Samsung Galaxy S Coming To AT&T

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The Samsung Galaxy S was the darling of the CTIA trade show this year. Even us jagged tech writer types who’d grown disgruntled with Samsung’s production line of (seemingly) identical two-inch TouchWiz handsets were in awe over the device. Unfortunately, a new rumor has got it pinned as coming to the ‘States with AT&T. Oh please no.

The Samsung Galaxy S looks really promising. The device is looking to be another Android “superphone” in the same vein as the Motorola Droid, Nexus One and HTC EVO 4G. It’s going to have a great 4-inch OLED screen, 1GHz processor and sports a standalone graphics processor that lets it whip any current phone – including the iPhone 3GS. Oh yeah, it’ll be one of the first phone with support for 720p DivX.

Unfortunately, the device appears headed for AT&T in the United States. Why is this a problem? Sure, AT&T’s network can be spotty, but their track record with Android devices is downright offensive to the Android fan base.

AT&T’s first Motorola Backflip featured a heavily crippled version of Android that disabled the Google apps in favor of their own AT&T apps (commonly labeled bloatware). Also, AT&T locked down the device at a root level to prevent non-market apps from being installed on the phone. Basically, AT&T turned the Android phone into an iPhone. That isn’t just a witty analogy – as many have suspected AT&T’s partnership with Apple as being part of the motivation behind their Android modifications.

AT&T’s second Android device – the Dell Aero – looks like it will have the same heavy locked up Android that the Backflip had (according to early reviewers who got their hands on it). So, it’s highly likely that if this awesome Samsung Galaxy S came to the ‘States with AT&T, the hardware would be wasted on their iPhone-style Android.

Site IntoMobile is hopeful that AT&T will come clean with the Galaxy S and release an untarnished Android phone in the ‘States. We’re not so sure.