID. As soon as an ID package is installed, the phone can no longer perform like it did out of the box when nothing was on it. Don't even think about installing multiple IDs. The phone will be so slow and have such little memory that it won't even be able to receive a text message. The boot-up time on this device is so slow that, in an emergency, it would be far too late before the device booted to a usable state to contact anyone to help. This device is often described as "mid-range," but that clearly is not accurate. The specs on the equipment sound good, but it's like buying a luxury car and putting the cheapest engine available in it. Such a car will not perform!!!! What a disgrace that Sprint would launch its ID service on such a poor piece of equipment.

I'm sure I've left some things out, but overall, I think that the existence of this device is a disservice to Sprint's customers and the $10/month premium data charge is atrocious. For not much more money, one can purchase the Epic or the Evo and have a much better experience. Sprint's Android 2.2 (Froyo) update was delayed several months and was inadequate. The phone does not perform any better. Fortunately, the update provided the ability to move applications to the SD card and reclaim some precious memory real estate. I only bought this phone because my Touch Pro (Windows Mobile 6.1) kept locking up so badly that it could be not used for anything and would not even connect to Sprint's network to make a phone call. Sprint's only solution was to reformat the phone. After doing that five times within one year, it was time to upgrade. It's too bad that Sprint is putting its name on faulty equipment. At least the device itself performed consistently and has me convinced that HTC products are superior to Samsung products. The Motorola Q I had before that was much more reliable too. The frustration that I have experienced with Sprint's devices over past year or so makes me heavily consider my tenure (of 12 years) for another brand of service. I know that I cannot tolerate using this device for another 19 months until I am eligible for an upgrade again. If Sprint is unable to work with Samsung to provide a quality user experience with this device, then Sprint should individually work with every Samsung Transform user to provide a replacement device.

Below Average February 25, 2012

Reviewer:  COLORLOVER 

Yes, this is supposed to be a smartphone. But, I personally call it a "dumbphone." Why?
When I first got this phone, it was supposed to have a wonderful camera, unbelivable tools, have over 10,000 apps, and be super fast. But after a month or so, I found that it is incredibly slow, horrible camera, and most of the apps on the market I have given bad reviews. I ended up returning this phone and getting an iPhone. Don't spend any money on this "smartphone."

Worst Phone I've EVER had.... November 27, 2011

Reviewer:  AliceB 

Absolutely the WORST phone I've ever used. This Samsung Transform was my first Android phone - the Android is great, the Transform is totally horrible. Can't answer the phone if you're doing anything else. The slider doesn't work to answer the phone 3/4 of the time, even if you're doing nothing else. Shuts off or freezes up repeatedly. Takes five or ten minutes to reboot the phone, which is incredibly frustrating - I'm disabled and live in a rural area - I'm worried about losing the ability to use my phone in an emergency. The reception is great, when the phone is actually working correctly, which isn't very often. Touch pad is a mess, either too sensitive and dials or brings up online sites when you're not even touching the phone and then won't respond at all during times that you're dialing or attempting to get online. This phone just sucks and I wish I had read the reviews before I spent the money on it. By the time I realized that it wasn't "driver" error (that's me) and was the gremlins in the phone, it was too late to throw it back to Sprint. I can't wait until January when my upgrade is available, because I definitely will be buying something else. I have actually gotten so frustrated that I smashed the touch screen on the desk top (it still works, just a few little cracks in the pad)in total rage at not being able to get the phone to work at all, on one very busy afternoon. Have thought about carrying it into the Sprint store along with a small hammer when my upgrade is available and ritually destroying the phone on their sidewalk....guess I won't, but it's a nice thought and a very satisfying one....I'd give this one a negative rating if it was available...

Don't Buy! November 25, 2011

Reviewer:  JW 

The other reviews pretty much sum this phone up accurately. It is slow and aggrevately and just not worth the headache. I have sent it back to Sprint eight times and they finally said sorry but it is a mid grade phone and that there know there are issues with it freezing and locking up but I had too many apps. Too many apps?!!! The phone is slow I only downloaded 5 apps on my current Transform in hope that it would run more efficently. Has not helped and now it is stuck in the start up screen and will not load. Guess its back to Sprint on one of the busiest shopping days of the year to not take advantage of the great Black Friday deals but instead wait to deal with technical support. The phone has great potential but it is only a tease and does not have the processing speed to truley utilize its features.

Awful. November 22, 2011

Reviewer:  KateKate  (United States) -

I got this phone in February and I've had to do a factory reset twice just so I can take phone calls. If I am doing anything on the phone when I get a call, I can't answer the call. The phone freezes and slows constantly. The battery life is actually the least of my complaints with it,especially compared to some of my friends' phones. I wish I'd ponied up the extra $50 for a better phone when I upgraded, because this phone is awful and I am probably going to have to replace it.

Disappointed February 28, 2011

Reviewer:  Steven M. Anderson "loki53"  (Minneapolis, MN) -

I was due for an upgrade and needed a phone that would accommodate apps I need for my work. My daughter has an Epic and loves it but I didn't want to spend $200. I should have. This is a very frustrating device despite having some interesting features and tons of available apps. It's most basic function, the telephone, is one of the things it does least well. I don't like the fact it's entirely menu driven and you can't simply answer it or hang up with a dedicated button. The signal reception is also nowhere near as good as the Palm Centro I used previously and may go back to.
Problems:

1. Sometimes hitting a key on the QWERTY keyboard will kick me from messaging out to some another entirely random application. Of course, it never does it at the Sprint Store or Best Buy. They did try a reset which worked for a while but wiped all of my apps which then needed to be reloaded. It's done it again several times since then but I've been using the on screen keyboard and voice to text feature so it's not as much of an issue as I would have thought. The keyboard was, however, one of the reasons I chose the phone.

2. The GPS is confused. It tells me I am going west, for example, when I know I'm driving east and has mixed up north and south too. The voice search function is cool but I do have to remember to reverse all of the directions I get in order to get where I'm going. Perhaps there is some sort of set up thing that I missed but this is another of the random glitches that the phone seems prone to.

3. It's also decided to not allow me to enter any new phone contacts. I guess I'll just have to carry an address and phone book around with me.

It has some cool functions and features but I wish the phone function was something other than an apparent afterthought in its design.

It also seems rather flimsy and I worry about the long term survival of the keyboard. Then again, I really can't depend on using it so it's probably not an issue.

Bottom line: Choose a different phone. Steve Anderson

Worst phone ever October 28, 2011

Reviewer:  Me 

This is the worst phone ever. I can't wait to go Office Space on this phone. this phone is awful.

Poor Battery Life and Functions Very Slowly August 24, 2011

Reviewer:  Jen-Y  (Los Angeles, CA) -

Pros:
1. Sliding Qwerty Keyboard

Cons:
1. Poor battery life. With light use, I need to recharge fully every night. With heavy use, the battery dies halfway through the day.
2. Takes quite some time to transition from vertical to horizontal.
3. Takes from 30 seconds to 1 minute to transition from any app to the main screen.
4. Shuts off randomly thoughout the day.
5. Feels very cheap.
6. Cannot read screen in sunlight.
7. Usually takes 15 minutes to power on but I am not at this moment sitting and waiting for my phone to turn on after 30 minutes and counting.
* My four year old iphone 1 did not have any problems that I am having with my brand new Samsung Transform. Do not purchase this phone unless you have the patience of a saint.

Crappy phone June 3, 2011

Reviewer:  Hunter's Mommy 

Do yourself a favor and do not buy this phone. Myself and my neice both have this phone and HATE IT! Mine freezes up everyday to the point where you have to pull the battery out to get it to reboot. The battery lasts only a few hours and its just downright slow. Sprint should seriously offer people who bought this phone their upgrade back and a refund. Started out okay of course so my 30 day return window was up. Worst phone I have ever owned.

Samsung Transform April 2, 2011

Reviewer:  Grace M.  (Minnesota, USA) -

For me, this was my first smart phone. So at first it was a little frustrating and confusing to operate. But after exploring the phone and messing with it thoroughly, I really started to love it. The Sprint ID feature doesn't seem to be all that cool, but it's nice to have some apps already pre-loaded based on things you like. It bothered me that the screen would not switch orientation on the main home screen when I first had the phone, but that changed when Android upgraded to 2.2.

I found that this phone has quite a few pluses. Here are a few that I especially liked:

-The phone is decently fast for having so many applications running. I got the Advanced Task Killer app on the Android Market to kill applications that aren't being used, and that especially keeps the phone moving fast.

-It has five home screens that can hold shortcuts to all of your favorite applications. It's really great to have one page be like games, one be all different phone settings and such, another be websites you often visit, etc.

-This phone isn't cheaply made, it's a high quality product, and it shows. It feels stable and durable. I've have the phone for six months now and it barely has a scratch. The screen resolution is really clear and looks great. Also, rather than being slower than when I first bought it, it's actually faster. Mainly because of the Android upgrade, but that still is a huge plus.

-A HUGE plus for me is that the phone can open full non-mobile web pages. It does it relatively quick too. On mobile web pages the phone is super quick in loading them up.

-The 2 GB memory enables you to hold your own little music library, tons of pictures, and a huge amount of texts. The camera quality is excellent. I have to say, I haven't used my new Nikon Coolpix more than like twice because my phone is so much easier and always with me with. A great substitute.

I have two main issues with this phone that made me rate the phone at 4 stars. One is that it's hard to answer a call. If the phone has a couple apps open, it can sometimes take eerily too long for the phone to switch to incoming call mode on the screen--the phone is ringing, yet you cant answer the call because the screen hasn't changed. The other is that the phone doesn't have an "End" button, so when you do the classic 'send a text to the wrong person' there is no way to cancel, you just have to watch the thing send (Bah). These two things are very frustrating, yet still probably not common enough to make one too fed up with the phone. Another small negative is that the phone can take a little long to switch orientation when you slide the phone open on the home screen (mainly when the phone has one or two apps running). But the function is still pretty decent if you don't slide the phone open too fast.

That's my take on the phone.

UPDATE: this later, about after a couple months, turned into the worst functioning phone I've ever encountered. Unresponsive, completely useless. Any pluses it previously had were quickly obsolete.

Pretty good except for email March 31, 2011

Reviewer:  Douglas Peck  (San Diego, CA, US) -

I've had this phone since December and it is pretty good except for email. It doesn't connect very well to get my hotmail messages. It never automatically downloads and notifies of new email. Well, I should say that it will work for a couple of hours then nothing. If I start the email app then it will sometimes not even connect - saying "connection error", sometimes it connects and gets my new messages. Sometimes it won't get new messages for two or three days.

I take it in to the Sprint store and they "reset it" (they won't explain that process so I can do it myself), then it will work for maybe a day, then back to intermittent connection errors when I start the email app. Rarely will it automatically download and notify of new email.

I rely on my email a lot so I'm not impressed. My old Rumor2 was more reliable for email.

Sometimes when a call is coming in the swipe to answer doesn't work. I'm dragging my finger across the screen like I always do to answer but nothing... and I miss the call I've been waiting all day for. That sucks!

Sometimes applications lock up or crash.

Last week (March 23, 2011) Sprint pushed out the Android 2.2 update for my Transform and I like it a lot. It is a lot more stable. Everything except email is more stable. Email is maybe a tiny bit better but not much.

With the new Android 2.2 update I'll give it 3 stars.

Nice! February 15, 2011

Reviewer:  Ryan Reagan 

This phone works really well and is very convenient. The battery is as expected, if you use the media constantly you only have battery for the day. Under normal use it will go for 2 days. I wish it had flash capabilities, but phones in this price range don't. Maybe with a new update. We've had ours since the day after Thanksgiving (got them for free at Radio Shack that day only). Rarely slows down, if it does I realize I haven't restarted it in many days and do so... like any computer. Remember to clear your cache. Dropped many times and fine... Sooo easy to browse the net and find what you need, voice search works well, downloaded apps work well on it... If switching from a different brand, it takes some getting used to the different calendar and alarm set-ups and what to expect out of your reminders. I use these a lot because I am busy. My husband and I both have these and are happy. He is constantly checking ebay and various sports stuff... :oS I think they are a great deal even if we would have paid.

Disappointed April 25, 2011

Reviewer:  Todd Justman "Regional Man of Mystery"  (Detroit, MI) -

When I think of my Samsung Transform, 6 months after getting it, I think of that line from "War Games" where the general says that after careful consideration your system s**ks. As the owner of an iPod Touch 3G I realized how good I had it. First, unlike the iPod Touch, not all software runs on my Android. I've downloaded dozens of programs for the iPod and every one of them ran fine. With the Android I found that some crashed, and some required so much power the phone couldn't handle it. This reminds me of the days of Windows and PCs, where you had to study the box to see if you met the RAM, video, and processing requirements. Only with this phone I have no clue what my constraints are, and I haven't found in the Android market where specs are listed. Perhaps this is more targeted at Android in general, but this phone is clearly underpowered.

Also, I can't seem to pick this phone up without pressing one of the 5 buttons on the side, the screen, or the 4 touch buttons at the bottom. So my phone is constantly in a place I have no idea how it got there. I have no such problem with the iPod. The really sad part is that, like my iPod, I only need the power and volume control. I don't need a shutter button and I don't need the speech recognition button.

I also find that the GPS takes forever to establish a location. It's really neat to be able to fire up Yelp and check in somewhere, but the phone takes dozens of minutes to establish a location. What a time waster, sitting there trying to coax the phone into finding itself. And you can't leave on GPS all the time because your battery will get crushed.

All in all, a disappointment. I can't wait to swap this turkey out.

If only Samsung and sprint would get their act together. February 7, 2011

Reviewer:  D. Swinton "Murusaki"  (California) -

I own two of these phones and overall the phone is nice but it has its problems. The major problem with this phone is the delay in the update to froyo 2.2 for the android.

Some of the problems that I have noticed with the phone are as followed:
1. Wifi will turn off for no reason which means you will be using your data plan (not huge deal if you have unlimited data but it is slow and you have to sometimes do a power down to get the wifi to turn back on)
2. When you slide out the keyboard the screen doesnt rotate to adjust the new landscape view. (Very annoying I mean what's the point if you have a slide out keyboard if you cant use it from the home screen.
3. Sometimes the button will get stuck during messaging and you need to do a hard reset on the phone. (I am only noting this because this has occurred multiple times on both of my phones.
4. It has a front facing camera but you cant really use it for any real application besides self portraits. ( I am sexy but really there is only so much of myself I can take.):P
5. Lack of updates from either Samsung or Sprint to resolve problems.

Not real happy with this phone at all... June 30, 2011

Reviewer:  Dallas Guy "QuantumRift"  (Sierra Vista, AZ USA) -

I'll cut to the chase. We got two of these phones right after Black Friday last year (2010). We do not like them.

The phone is buggy (sometimes it will NOT come out of airplane mode, even when it says it's out of airplane mode). It takes a LONG TIME to boot (hopefully you will not be in the middle of an emergency and have to boot or reboot this thing). The battery life sucks (even with BLUETOOTH and GPS turned off). It will be fine, and when you pick it up you notice it's warm and the battery is down. And I have the Advanced Task Killer in crazy mode keeping those apps that keep turning themselves on killed. Then, when the ambient temp is warm (as is the case here in SE Arizona), the phone does all sorts of weird stuff. Sometimes the keyboard unlock pattern will not respond. Answering a call is IFFY if you don't get that swipe perfect...
In bright sunlight the display is difficult to read.
When I connect it to my Windows 7 Ultimate OS-based computer's USB port, it does not CONSISTENTLY get recognized by the computer. Very irritating.

While it as a 'front' facing camera, I have found I rarely, IF EVER, use it.

On the plus side: The camera does take good pics. I have upgraded the memory to 16MB. There are lots of apps, but if you load too many, the phone goes wonky. The keyboard is nice.

AVOID THIS PHONE, even if they PAY YOU TO take it. ON a scale of 1 to 10 for annoying, with 10 being the MOST ANNOYING, this phone ranks a solid 10.