Hands-on with the Samsung Instinct - Sprint’s answer to the iPhone
Posted by Will on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 at 3:44 pm under CTIA Wireless 2008 @ Las Vegas, Sprint, Samsung, Devices, Announcements
Everyone wants needs an iPhone competitor. In a market flooded with notions that sleek and slim smartphones with a rock-solid and intuitive interfaces are the way to go, no carrier can afford to ignore the touchscreen craze that’s sweeping the mobile space. And, Sprint has just announced their own attempt to woo the touchscreen crowd with the Samsung Instinct.
Sprint’s Samsung Instinct wasn’t available at Sprint nor Samsung’s booth for some reason. I had to wait until an evening-event to get my hands on the Samsung Instinct, where Sprint had a handful of reps ready to showcase the new Sprint touchscreen handset.
Packed with a 2 megapixel camera, GPS, FM radio, EVDO Rev. A (the first Rev. A device on Sprint, according to the Sprint rep), 3-inch touchscreen (pressure-based and flush with the face of the device), and microSD card slot, the slim touchscreen offering from Samsung should help Sprint regain (or at least retain) some of its lost customer base. The Samsung Sprint measures a svelte 2.17 x 4.57 x 0.49 inches and tips the scales at a rather solid-feeling but still light 4.4 ounces.
The Samsung Instinct looks and feels much like the Samsung F700 Croix/U940 Glyde, without the sliding keyboard (of course) and without the award-winning Croix interface. The haptic feedback on the Samsung Instinct is the same pseudo-haptic feedback system that Samsung likes to use on their touchscreen handsets - the entire device vibrates with every touchscreen input. The vibration feedback novel at first, but then gets annoying quite quickly.
Overall, the pressure-based touchscreen was nice and firm - there was very little touchscreen “squish.” The display’s flush design helps to keep the Samsung Instinct’s lines clean and smooth, and the LED backlit navigation buttons added a bit of flair to the device. As an iPhone competitor, this is probably as good as it’s going to get for now (on Sprint). Capacitance touchscreen technology would have made the Samsung Instinct a little snazzier, and the UI could use some refinement. But in the end, if you want to get in on the full-body touchscreen craze, and you want to stay with Sprint, the Samsung Instinct is probably your best bet.
Booth reps said that the Samsung Instinct should be launching in June at a price point that is sure “to surprise” us all. I’d put money on the Sprint Samsung Instinct commanding a mid-$200 price tag with new contract.
April 4th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Finally a phone that can compete with the iPhone.
http://www.instinct-samsung.com has more info about this phone.
April 4th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Will the instinct sync with my mac?
May 5th, 2008 at 7:09 am
IF THE SPRINT ISTINCT CAN NOT SYNC WITH ITUNES I MIGHT HAVE BOTH A 3G IPHONE 2.0 FOR MULTIMEADIA STUFF AND THE SPRINT INSTINCT FOR GAMES TV YOU MIGHT NEED TO SAVE UP THE EXTRA MONEY FOR THE EXTRA PHONE.
May 14th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
so does anyone know if the instinct will sync with mac?
May 18th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
I found a great forum dedicated to everything about the Samsung Instinct. Have comments or questions- go here!
http://www.SprintInstinctForum.com
Laura
xoxo
May 19th, 2008 at 9:23 am
I just got water damaged on my sprint centro, i love the phone had 2 of them there amazing, however when will this samsung instinct come out for sure? June 1st or what?
May 20th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
how do i get mines and how much?
May 26th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
HELLO HI THERE WOUNDER IF NOBODY WILL BUY 3G CELLPHONES BECUASE SOON THERE WILL BE A 5GB DATA LIMIT BY MOST CARRIERS FROM ROMORED SORCESS
May 26th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
I AM WOUNDERING WHY 3G NOW SOON BE LIMITED TO 5GB OF DATA CAN ANY ONE SAY BUY BUY TOO 3G TECHNOLOGIES I DO NOT THINK THERE WILL BE ANY BUYERS FOR 3G CELLPHONES WITH A 5 GB DATA LIMIT
May 28th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
haha this phone rocks il be the retard standing in line for a whole day lol hehe :]
May 28th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I’m right there with you, I was the retard standing in line for the iPhone
June 1st, 2008 at 12:44 pm
I think this phone looks great.
http://samsunginstinctstore.com
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Engadget says it will be out June 20th.
June 15th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
does it require the SIMPLY EVERYTHING PLAN, if it does, that idiotic because i no i want the phone but not the simply everything plasn
June 18th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Seriously people, go do that on a different forum. This is a forum about cell phones, not ur sex life. I’m sure there are ones other there that are but not here. You have something to say about the related topic then feel free, if not, it is not needed!
June 18th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
There will always be “those” people wherever you go. The offending comments you are referring to have been deleted. To be clear, those “sex” comments have been deleted
June 18th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
lol. Aint that the truth! Thx Will! Nice to see ur looking out! Oh yeah, sorry about that whole “fight” in the prepaid post. I got alittle out of hand. Thanx for not banning me!!
June 18th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Hey, everyone gets a little heated at times. That’s no reason to ban someone.
June 18th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
I should add, that comment thread was interesting, to say the least
June 18th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
lol. But still, I did get alittle out of hand. I think some of my comments to JD were pretty harsh. But he said some things just as equal so i did make for an interesting afternoon!
June 21st, 2008 at 10:30 pm
As a Sprint tech support agent, a Mac users, and soon an Instinct owner I think I can clear up at least one of the questions here and offer a bit of insight elsewhere.
1. Is Simply Everything required? No. You just have to have a plan with unlimited data. Sprint has recently rolled out various plans both for individuals and for people interested in sharing minutes between multiple lines that include unlimited messaging and/or data. Almost everything the Instinct does requires data except text messaging and making voice calls so without an unlimited data plan I don’t see why you would even bother with this phone.
2. Will it sync with Mac? I really wish I had a solid answer for this question, but the phone just came out and they are not allowing employees to buy it for the first few weeks because demand is so high.
I can say that for now it will for sure be harder to sync this phone with a Mac than with a PC since neither the Media Manager or Mobile Sync software the Instinct uses are available for Mac OS. I am hoping that this phone will be popular enough with Mac users for Mark/Space to make a version of Missing Sync for it. Currently the Instinct is the only Sprint phone that uses one of these applications and is one of only three that uses the other, but these features are planned for other devices as well so hopefully that will make it more appealing to Mark/Space to support these protocols.
From what I have seen for now you will need to copy whatever pictures/video/music you want on the phone to your memory card manually. I don’t know if the phone will show up as a mass media device or not when connected to a Mac via the included USB cable, but there shouldn’t be any issues with mounting the memory card via a card reader. From there you should be able to drag and drop most content from iTunes and iPhoto to the memory card or even use AppleScript or Automator to keep the folders on the memory card synced with specific playlists/albums.
For Windows users there is an application that can sync Outlook/Outlook Express/Lotus Notes contacts with the phone through a new Mobile Address Book feature at Sprint.com (similar to the web backup feature of the LG Rumor and a few others, but way more robust). You can also do a manual sync by exporting your contacts into a .csv file and then uploading that file to the web application. This means that using an AppleScript or 3rd party application (both of which already exist) you will be able to export your Mac Address Book contacts and then send them to your phone through the Sprint.com site.
3. How does this phone really compare to the iPhone? They are really two different classes of devices. The Instinct looks pretty good when compared to the first gen iPhone with the original feature set, but the iPhone 3G and iPhone OS 2.0 have really upped the ante on all phones and moved the iPhone from being a semi-smart fashion phone into fully featured smart phone territory with some killer unique features. The Instinct is really more of a fashion phone/personal media player than a smart phone, though it does have a few nice smart phone features like access to Exchange email through the built-in email client (though it requires Outlook Web Access be enabled on your Exchange Server). Both are really great devices, but they really aren’t targeted at the same consumers IMHO.
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Will the Instinct run Palm software? I have a lot of applications on the Centro currently that I added which are Palm based…
July 18th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
all I can say is the 5gb limit is a dumb rumor, the 3g kicks ass, this thing has a dinky screen, and please get a life, all of you.
July 18th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Lets see here. The 5gb thing is NOT a rumor. And you are entitles to your opinion about the 3g. No need to tell others to get a life because your are the one insulting people on a forum rather then doing something more productive with your time. Thanx for reading.
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:11 am
DOES ANYONE KNOW IF THE SAMSUNG INSTINCT SINKS WITH MAC?
I’M STARTING TO GET A LITTLE PISSED OFF CUASE NO ONE WILL TELL ME!
August 1st, 2008 at 3:47 pm
****Head: your question is the same as mine… there is a pretty detailed answer from Twist dated June 21. A friend of mine just bought the Instinct and loves it for email and web browsing as well as media playing. He does not have a Mac and I am hoping that the calendar feature will be able to sync with my Calendar on my Mac. I think (hope) the marketing on this is strong enough to build the popularity among Mac users for MarkSpace to come up with a patch, but my guess is that it will take a while. I will not switch to ATT no matter how much I love the iPhone.
August 12th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
look everyone i have the phone and i also talked 2 someone from sprint. They are NOT competing with the I-Phone and it only comes with a 2 gb card and the phone itself doesnt hold more than 40 megabytes. But none the less its an awsome phone regardless so lets jus drop the debates because techinically we are still 4 years behind the asians and they have phones that make ours including the I-Phone look like a old ass remote
September 5th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
I too need to know if I can set up on MAC for the Instinct - there is no driver on the cd that came with the unit for MAC - HELP! Thanks, Michelle