Samsung Instinct Review
As a long time Sprint customer I hoped for the best but expected the worst in the Samsung Instinct (and I should know about overhyped-underperforming Sprint phones as an ex-Upstage user.) After all the mixed reviews came out I assumed Sprint had again failed to meet the bar of their own hype. However after owning the Instinct for a week I have been pleasantly surprised. The phones limitations are surpassed by its successes for my uses.
Design
Dimensions - The phones dimensions are nearly identical to the iPhone (I promise this is the only time I will bring it up.) While, the LCD screen is slightly smaller the overall feel of the phone when used as a phone is better. Specs: 4.57" x 2.17" x 0.49" 4.4oz
Physical Design - The standard headphone jack on the top is in a perfect location. It allows me to have the phone in my pocket and my headphones in without worrying about breaking the jack. Similarly the earpiece and mic are well situated such that the phone matches up nicely with your face (although I do most of my talking over a Bluetooth headset.)
The camera is also nicely situated. When used as a camera, I naturally turned the phone into landscape mode with the camera button on the top right and the lens on the left. It felt like a camera even if the picture quality left something to be desired. While there is no flash feature, there is a small mirror below the lens which is designed for taking self portraits.
Standard volume buttons are on the left side. On the right side is a camera button and a voice activation button.
Back cover – I have not had any trouble taking on or off the battery cover. I simply looked at the picture the first day (placed on the back cover with a thin film) and followed the instructions. The cover slid off easily in my hands. Getting back on was slightly more difficult as it must be realigned, but was not tricky. However there have been numerous complaints on the forum about the difficulty of taking off the back cover. In summary, if you take it off the right way it slides off naturally and easily, if you don’t it is difficult – conclusion: this is a sign of excellent design - I don’t want the cover coming off by accident so it should only come off easily in one manner. Note: you are taking on and of the back cover fairly regularly to swap the phones two included batteries.
Set buttons – There are three set (non-customizable) buttons below the touch screen. Technically they are still part of the touch screen merely below the viewable section. The buttons are Back, Home, and Call. While I would have preferred these buttons be customizable I probably would have ended up setting them what they are.
Flaw – I will get into this more later but the phone desperately needs a set button that calls up the keyboard. Also a select button would have been helpful when trying to run downloaded applications not designed for the Instinct.
Features
Touch screen interface – I am impressed. The feel and response are excellent. The phone comes preset with the haptic touch feature turned on (it can be turned off, but after experimenting both ways I will definitely be leaving it on permanently.) I cannot describe how nice yet subtle this feature is. The phone vibrates slightly when you touch the screen. The sensation makes it feel as if you were pressing physical keys.
MicroSD card slot – fits up to 8GB cards.
Favorite Tab – The phone’s user interface is set up in a four tab menu. The Favs tab, the default tab, is customizable to any application, bookmark, or email/message to a specific contact. It doesn’t allow direct links to specific items inside the setting menu, which is disappointing for me because I like to toggle Bluetooth fairly frequently. Overall the Favs tab while fairly standard is useful for immediate access to the most often used features
Main Tab
Email –The included email application pushes aol mail, aim mail, hotmail, yahoo mail, Gmail, and “work” mail to your phone. I believe it actually doesn’t push but checks it in the background. However it routinely warned me of new mail before my open gmail web page. Additionally I found the contacts easier to navigate than Gmail’s mobile email app. The downside is the “work” mail requires an application to be running on your hard drive if you don’t have OWA. If this is the case the phone’s client can only sync with that email address(es) when the client is running on a computer. Furthermore once email(s) have been removed from the server they cannot be added to the phone. OWA users, which I am not, report mixed results with the initial set up.
Messaging – the phone includes threaded text messaging (as well as normal picture and video messaging.) The text messages display in IM conversation fashion. However the number of messages stored on the phone is limited (forum consensus appears to be 180 received and 50 sent.) This is interesting because if you go far enough back in threads you only see the received side of the conversation. Additionally, you can drag and drop single message into the trash or entire threads. You can also lock messages to keep them from being deleted.
Landscape Keyboard – While this feature isn’t limited to the messaging, it is most useful in the messaging application. The landscape keyboard allows much easier typing then the portrait version. Additionally you can also write letters or words with the included stylus and they will be converted into typing (cursive or block.) I am unsure when I would ever want to use this feature, but my Palm addict friends where quite impressed. While the lack of a T9 layout is a minor disappointment, I have run a few timed typing tests and am considerably faster on the landscape full keyboard than on the upstage’s T9. With both phones set up to type I was able to type a 71 character message with one word outside the t9 dictionary in 38 seconds on the upstage and 24 seconds on the Instinct. (I reran the test and was able to cut my T9 time to 32 seconds while my Instinct time remained the same.)
The keyboard mode also comes with a built in spell checker. Any misspelled words are highlighted in red. Tapping on them brings up suggestions. Additionally the auto correct option can be set where the suggested words automatically replace ones not in the dictionary. There is also a learn features which is extremely useful if you are planning on using the autocorrect option. I however have had a very low mistake rate while typing and thus have not needed to use the spell checker or auto correct feature often. I have been thoroughly impressed by the speed and accuracy of the keyboard.
- NOTE: There is no IM client included on the phone. -
Visual Voicemail – Visual voicemail downloads voicemail messages as you receive them and displays them separated by name (also displays time and duration.) By tapping any voicemail you can listen to it directly (either via earpiece or speakerphone.) Furthermore you can pause, delete, forward, reply or text directly from the message.
Navigation – Wow! I assumed this function would be a novelty at best however the functionality is equivalent or greater than my girlfriend’s Garmin Streetpilot. The navigation GPS works perfectly and the included traffic feature (and rerouting to avoid) is an added bonus. Furthermore, the navigation system can find nearby gas by price (regular, 89 or premium), restaurants, bars, atms, grocery stores, etc. I actually use this in my car and am happy with it as a working GPS unit. Also you can input address by typing them in, pulling them from contacts, or calling them in. I was pleasantly surprised by the calling in feature as it could be a life saver in the car (literally.)
One negative: I like to listen to podcasts on my way to work and have been taking advantage of the Instinct’s music player to do so. While the Instinct does allow me to listen to music and navigate at the same time. And even pauses the music to give me directions, the navigation voice at full volume was still lower than the music. So much so that it often times making it difficult to hear while driving at high speeds on the freeway
Calculator - Besides the standard calculator, the Instinct has a unit converter and a bill calculator. The bill calculator allows you to set the total, tip %, and # of people. While this is not something I am likely to use regularly, it was a welcome addition to an otherwise boring feature.
Notes - Similar to most phones and allows for notes of up to 300 characters
Calendar – The lack of a sync function is a major downside to this phone. The calendar does support the standard title, start time, end time, and alert setting. It also has a repeat function that allows you to set multiple days a week (as well as the standard daily, weekly, etc) while the calendar does have more options than most standard phones the lack of a sync makes it considerably less useful than it could have been.
Clock – Has an alarm with M-F and Weekend option. Also has a timer and stopwatch (timer not only looks cool but helped me cook my steaks to perfection.) The stopwatch has multi-lap support. Also includes standard world clock – although the touch interface makes it a little difficult to set your favorite cities.
Settings – Fairly standard. Only noteworthy item is lack of ability to change ringer for groups of calls. You can change individual contacts and voice call versus message/alert, but that is it.
Fun Tab
Music – The music player is nothing to write home about (and yet I am writing to you about it anyways …) it is a little slow to load from a SD card full of music. Once up and running the player itself works fine. It allows sorting of music by artist, album, and genre. There is also a web sync function which syncs to Sprint.com . Music quality is average from both the speaker and headphone jack. Only real downside I have discover thus far is that in long podcasts you cannot skip forward more than 35 minutes (or so, it depends on the podcast.) As a bonus you can download/purchase songs from Sprint’s music store. So if you need to load up on music away from the computer you have nothing to fear.
TV/Video – Standard Sprint feature. You have to go through a number of slow to load menus to actually get to a video. The videos play fine, but not any content I would really care to watch.
Radio – Sprint radio stations – good in a pinch, but can’t imagine when I would use it.
Web – My number one complaint about this phone is the awfulness of the included browser. I admit I have been spoiled by the speed and elegance of the Opera Mini 4.1 browser (which is free to download and works on every sprint phone but the Instinct,) however I was not prepared for ineptness of the included browser. While the browser can render in both mobile mode and computer mode (read normal), neither works without flows. In computer mode pages take forever to load (so much so that many forum members have questioned the Instincts EVDO Rev A. speed.) The browser does include a function which displays an overview of the entire page and allows quick movement around the page however it cannot be used until the page is finished loading which takes an inordinate amount of time (and often never occurs.) While the browser is quicker in mobile mode, it still hangs up on certain pages and sometimes is unable to render pages at all. Additionally the browser is lacking a portrait mode (which is just odd given the mobile mode page viewer.)
On the occasion when you actually have the browser working the ability to click on small links (such as page numbers in forums) is hampered by the size of your fingers. While the phone does include a stylus (which fits nicely into a side slot of the included case), I have found that it takes more time to constantly pull it back out and put it back in then it is worth. The browser does include a toggle zoom setting which allows viewing at ½ size, 1x, and 2x. At 2x the buttons are far easier to push, but finding them on the page is more difficult. I have found that using my pinky fingernail as a stylus allows me to click on the smallest links with precision.
Weather, Sports, News – the phone comes with included web based weather, sports, and news applications. The weather and sports are no quicker than using any number of mobile sites that do a better job of displaying the same information. However the weather application is easily customizable and relatively quick to load. I have used it on a number of occasions and find it quicker and easier than navigating to my favorite mobile weather site.
Phone Area - That’s right this device does function as a phone nut just a multimedia toy. The Phone Icon beneath the screen brings up the “Speed Dial” menu. While not quite as fast as pressing a single digit it has been more useful for me because I don’t even have to think about which number is assigned to whom. Rather I tap the name of the person I want to call and it immediately dials.
Contacts – Scrolling through contacts can be done with either a swipe or a hold and slow swipe. Swiping feels like spinning the Price is right wheel and depending on how quickly you swipe you can see your contacts flying by. Whereas pressing and holding pops up a large letter which can then be scrolled through to jump directly to the corresponding section of your contacts. This is very useful if you have a large number of contacts in your phone.
History – Instead of separating call history into sections, the Instincts call history differentiates with arrows pointing to the left for inbound calls and arrows pointing to the right for outbound ones. While the change is subtle, it has made finding a call quicker with fewer menus to sort through.
Dialer – For the old fashion times when you just need to input a phone number there is the dialer. The numbers are large and difficult to mess up. The only trick is to start the call you need to press the large green button at the top of the screen rather than the phone icon at the bottom (where most people are accustomed to pressing from their old phones.)
Voice activation – many reviewers have raved at the voice activation on this phone. I have found it in no way superior to the Samsung Instinct. When calling contacts the phone is quite accurate. When trying to search for local businesses the phone was less accurate and Pluto’s turn in to Yaluto’s. However this is not a feature that I use frequently so you may want to do your own research.
Performance
As reported elsewhere, the bars are jumpy, but I have had no call quality or missed call issues. Furthermore the phone has sounded good on my end and above average for a cell phone on the other end. Additionally, the phone paired easily with the Jawbone and I have noticed increased audio performance over Bluetooth compared to the upstage.
Download speeds measure at 940 kbps. Upload speed at 431 kbps.
Battery life – The phone comes with two batteries. While one would not have been sufficient, two are fine for my use. I use my phone for roughly 3 hours of music playback, an hour of talking, and a fair amount of messaging, emailing, and browsing a day (last month my data usage was over 1 GB.) Most days I switch batteries around 5pm, but have never come close to running through them both.
The battery can be charge either by the included usb cable or the wall charger. Additionally the Instinct comes with a spare battery holder that also functions as a charger. This allows you to have both batteries charging at the same time if you so desire.
Other
Pressing through the volume setting allows for vibrate all and silence all, but does not have a max setting with both ringer and vibration.
Pressing on the top of the screen brings down the date volume, Bluetooth, and power status as well as links to any messages (email, text, and voice.)
I have installed an almost full body skin and it has not affected the feedback of the touch interface while protecting the screen.
Contact Sync – while there were initial problems setting up the Instinct with mobile sync everything appears to be working properly now. However based on the forum discussions the Outlook calendar sync appears to be quirky with some users reporting no problems and others struggling to get it to work.
3rd Party Application Support – While Sprint is sponsoring a contest to get developers to write applications for the phone, they have included no way to call the keyboard widget from the phone itself. As a result all third party applications that require inserting text are currently incompatible with this phone. This is a major design error as obviously not all applications will be rewritten for one phone.
USB connect – the phone is preset to connect to the computer as a usb drive which shuts off the phone radio. While this setting is missing from the UI, it can be toggled by pressing ##usb#. This allows you to connect the phone to the computer as a modem which also allows you to charge the battery via usb cable without the phone turning off.
Sprint Media Manager – The Instinct comes with included software to sync music, photos, and movies between the phone and the computer. The software does not have a setting that automatically syncs the phone on connect, which makes it no more helpful the just browsing the file system with windows explorer while the phone is connected.
Overall I very impressed with the phone. I have some minor gripes and concerns here and there, but am overwhelmed by the small additional features. The landscape mode keyboard and haptic touch are even better than I imagined. As is the GPS navigation.
Furthermore navigating around the phone is easier and simpler than I expected. Scrolling through menus is easy and almost fun. Some users have even remarked that the favorite tab is unnecessary because it is already so easy to navigate through the UI that it doesn’t save you much time. However the real major downside to the phone is the browser. The browser is so bad that if you do heavy internet usage on your phone I recommend that you wait until Opera Mini (or another similar browser) is ported over to the Instinct before purchasing. If you don’t, you will become quickly frustrated with the phone’s slow internet and the browser’s quirky ability to render pages.
As for me, I will definitely be keeping the Instinct. After playing around on my friends’ Treos and Centros I have decided that the Instinct is superior for the features I use most. While I would appreciate calendar sync, I have decided I can go on using gcal. Now please go bug Opera to hurry up and port over their browser ;
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