Product ReviewsSamsung Galaxy Prevail SPH-M820 - Obsidian Black (Boost Mobile) Smartphone

Great Phone / Great value

This is an older model cell phone that is small and rugged with some options not available on some newer phones (ability to remove battery to reset phone). It has a lot of the modern features found on most phones (makes phone calls & allows texting, voice to text work great, can manage 16gig external memory card, internet access, camera, plays videos and music, runs many apps). The phone getting wet or being dropped has not affected it performance.
Cons: The phone does not have a lot of internal memory, does not have a flash for the camera, or dual cameras, active battery life is not long.
It gets the job of communicating done just fine for me.Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: new | Sold by: KuY2aspuSSy@Del...

The Phone

The phone is ok for a temporary phone but not for everyday use. It's so hard to type texts and to get on the internet. It just make everything seem so complicated. But I did keep it just in case my new phone breaks down and I need a spare until I get another one.Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: loothive

Old Model Phone Works Great

This is an older model cell phone that is small and rugged with some options not available on some newer phones (ability to remove battery to reset phone). It has a lot of the modern features found on most phones (makes phone calls & allows texting, voice to text work great, can manage 16gig external memory card, internet access, camera, plays videos and music, runs many apps). The phone getting wet or being dropped has not affected it performance.
Cons: The phone does not have a lot of internal memory, does not have a flash for the camera, active battery life is not long, and the phone sounds muffled during conversations after a while.
It gets the job of communicating, done just fine for me.Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: loothive

Pretty good so far

I am a former Blackberry user though boostmobile, 8330 model to be exact. So,in my opinion, this phone is EVERYTHING compared to that model smartphone. More apps, clearer screen, etc etc. My only draw backs are the battery life *which is why this post doesn't get 5 stars* and the flashless camera (though that one isnt much to fuss about, because the phone has nice night time settings if you're in a semi-lit room indoors). as far as the battery, You litereally need to walk around with a charger attached to your hip so that the phone charges all day, non stop. I definitely recommend a back up battery, and all the charger equipment that this phone accomodates, i.e- car charger, home charger, usb charger for your work computer. I haven't had much trouble out of it other than that. The battery saver apps I have installed have been un-installed, because I havent noticed where the apps have saved the battery at all. The phone eats up the battery life in the same amount of time daily with or without the apps (juice defender and easy battery saver in the android play store, anyone with battery saver recommendations, message me on ebay, dmil9372)As far as memory, I have an 8gb memory card, so memory hasn't been an issue, and you can move alot of apps to the memory card which is a nice feature. I plan on upgrading the memory card soon, and would recommend anyone with this phone to use 8gb or as high as the phone allows...The only thing about the apps from what I can tell, is you cant really get rid of the apps that come on the phone, most of which I dont need or use. If anyone reading this has figured out how to do that, message me on ebay dmil9372. (Thanks) Otherwise, I am a fan of the prevail, and I would recommend it to friends.Read full review...

Great upgrade to my first smartphone

This is my first smartphone, so I can't really compare it to other smartphones, but it's worlds better than the Motorolla i776 I was using. My Motorolla was on the IDEN network, and Sprint is cutting off a lot of the IDEN towers and changing them to CDMA, so I made the switch in hopes of better service, but lost service here at home. That's OK, I drive a truck, so I have coverage along most major routes, but I keep an ATT for backup here at home and in areas that Sprint doesn't have coverage. BoostMobile is much cheaper than ATT, so I try to use it more.
As for the phone, I like the touchscreen, although it is a bit sensitive and hard to hit the correct number or letter if you have large fingers like me. I don't text, but do go to forum boards on the internet, and I spend as much time going back and correcting my mistypes as I do typing a response. It has a voice recognition feature , but the translation could be a lot better. The few times I tried it, I had to go back and correct it. We're not Star Trek yet, but getting closer! The wifi and browser work good, pages are sometimes slow to load, but that may be in the networks. I did download a few apps, but most of those already on the phone are useless to me and could have been left off. Bookmarking a page on the net is easy, but I haven't found a way to get rid of one you no longer want.
I use my phone with a Blue Parrot bluetooth headset and the bluetooth works great, easy to pair and hook up. The icons at the top of the phone for bluetooth, signal bars, voicemail, etc could stand to be double in size though. If you wear bifocals like me, they are hard to see unless you get the phone up close.
The camera works good for a point and shoot. The controls are a bit hard to figure out, and no flash for night shots. I tried to use a couple of pics for my wallpaper, but it would only give me a portion of the pic, so that doesn't work well for me.
Battery life could be better. I don't use the phone that much, usually a call or two in the morning and maybe a little internet time, but it uses a lot of battery life when you are travelling in a no service area. After about 10-12 hours I'm down to 20-30% left, if I used it more I'm sure I'd have to recharge it during the day and at night. They need to offer a larger battery, even if you have to give up some case size it would be worth it.
All in all, I would say it's a great starter smartphone for someone like me who doesn't use it much and has some computer knowledge. For folks that aren't that computer savvy, like my wife, there are probably other phones that would meet their needs better. For me, it is a great upgrade from a dumb phone to a smart one.Read full review...

Excellent Starter Smartphone for Techie Challenged or Newbies

Hey. I'mnot a big review writer..but I do read them. This phone was my first crack at a smartphone. Needless to say, it wasn't as intimidating as I thought it would be. the user interface is pretty easy. The graphics are good, the volume is good, the video is OK, finding things within the menu is good...I'm not a techie...so..the only things I think can be improved are 1.) the camera megapixels 2.) the preloaded apps...are USELESS and memory killers..3.) watch your battery usage when roaming, searching for wifi and streaming. Make sure to turn off wifi if not using it and use a task killer to get rid of unecessary usage. Switch all the apps you can over to sd since the preloaded apps warrant you hardly any room for what you actually want on your phone. Apparently there are ways to root this phone, but I haven't gotten there yet. this was a GREAT STARTER SMARTPHONE for the techie challenged,lol. Best black friday deal I ever bought @ $69. I can't wait to upgrade and send this one on to it's new owner. Might even be you :)Read full review...

Great value for the money...

Being a former Blackberry user though Boostmobile (model 8330), I prefer the Samsung Galaxy SPH-M820 Prevail. It has more applications, it has a higher resolution screen, and can access the Android market.

What I dislike about the product is that the battery life is limited. To maintain a substantial battery life, the phone must charge continuously, throughout the day. At some point in time throughout the day, a typical user would have to introduce an indoor battery charger, use a car charger and even use the usb charger for a home computer computer.

Even though it has limited issues, it would definitely be recommended to friends.

- Dr. TonyRead full review...

Good value for the money.

Still trying to get used to these features. It is great to have a phone that can access the internet so that I could check my emails and look up something on google search. I have not used the GPS feature yet. The screen is sensitive so I accidentally hit keys that I do not mean to. Also the lock comes up after I make a call and I tried to disengage it and I cannot figure out how to do that. It set up easily and linked to my bluetooth with out any problems. The video feature is convenient as is the camera. I cannot figure out how to send a video to another person. I don't think it is user friendly for someone who never owned an android phone before.Read full review...

Overall great value for what I got. Even with it's batt. life being low.

I love the phone, of course being Android based, it's interface is near any other android phone. I have two drawbacks I have experienced. Battery life is not all that good. However, this is common from what I understand from any android phone. If I text alot, or check email a handful of times, make a few calls, and browse a couple webpages, by the end of the day, my battery is less than 10%, often times less than 5%.

The other drawback is the camera. It's mediocre at best, great for quick snap shots, but with fixed focus, Bar Code apps are almost out of the question. This is a big drawback for me.

Overall, for what I paid, I feel I did fine, despite the couple drawbacks for me. Touch screen sensitivity is excellent, and responsive. The on screen keyboard is a bit small for my big fingers. But it's not unusable.Read full review...

Great phone for an even better service. Good design, bad battery.

Bout this product because I wanted an Android phone for my $50 service. I like the look of the product. it's very smooth and lightweight, the speakers are very loud (i like it like that) and the screen is fairly small but that is hardly and issue. Apps work well ONLY if you buy a microSD card. the phone memory alone can barely hold 6 Apps. Apps like Ubersocial, Twitter and Facebook run well. And the speed is good. However battery life is horrible, be sure to keep a car charger, and minimize how may Apps you have running at the same time.Read full review...

Good smart phone to start out with - features are alright.

This is a good basic smart phone with nice features in it. Sometimes the keyboard freezes and I have to take my battery out and turn it back on. That's really annoying. I used to have the Samsung Transform Ultra, and that one is much better than Samsung Galaxy. But you get your money's worth with good features with this phone.

The battery only lasts for half a day, but I use wi-fi and bluetooth, so I guess it's expected. I can only take pictures with the camera during the day since it doesn't have a flash, but the navigation comes in real handy. I like the voice dialing and voice text, too. I'm able to get good web surfing, but Facebook goes really slow on it.Read full review...