Today we will be reviewing the Samsung M920 Transform. There is a better version to this device out there, the Transform Ultra. But since this is the origin, the device that started all of it and the first step took in the direction of creating that phone, I figured I should review this one first. This device was created for the Sprint network. Just like the many other devices reviewed lately, this is not a regular GSM device. The Samsung M920 Transform is a CDMA phone. It does not run with regular networks that we are used to. If you live in countries whose providers are unable of offering such networks, there is no need of you reading this review.
But enough dilly dallying and let us see what the Samsung M920 Transform is all about, shall we ?
GENERAL
We shall begin by analyzing the more general aspects of the device, things such as the supported networks and the announcement and release dates. The Samsung M920 Transform supports CDMA networks, as I’ve already mentioned. The networks are as following : CDMA 800 / 1900 and CDMA 2000 1xEV-DO. The Samsung M920 Transform was announced in October 2010 and was released shortly after in the same month.
BODY
We will now move on to analyzing the aspect related facts about the Samsung M920 Transform such as : the dimensions, the weight and anything in general that makes it stand out from a crowd. The Samsung M920 Transform is around 117 x 61 x 15 mm big. It weighs somewhere around 152 grams and it has a QWERTY keyboard. As you can see it’s a slide-able phone, although I’ve expressed my opinion of such devices on too many occasions in the past. Suffice to say, the slide-able parts usually break down first. Now apart from the QWERTY keyboard, the Samsung M920 Transform also has Touch_Sensitive controls on it.
DISPLAY
In this part of the review we shall be covering the display related aspects of the Samsung M920 Transform, mainly : the type, size, resolution and pixel density of the screen and whether or not the device has any means of protection and display related items which would make it stand out from a crowd. Now the Samsung M920 Transform has a TFT capacitive touchscreen with approximately 16 million colors. The size of the screen is somewhere around 3.5 inches and the resolution reached by this screen is near 320 x 480 pixels. The pixel density of the Samsung M920 Transform’s screen is around 165 ppi, which is a bit above average ( so it passes in my opinion ). This device also has multitouch, as many Android devices do. The means of protection of the Samsung M920 Transform are limited to a single layer of hardened glass – Corning Gorilla Glass, which is a pretty damn good means of screen protection.
SOUND
This part of the review shall cover the sound and audio output capabilities of the Samsung M920 Transform, precisely : the alert types, the loudspeaker and audio jack and whether or not the device has any means of sound enhancement whatsoever. The Samsung M920 Transform doesn’t have any means of advanced sound enhancement on it which means it is pretty basic as far as sound is concerned. The alert types are as following : vibration, MP3 and WAV ringtones. The Samsung M920 Transform also has a Loudspeaker and a 3.5 mm jack as the audio jack.
MEMORY
This part of the review shall cover the memory of the Samsung M920 Transform, mainly the internal storage space and ways of upgrading it and the RAM memory. The internal storage space of the Samsung M920 Transform is 512 MB of ROM memory ( out of which I am unsure how much is user available since usually ROM means only usable by the system – that’s the usual case of the Android devices ). However there is the solution offered by the MicroSD card which can be up to 32 GB. The RAM memory of the Samsung M920 Transform is around 256 MB.
DATA CONNECTION
This part shall cover the data connectivity of the device, things such as the GPRS, the EDGE, the speed and WLAN as well as the Bluetooth and USB connections. The Samsung M920 Transform doesn’t have GPRS or EDGE, as most CDMA devices. Also, just like the rest, the Samsung M920 Transform has a Rev. A up to 3.1 MB/s speed. The WLAN of the Samsung M920 Transform is a Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g with Wi-Fi hotspot ( but only if you upgrade to Android 2.2 ). The Bluetooth of the Samsung M920 Transform is a Bluetooth v3.0 with A2DP. The USB connection of the Samsung M920 Transform is a Micro USB v2.0.
CAMERA
This part of the review is oriented towards the analysis of the camera of the Samsung M920 Transform, mainly : the main and secondary cameras as well as their features and capabilities. The main camera of the Samsung M920 Transform is a 3.15 MP snapper capable of photographing at around 2048 x 1536 pixels. The Samsung M920 Transform’s main camera also has LED flash and geo-tagging. The camera is capable of recording video although no details about the quality or frames per second. However, being a 3.15 MP camera you can expect a maximum of VGA. The Samsung M920 Transform also has a secondary VGA frontal camera but this one doesn’t have any features whatsoever.
BATTERY LIFE
This part is oriented to the analysis of the battery since we know how important battery life is to Android phones. We’ll see here what the type of battery of the Samsung M920 Transform is and how long it can function. The battery of the Samsung M920 Transform is a standard Li-Ion 1500 mAh battery. The time this battery can function is as following : up to 350 hours in stand-by mode and up to 6 hours of talk-time.
HARDWARE
This part of the review is oriented towards finding out the hardware of the Samsung M920 Transform. By hardware I’m referring to the three great components of interest : processor, mother board and graphics card. Unfortunately the Samsung M920 Transform only has one of the three, that being the processor. The processor of the Samsung M920 Transform is a Single-Core 800 MHz Samsung S3C6410 processor. I guess in many parts you can compare this device to a Galaxy 3 with QWERTY keyboard.
SOFTWARE
This part of the review shall cover the software of the Samsung M920 Transform, mainly : the existing OS version and possibilities of upgrading to a better one. The Samsung M920 Transform has Android OS v2.1 Eclair installed on it, however as I’ve previously mentioned you can upgrade to v2.2 Froyo if you with. Hell you can even add other version, but it’s highly not recommended to install non-official updates.
FEATURES
This part will focus more on the random features and capabilities of the Samsung M920 Transform. The sensors of the Samsung M920 Transform are as following : Accelerometer and Proximitiy. The messaging on this device is done via : SMS ( with threaded view ), MMS, E-Mail, Push Mail, IM and RSS. The browser of the Samsung M920 Transform uses HTML and doesn’t have integrated support for Adobe Flash. The Samsung M920 Transform doesn’t have Radio, however you can fix that by getting certain apps or visiting the website of that radio station. The Samsung M920 Transform also has a GPS with A-GPS support and Java via Java MIDP emulation. The only available color for the Samsung M920 Transform is Black.
Here is a brief list of what the device can do :
- Social networking integration
- MP4/WMV/H.264/H.263 player
- MP3/WAV/eAAC+ player
- Organizer
- Image/video editor
- Document editor (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF)
- Google Search, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk, Picasa integration
- Voice memo/dial
- Predictive text input
This concludes our little review of the Samsung M920 Transform. If you feel that anything is lacking from this little review feel free to leave your suggestions for things which should be added in the comment section below and I shall be sure to take them into consideration when writing my future projects.
If you are interested in acquiring this device feel free to follow this link HERE.
