A few weeks ago I was invited to join Sprint’s Ambassador Program, which is a new program in which Sprint has handed out Samsung MM-A920 phones with 6 months of free service to certain bloggers. All they ask from us is that we please give them feedback about our experience – though it’s not required. Of course, this is a brilliant plan on Sprint’s part to get free publicity. I have to give them credit for acknowledging the impact of blogs. After all it seems like less and less people are reading magazines, and more and more are using blogs for news and reviews.

Here is a little background on my own cellular experience. I’ve been using GSM service since the early days of Voicestream. I love GSM service because of how easy it is to switch out your SIM card and buy a new phone, and thus I have never really been tempted to switch to CDMA. I did have a brief stint with Verizon when the Samsung i730 came out, but other then that I haven’t had much experience with a CDMA provider. So can a GSM girl be happy in the strange new world of CDMA?

The Samsung MM-A920 is first and foremost a multimedia phone which
embraces Sprint’s Power Vision Network. The Power Vision Network
includes 3G highspeed access to full music downloads, TV content,
games, and more. I haven’t had much of a chance yet to use the phone a
lot, but here are some of my initial thoughts and impressions.

So far, above all else, I am most impressed with the their music store.
The store allows you to listen to a sample of a track without having to
download and pay for the song. If you decide to buy the song, it takes
under a minute on average for a song to download – at-least it has for
me. Really impressive stuff! That is roughly as quick as downloading a
song using cable or DSL. Unfortunately, the Power Vision Network isn’t
available everywhere yet, but it’s active in many major metropolitan
cities. I’m primarily using the phone in the metropolitan New York City
area. The MM-A920 has an expandable transflash memory slot so that
there is plenty of room for Music files. The phone comes with 32mb,
which isn’t room for much, but shelling out an extra $50 for a 512mb
card will allow you room for plenty of tracks.

As for watching "TV" on the phone – the experience is much better then
I envisioned. I watched a few minutes on the Fox news channel and
didn’t experience choppy playback. The screen is too small for watching
something for an extended period of time, but overall it was a novelty
experience watching the latest news stories from my phone.

Another aspect of the phone that I love are its speakers; the speakers
are the best I’ve ever encountered on a phone. Music plays
exceptionally clear through them. The volume can also go very loud – so
much so that I can barely believe it’s coming out of a phone.

I’ve only made one quick voice call using the phone so far so I have a
lot of testing ahead of me. I’m also excited to test out their other
services, such as their Voice SMS capabilities. Overall, so far I’m
very impressed with the blazing fast data speeds, and the overwhelming
amount of content that Sprint’s Power Vision Network has to offer.