Samsung Moment (Google Android) now at Sprint

The Samsung Moment is now available from Sprint. It's Sprint's second smartphone to run Google's Android smartphone operating system (the HTC Hero was the first). It's great to see a smartphone that has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and an AM-OLED screen.

Although this device comes with Android 1.6, let's hope that it will soon get the upgrade to Android 2.0.

As we see more Android smartphones emerge, let's hope that all those medical application providers are quickly cranking out software that will be compatible for Android. At the end of the day, everything may turn into web-based software services and we may no longer need standalone apps that reside on a handheld. Once that becomes the norm, we won't worry about smartphone operating systems. You'll simply need a mobile web browser to access your medical references, calculators, etc. It will be cloud computing on a mini (or nano) scale: on your smartphone.

Samsung Moment on Sprint running Google Android

Sprint is about to get a Samsung smartphone running Google's Android operating system. The phone is called the Sprint Moment and it's a slider that has a full QWERTY keyboard. The device has a nice large 3.2" AMOLED screen (so it should be quite energy efficient).

One of the nice aspects of Android is that you gain easy access to Google's core services: Search, Maps, Gmail and YouTube. The major drawback for medical students, residents, physicians, and other healthcare professionals is the limited selection of medical apps for the Android operating system.

I have no doubts that Google's Android will be a successful smartphone OS. The major question is: where will it fall among Apple's iPhone, RIM's BlackBerry, Microsoft's Windows Mobile, and Palm's webOS?