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The Sprint stores near my house in South FL had no lines at all this morning. I went to one at ten am and they had a unit in stock but the only issue was that they didn't want to sell me one the spot without a pre-order in because I was an existing customer! That's right, they were saving them for new customers and would only ship it to me on Monday, along with a free Bluetooth headset, which I don't use. I darted to the Radio Shack nearby and one guy was buying the last one there. The Radio Shack closest to my house luckilly had one left however. And The Shack gave an instant rebate so I was only out $199 + tax or $211 out the door, and don't have to wait for a rebate in the mail.
It took hours and hours for the Sprint system at The Shack to become unstuck. I went to eat lunch and finally got my order in and the line activated late this afternoon. Now I still have to go back to a Sprint store this weekend to get help transferring my 600 contacts from my Samsung Rant feature phone!
I played around with the phone just a little bit to make & receive a call and browse around with the default web browser. The web browser is very nice, especially compared to what I am used to with Opera Mini 3 and a tiny screen and only buttons for controls. Suprisingly to me, even with only Android 2.1.1 (not Froyo 2.2 yet) it actually plays the flash header on the site in my sig for example and also successfully plays Youtube videos in browser and even a Flash based tube site with mp4 videos like Tube8.com. Web based photos like you may see posted in a thread here on GFY look really good on this phone as well. Overall the phone feels pretty good in the hand, large but not too large and very slim. I am getting used to the touch screen already, hopefully. I also have to figure out what kind of screen protector I am going to use.
Drawbacks I notice so far. The battery does indeed seem to be draining pretty fast as I put the phone through it's paces. I am going to need a car charger and maybe extra battery. The video camera and main 8 MP front facing camera protrude out so that every time you put your phone down it touches the camera lens to whatever surface you lay it on, which may scratch it I am afraid. There is some light leakage at the bottom of the phone screen (at least on mine) just over the four soft keys, which is especially noticeable if you tilt the bottom of the screen away from you. And last but not least, the phone feels pretty hot to my hand. That may be nice for up North in the winter, but not too cool for a hot & humid South Florida summer.
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