Samsung Transform (SPH-M920) Official Pictures

We’re still couple of hours away from Sprint’s CTIA event but Samsung’s site has published official pictures of Transform that will arrive on Sprint network. Transform (SPH-M920) is an Android running horizontal-sliding QWERTY device that will supposedly take place of Intercept.

Transform is expected to have a 3.5-inch HVGA LCD screen, Bluetooth 3.0, Wi-Fi 802.11n, 3MP camera, GPS, microSD card slot, 3.5mm headphone jack and more.

HTC EVO 4G is Sprint’s Android-powered knight in superphone armor, we go hands-on

We’ve been rumoring a WiMAX “HTC Supersonic” for a while now, and Sprint just dropped the hard news: the phone will be dubbed the HTC EVO 4G, will be released this Summer and it’s easily the best specced phone we’ve ever witnessed. The hardware is of quite obvious HD2 descent, but with Android onboard and some nice aesthetic tweaks, the EVO 4G takes on a life of its own. The handset is centered around a 480 x 800 4.3-inch TFT LCD, with a Snapdragon QSD8650 1GHz processor under the hood (the CDMA version of the QSD8250 in the HD2 and Nexus One), and even a helpful 1GB of built-in memory and 512MB of RAM — hello app storage! Even the battery is bigger than the HD2, and the camera is an 8 megapixel monstrosity with flash, that’s capable of 720p video, and is augmented by a 1.3 megapixel front facing camera for good measure. The phone features HDMI out (though you’ll need an adapter for turning it into a TV-familiar HDMI plug), 802.11b/g WiFi, and an 8GB microSD card. There’s that still-rare Android 2.1 underneath an updated version of HTC’s Sense UI. But… despite all these wild features, what actually sets the EVO 4G apart is the fact that it’s Sprint’s first 4G phone. The handset runs a combo of EV-DO Rev. A and WiMAX, with calls still being made over CDMA and the EV-DO / WiMAX options for data. Interestingly, it sounds like concurrent data and voice use might be possible for the first time on CDMA carrier in this way (killing AT&T’s well-advertised differentiator), though Sprint says that’s still in the testing phase. One other new feature is the Sprint hotspot app, another MiFi-style connection sharing number, which is obviously aided greatly by the WiMAX on board and can support up to eight concurrent users.

We got to play with the phone for an all-too-brief matter of minutes, but everything we saw was frankly breathtaking. The camera does seem to be indeed of a high quality (though we’ll still be holding on to our compact shooter, thank you very much), the screen is naturally gorgeous, and the Sense UI was as responsive as we’ve seen it, and frankly delicious at this jumbo size. The capacitive face buttons are flat and almost a little difficult to see due the thin chrome icons, but the physical buttons (a volume rocker and a power button up top) are very large, tactile and friendly. Around back there’s strong, chrome kick stand, and when you pop off the cover the battery is surrounded by beautiful “Ferrari red” plastic. The touchscreen keyboard is positively ginormous, though we’re not sure we’re feeling some of the recent things that have been crammed in there like huge cursor buttons and the voice recognition button — just because you can fit stuff in there doesn’t mean you should, and they look a little comical at this size. In our testing we weren’t really able to get a feel for the browsing speed on WiMAX, but at this point we’re primarily enthused that it’s even an option, and obviously the theoretical speeds are far beyond 3G, with a bunch of new markets due to go online this year. Battery life is stated as “comparable.”

Our biggest questions at this point are availability and pricing. Sprint is keeping mum, just stating a “Summer” availability, and interestingly clarified that not only is it not announcing device pricing, but it’s not announcing plan pricing yet either — sounds like a 4G-on-a-phone surcharge could be somewhere in our future. Check out videos of the phone in action after the break, including an up-close-and-personal test of the touchscreen keyboard. Below you’ll find galleries of the phone by its lonesome and up against the Nexus One and iPhone 3G.

Sprint Motorola i1 rugged PTT phone gets official

Motorola’s i1 Android smartphone for Sprint has finally been made official, launching at CTIA Wireless 2010 this week. The touchscreen smartphone is the first Android device to support push-to-talk on Sprint’s Nextel Direct Connect network, and also has a 3.1-inch HVGA touchscreen, 5-megapixel camera with flash and a microSD card slot.

LG Remarq Cellphone Brings Eco-Friendly Texting To Sprint

In case you’ve been living under a rock, the “green” movement is out in full force. Companies have falling over themselves in order to push out “eco-friendly” products, and while some of this stuff is just marketing fluff, Sprint has made a solid effort to actually offer phones that are somewhat less damaging to our Earth. Just a few months after the Reclaim hit the company as one of the greenest phones to ever ship without a solar panel on the rear, the LG Remarq has shipped in order to give environmentally-minded shoppers another option.

The Remarq is one of the most unique looking phones we have seen in a long while. That’s an impressive feat given the copycat world that we live in, and while it’s no smartphone, it’s a texters dream come true. The highly compact (but a bit chubby) phone is packaged in materials that are 100% recycable, and the full QWERTY keyboard should make SMS, Facebook updates and sending mobile e-mail a breeze. It will ship in both Turqouise and Dark Silver, and it will be one of the cheapest phones on Sprint’s network. It will be available on May 9 in all Sprint retail channels for $0.00 after rebates and a 2-year contract; when we said “cheap,” we meant “cheap!”

New Sprint ad shows iPhone using WiMAX… via Overdrive

Your existing iPhone can surf the information superhighway at 4G speeds.Today. Who knew, right? Sprint’s Overdrive — which creates a WiFi hotspot that enables nearby devices to cruise on Clear’s 4G (or 3G, if you’re not in a 4G locale) network — can theoretically enable any WiFi-capable phone to surf on WiMAX, but Sprint’s taking a pretty bold approach by actually touting the feature in a new spot. Befuddled? Hop on past the break and mash play. Too bad this is about as close the iPhone will ever get to Sprint’s shelves…

Sprint to release Android 2.1 update for Hero and Moment ‘over the coming weeks’

If you recall, about a month ago Sprint tweeted that it was working on delivering Android 2.1 upgrade for its HTC Hero and Samsung Moment in early Q2 this year. An optimistic guess would be April, right? Funnily enough, Techie Buzz has heard that two eager customers managed to squeeze a more precise date out of Sprint over a phone call — end of March or even March 26th. Don’t go reaching for that champagne just yet, though — a self-proclaimed Sprint employee shared a recent internal memo on XDA-Developers forum, revealing that it’s “actively working on having the Android 2.1 platform available to our Hero and Moment customers over the coming weeks,” and that “more information coming in April.” Oh Sprint, you do love playing with our little minds, don’t you?

Droid’s 2.1 update delayed again as Sprint steps up to Nexus One

The release of Android 2.1 on the Motorola Droid is delayed once again, say industry reports. Meanwhile, Sprint says it will offer Google’s Nexus One, HTC vows to fight back against Apple’s patents, and Palm’s weak 3Q financials are ramping up takeover gossip and even speculation Palm may need to switch to Android, says eWEEK
Owners of the Motorola Droid (pictured below, at right) have vented their anger across the web after Verizon Wireless once again delayed the promised OTA upgrade to Android 2.1, says AndroidandMe. The update was first expected to arrive in February, and then at various times over the last week. While some suggest the upgrade may occur as early as this weekend, AndroidandMe quotes an undisclosed source who suggests it might be longer.

The story first quotes a Verizon Wireless announcement yesterday said to have been posted on the company’s internal web site that read, “The 3/18 OTA software update will not happen as planned. A new date will be communicated as soon as possible.” When the news got out, the outrage from Droid users erupted in various forums around the web, says the site.

Later in the day, AndroidandMe quoted an anonymous tipster saying that “the need to ‘ramp up’ the distribution application and the network infrastructure that hosts it won’t just happen overnight.” The source goes on to say that Bitfone, the company that manages the actual distribution of the update for Motorola and Verizon Wireless, was struggling with “capacity issues,” and that the change is “going to take some time.”According to several reports, Verizon has stated that the upgrade did gone out to a small number of Droid users sometime this week. (Sadly, not us, however.)

Android 2.1 was made available with the launch of Google’s Nexus One back in January, and although a recent industry report said that the release will soon be offered on all U.S. Androind phones, Google’s phone is still the only one to offer it. Android 2.1 adds multiple Gmail accounts, universal inbox and Exchange support, aggregate phone book contacts from multiple sources, including Facebook, and a “Quick Contacts” feature.

The release also offers several cutting-edge proprietary features developed by Google. These are said to include Google Maps Navigation (already available on the Droid), and improved voice technologies, including voice to text, and the ability to use a voice-enabled keyboard for all text fields.

Windows Mobile 6.5 update for Sprint Touch Pro2 released

Head over here to download the ROM.

Sprint Gets Nexus One, Verizon Gears up for HTC Incredible

Android soldiers ahead with plenty of high profile deployments

Lawsuits from Apple?  No problem! Google is looking at a dynamite couple of months with some high profile Android releases on the horizon.

Leading the way is the HTC Incredible.  DailyTech spoke with sources at Verizon, who confirmed that the HTC Incredible was supposed to begin to arrive at Verizon Wireless stores in two weeks.  That would make sense as Verizon just announced that it was beginning a test deployment of Android 2.1 to the Motorola Droid smart phones, the same OS that would presumably be powering the Incredible.

Make it four: Google’s Nexus One coming to Sprint

Making the rounds, are we Google? Just over 24 hours after we saw an AT&T-friendly Nexus One go on sale, along come Sprint yelling “me too!” at the top of its lungs. Today marks the day that Google’s first-ever smartphone now has at least a holding place on all four of the major US carriers, with T-Mobile nabbing it first and Verizon users still waiting for that vague “spring release.” Unfortunately, Sprint’s making us wait when it comes to finding out an exact price and release date, but at least we’re assured that both are coming “soon.”