January 6th, 2023.
The phone that's currently being pictured is the Samsung SPH-A940.
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You may notice something seems to be a bit off with the model I have displayed. While the phone is known for having the newer sprint logo on it. This one I have here has the older sprint logo. This is because this phone is a prototype. I got this in a phone lot in October of 2022. I was lucky enough to stumble upon with some other phones I wanted in my collection. Thankfully, it works.
Flipped up, the phone looks spectacular. I adore it's wonderful design as you could tell. Samsung did a wonderful job on it and I applaud them for that.
It also looks very appealing flipped down. The music buttons, external display, and speakers were perfectly placed.
Now that were done looking at it's design, let's boot it up and see what this phone has to offer for us. Hopefully, we get to view something interesting, as that's what we're hoping to see for pretty much any phone this phone.
Well would you look at that! It has the sprint cube animation! The newer sprint logo A940 has a different, less appealing splash and startup animation than it's prototype counterpart, which is being displayed right now. Anyways, let's hope this thing isn't a dissapointment, as we are already looking forward to it.
The menu on this thing is awesome. I love it. Who wouldn't like a menu like this?
Anyways, do you want to know what I really find interesting about this thing? You obviously may think it's the fact that this phone has a swivel screen, but I find this other feature it has slightly more interesting than the swivel screen. Motion Fun! On this phone it was referred to as "G-Fun" since this is not only one of the earlier beta vairants of Motion Fun, but one of the first. Basically, you shake the phone around and it does these cool interesting effects like rolling dice, picking random numbers, and apparently...beepboxing? Those were the only features of motion fun. There was another one called "Compass" that I'll get into later, on the much earlier A940. For now, take a look at these pictures.
These are the best examples I could give on what motion fun is. It's such a amazing feautre. As far as I know it was also on the SPH-A900, SPH-A920, and SPH-A960. I find it awful it didn't make it on the SPH-A800, which yes, I do have but it has no Motion or "G" fun.
Anyways, before we move on, we will be looking at the camera.
It has a 2 megapixel camera, with 2X Optical Zoom which was visibly placed right on the hinge. Despite this being one of the coolest features on the phone, it comes with some disadvantages. To take a picture or a video, you are inevitably forced to swivel the screen in order to do so, which in my opinion, is uncomforting. I'm not alone when I think that, many other people agree on PhoneScoop. While I was looking for reviews on this phone, I saw quite a couple people mention how unconforting it is, and I don't blame them. No one would want to do that. They also mentioned how blurry the photos they took were, and considered the camera as a disadvantage because of that. That's all about the camera for now.
Now that were done with that A940, it's time to show you something much more interesting. This variant of the A940 was not talked about anywhere besides phonearena. And I'll be showing it off here. Here it is!
This right here is the eariler A940! It is pretty unfinished, as the model being shown here doesn't have the d-pad working, so I can't review much sadly. Anyways, let's turn it on.
Oh that's nice, the splash differs from the newer and less older A940. Very interesting.
Beautiful. I genuinely hate how this UI variant was not feautred on the even later and retail A940. What made them scrap it anyways? This is also similar to the Samsung SPH-A800's menu option. This is almost like a flipped variant of it, but with more features added.
Anyways, remember the "Compass" Motion or "G" fun feature I talked about eariler on this review? Well, this phone has just that! It was unreleased, but you couldn't do much with it anyway, either that or I really didn't get to experience it as much as the other three motion or "G" fun features. Here are two pictures collided together showing off this feature.
Now let's talk about this things camera. It's...literally the same as the less older and newer A940. Nothing else to say about it. Moving on.
Anyways, this review is finally finished! Here is what I think of these phones overall.
These phones are just excellent! Although they do have some downfalls, they still are really great phones. My total score for both of them is a 9/10, Excellent! I recommend you try and look for one of these and if you end up finding one, SNAG IT. URGENTLY. Hopefully I am fortunate to come across the Chinese (China Unicom) vairant of this phone soon (SCH-M329) or the KTF version of this phone (SPH-V5100) as those two seem really unique to me. Anyways, goodbye.
UPDATE as of March 2nd, 2024: This phone now has its very own mini showcase video! Watch it here: