“The popularity of Sprint Nextel’s Samsung Instinct — the company says its first-week sales beat those of all its other broadband-capable phones — represents a bit of a puzzler,” Rob Pegoraro reports for The Washington Post. “Yes, this device bears a resemblance to Apple’s iPhone. But the Instinct doesn’t come with features to rival those of the iPhone. Nor does its price, $229.99 before a $100 mail-in rebate with a two-year contract, offer a big discount over of Apple’s creation.”
“Like many phones, the Instinct looks much better than it works,” Pegoraro reports.
“The Instinct comes with a long inventory of added capabilities: Web browsing, e-mail, text/picture/video messaging, digital music and video playback, photography and video recording, GPS navigation and so on. But it fumbles most of these more ambitious tasks,” Pegoraro reports.
“Start with its on-screen keyboard, which offers neither effective spell-checking nor tactile feedback, ensuring plenty of typos,” Pegoraro reports. “The Instinct also doesn’t make enough use of its mobile broadband Internet access (limited to Sprint’s coverage, as the Instinct lacks a WiFi receiver). Its Web browser struggles as much with full-size sites as the antiquated software on Palm OS phones, taking an irritatingly long time to display some of them. Its e-mail software ignores Web formatting in messages and can’t read PDF attachments, one of the most common kinds of files to arrive in a message.”
There’s more in the full review, “It Only Looks Like an iPhone,” here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “John H.” for the heads up.]
My instinct is to not get within 100m of this phone.
Mwahaha!
Second post.
Yeah, the Instinct sucks and stuff.
“It only looks like an iPhone”
That’s too bad. Why would anyone want a nasty-ass I-Phone? Apple is only good at marketing and their dumpy I-Phone is as ugly as it is functional. I’m camping outside the local Sprint store with all of the other Instinct enthusiasts. Been here since Thursday.
This Pegoraro moron doesn’t know what he is talking about, especially when he mentions the “…crude Windows software Sprint includes…”. Hey Rob, Microsoft doesn’t release anything crude or otherwise. Dork.
Sent from my Motorola Q Windows Mobile Smarter-Than-Your-MAC-Dorks Phones.
Your potential. Our passion.™
I work with a guy who has one. It does have tactile response. You can feel it in the hand you hold it in. It’s nothing compared to my iPod touch, but he was told by Sprint it’s just like an iPhone.
Samsung’s InStink will end up being flushed down the toilet along with Microsoft’s Zune.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!
Wasn’t the Instinct billed as the iPhone killer? LOL
In several ways the Instinct is a pretty cool phone (one of my co-workers showed me his). But still, it doesn’t hold a candle to the iPhone. The web browsing, in particular, is a big difference–i. e.the Instinct doesn’t handle it well at all. The display is also noticeably inferior to the iPhone. Lack of WiFi is another minus.
Well this is obvious.
The Instinct just stinks and will become extinct.
Can you make phone calls on it?
“Like many phones, the Instinct looks much better than it works”
Well that just inSTINCTS.
@Zune Tang
The iPhone is like when the prettiest girl in class is also the smartest… Looks and brains and major Fame.
This pretty girl Instinkt teases and promises & when you get her into bed, she just lays there while you do all the work…
Enjoy your poorly thought out interface, Zune Tang – I hear she’s a bad kisser, too…
Hey, there are many that either CANNOT or WILL NOT do business with ATT. I can’t blame these people for going with Sprint and its Samsung Instinct. For all others, it is hard to imagine why they would decide to buy the Instinct rather than an iPhone. We will know in another quarter or so if the Instinct can claim to be an iPhone killer (doesn’t your victim have to be dead before you can be called a killer?). I’m not losing any sleep.
The Instinct may not be an iPhone killer but word on TheStreet (.com) says it has the ability to give Steve Jobs both Smallpox and Chronic Wasting Disease.
So watch out Apple!
Zune Tang:
A real gem.
You always crack me up.
Keep going. I love your humor!
Samsung doesn’t need to make an iPhone Killer, all they need to do is have the Sprint salesman tell people who walk that “it’s just like an iPhone.”
“she just lays there while you do all the work…”
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Talk about taking the “chick” to bed..
sorry, couldn’t help myself
Yea, just as extinct as I thought it would be. The iPhone stomps on the killer AGAIN! Just like the iPod has stomped the Zune out of existence. Looks aren’t everything, in this case it looks like there extinct already. July 11th is coming.
Don’t waste our time! Who’s the next?
close but no cigar.
Back to the drawing board – maybe next time you will do something better.
As long as mobile phone builders rely on windows mobile, they will never dent the iPhone.
I do not detest windows mobile, but after using it for the past 2 years-I sure as hell do not like it.
Any OS that dies because the browser crashes or requires at least 1 restart a week is bordeline crap.
I cannot wait until July 11th so I can ditch my windows mobile turd.
I looked at the video of this thing working – it really sucks – a good try, but still not the iPhone experience.
As for me – well I just ordered mine for delivery Friday – one 16GB Black iphone on it’s way – O2 UK orders have opened!
@Scion, o2 orders are currently unavailable! I’m trying to order mine now…
Yeah, Instinct is no iPhone, but the combined strength of InstinctBell is greater than iPhoneRogers. Sorry Ted, I am not gonna comply to your insane demands.
go read the Sprint Instinct forums for the real deal on this phone, alot of unhappy customers
Zune Tang:
I’m officially calling you out — you’re a liar. If you’re really camping out at a Sprint Store, waiting for an Instinct, you’re a bigger moron than I thought. I challenge you to send me a photo of the line using your Zune.
Oh, I forgot, you can’t do that. You can only squirt songs to Gates, Ballmer and that other Zune customer…How about e-mailing “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.”
At least Samsung made a more entertaining TV ad then Apple.
@HD Boy
Zune Tang is not serious. The massive hyperbole and impossible statements should clue you into that. Just sayin’ don’t waste your time getting all worked up over it. He does that on purpose. It’s humor.
iPhone cannot be improved upon. What would you add? Lasers? A blu-ray drive? iPhone is the third great platform; a hands down win for Cupertino.
<< This pretty girl Instinkt teases and promises & when you get her into bed, she just lays there while you do all the work… >>
That would be my ex-wife. Waste of bedspace.
But I’m not bitter.
@ iLuvMyMacs
I didn’t know that my ex-wife married you too. Yep, just a flatback waste of bed space. It was worth anything to get out of that marriage (sort of like moving on to the Mac platform).
“But it’s got a cooler name….”
No wifi? Hahaha!
Well, putting lipstick on a pig, known as dressing up Windows Mobile, is never going to succeed. They will need a new OS to compete with OS X.
Superficial copycats are just that. People who buy devices that are labeled “just as good as”, should know by now that “as good as” is rarely the case. A truly successful device needs to leapfrog the current standard, not be “just as good as”. People who believe the Instinct is “just as good as”, deserve what they get.
Sprint will sell enough of these to make it slightly profitable. There are quite a number of areas where AT&T;doesn’t do business. In my area, Verizon does the best job at coverage, too.
For those who actually NEED a cellphone, the iPhone is still not an option, and a second rate copy-cat like the Instinct is bound to piggyback on the iPhone’s hype and success… and make some money at the same time.