The Samsung SPH-A920M
This phone is a Samsung SPH‑A920M, a fascinating twist on the standard SPH‑A920. It’s a clamshell‑style multimedia phone with dedicated music buttons, Bluetooth, and a 1.3‑megapixel camera, just like its sibling, featuring a TFT screen with 176×220 resolution and support for 262k colors. And yes, you can record videos on it, too.
On the software side, it runs on the J2ME Java platform and includes the same five demo games as the base model. What’s fun (and a bit charming) is that the previous owner left two downloaded ringtones on the device, little personal touches that give you a glimpse into its “life” before you got it.
At first glance, the SPH‑A920 and the SPH‑A920M seem nearly identical, but look closely at the sides and under the battery, and you’ll notice some subtle changes. On the SPH‑A920M, the microSD slot and the DC charger port are completely gone. In their place, Samsung added two extra contact pins on the back at the bottom left, opposite the regular battery contacts on the bottom right. The battery also has two extra pads at the bottom right, which are for near‑field communication (NFC). Those changes meant the internal circuitry traces and the motherboard layout were adjusted, too.
There’s very little information out there about this model. From what I’ve found, it was used in a pilot program with BART commuters in San Francisco to pay for fares using NFC technology. In the pilot, commuters used these phones to tap at 500 turnstiles across 43 BART stations. Over four months, about 230 users made nearly 9,000 rides and over 800 prepaid account top-ups, all handled through Sprint. The phones could also interact with NFC-enabled smart posters to access marketing content and even pay at participating Jack in the Box locations.
The SPH-A920M has its own FCC ID: A3LSPHA920M, approved on November 3, 2006, while my unit was manufactured in October 2006, before the official approval. Interestingly, the firmware is from January 2008, about two years after the original SPH-A920 launch. The back label reads “Trial Phone - Not for Commercial Use."
Menus are mostly identical to the SPH-A920, except the ‘Music’ menu is replaced by ‘My Wallet,’ which launches the Ready to Pay screen for BART and Jack in the Box payments. In the Tools section, there are extra menus like NFC Reader and Peer‑to‑Peer. Unfortunately, on my unit, the peer‑to‑peer function doesn’t seem to do anything useful, and leaving any NFC app sometimes crashes the phone, suggesting the software was unfinished or not meant for full public use.
Because the phone doesn’t have a memory card slot and we no longer have CDMA service where I am, it’s a bit tough to explore the music features. Interestingly, there are still some leftover references to memory cards in the icon glossary and system files, even though the physical slot is missing.
As for how I got it? I picked this up from an online listing for a modest price, sold as for parts, untested. It’s a truly unusual variant, and despite checking with Sprint and Samsung, there’s very little official information available, almost as if it were meant to stay under wraps...
Closed, alongside the prototype SPH-A920 (left) and retail SPH-A920 (right).
Back, closed, alongside the prototype SPH-A920 (left) and retail SPH-A920 (right).
Right-side comparison with microSD slot removed.
Bottom-side comparison showing DC barrel port removed.
Back-side comparison with battery removed, revealing two extra NFC pins.
Menu comparison highlighting the “My Wallet” versus “Music” difference.
