The first prepaid side slider smartphone is coming to AT&T

AT&T is revving up the prepaid section of their market with a Samsung slider smartphone. This model will be called the "Samsung Galaxy Appeal" and runs Android for an operating system. The processor is also going to come from Samsung. However, the handset will not be a "speed demon". The handset is a regular "low budget" model that is not meant for the power smartphone user. Still, it is one of those "firsts" in the smartphone realm, thanks to its slider format. AT&T has never offered a phone quite like this one before.

Now that Cricket has started to offer prepaid Android smartphones to the public, AT&T is doing the same. The new Samsung Galaxy Appeal is going to be one for those who love to text. A manual keyboard is going to slide out from under the screen horizontally. This gives much more room to type from the vertically sliding type of keyboard. The display is a bit small for the Appeal. It is sized at 3.2 inches of digital real estate. By comparison, the current iPhone is three and a half inches. Do not expect a smartphone of this Stature to have a very clear screen. The resolution numbers, for those who like them, are 480 by 320 pixels. That is a clarity level of smartphones from two years ago.

The Samsung Galaxy Appeal is not going to support 4G networks, but it does come with Wi-Fi. The processor for this handset will be crawling along at 800 megahertz. That is not going to win any performance records, but again, looking at the price of the Galaxy Appeal, it is easy to see why. The chip is accompanied by an anorexic 512 megabytes of RAM and 1.8 megabytes of internal memory. That can be added to with a flash memory card. The handset will support a card up to 32 gigabytes in size.

Those who want the latest Android version will not be seeing it in this model. The Galaxy Appeal is going to come out with Gingerbread, the 2.3 version, of the popular mobile operating system. The browser will be slower than the 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich version, but it will be able to handle Adobe flash files for a rich surfing experience. The Android operating system is plagued by malware. Up to 75 percent of all mobile malware written is done so just for the Android platform. That means a good anti-malware app is needed. Lookout labs is one that is highly recommended.

Samsung put a decent battery in this smartphone. It is sized at 1300 mAh, which is supposed to give seven hours of talk time to the user. June looks to be the month that AT&T will offer the Samsung Galaxy Appeal to the public. It is going to be sold for $150 dollars and will be on their GoPhone network. The Walmart shelves will be the first place to find the handset, and one month later in AT&T stores.