The Story
In keeping with its status as the Android carrier here in the United States, T-Mobile is scheduled to launch the Samsung Behold II some time in the near future. As you can see, it’s a beauty. In addition to all the normal stuff (3G, Android operating system, etc), the phone is rocking a 3.2″ OLED display, a 5 MP camera with an LED flash, and GPS. So far as we can tell, the phone will still require a MicroSD card if you want to store a lot of media on it.
We’re not exactly sure when the Behold II is coming out, but if it’s not on the market within six months I’d be very surprised. We might be playing with the handset as early as this December; it looks like it meets the criteria for hot holiday season product.
The One Thing Every Android Phone Is Missing
I have a bone to grind with the folks making Android handsets: where’s my minimum of 16 GB internal storage?
If the iPod taught us anything, it’s that people like putting a lot of media on mobile devices. Apple understood that, so they released the iPhone with a few gigabytes of internal storage. And people ate it up. Now it might be the most popular smartphone in the world.
Yet all the other handset makers, who very much are competing with Apple’s iPhone, seem to be afraid to load up a phone with some hefty flash drive. As much as I want phones like the Motorola Cliq to be awesome, it’s hard for me to get too excited because I know I have to run out and get a MicroSD card if I want to load it up with music. Sure, most of these phones come with 2 GB card these days, but that puts a big block in place: I as a consumer want to be able to get 16 GB of functionality right out of the box. That extra step of ordering a $50 MicroSD card from New Egg is prohibitive for a lot of people. Remember, the majority of smartphones are purchased subsidized when a purchaser signs a new contract with a carrier.
