Living with the Samsung Instinct
A little over a week ago I discovered I qualified to upgrade from my Razr V3m. I’ve been a Sprint customer for a long time now and really prefer their network. Being that I have family, friends, and work on the network makes the free Sprint to Sprint calling priceless.
I had been marginally interested in an iPhone. I’ve seen them in action and found them to be highly functional devices. There were more than a few draw backs I considered to be show stoppers though. So I had set out to explore the Centro by Palm instead.
As luck would have it, the Samsung Instinct was premiering the day I arrived at my local Sprint store. The Instinct is not a PDA like the iPhone or Centro are but it is what I would consider a “smart phone”. It also bears a lot of similarities to the iPhone when it comes to functionality. I knew a lot about the Centro so as I started comparing features between the two devices, I found myself increasingly impressed with it.
The first thing about the Instinct that stands out is the highly efficient interface. It’s backed by a decent processor so not only are applications easy to find but they start up quickly too. A great example of this is the 2 megapixel camera. Press a button on the side of the phone and the camera, or camcorder if you press and hold the button, starts up and is ready to use within a second. Compared to my Razr which could take five to ten seconds just to activate the camera this is huge. And when you take a picture, no long wait times before it’s ready to take another.
The phone requires an all access plan with Sprint and as such takes full advantage of all the features the plan has to offer. Text messaging and picture mail is nicely organized into an easy to use application which makes it easy to see what you’ve received as well as sent. Sending picture mail does not hang up the phone while it’s sending so you can do other things while your pictures go out.
The Email interface works really well. I’m using Gmail and my read and deleted messages seem to be staying in sync nicely. Email is checked in the background and notifies you when you have new mail. It only displays email in text mode though so sometimes I find myself marking the messages as unread so I can later check them on the computer to see the HTML versions. Natively it supports AOL, AIM, Hotmail, Yahoo!, Gmail, Outlook Web Access, and Pop.
There was also an USB cable and software included with the phone. The software allows you to upload and download photos, video, and music to and from the phone. The phone comes with a 2 gig MicroSD memory card which means you can store quite a bit on it. Because of this there is also an option to override the 2 minute limitation on video and record as much as you have space to store. The caveat of this is you can’t upload the longer video wirelessly but you can download it with the USB. I should also note, since I get asked this a lot, that you can charge your spare battery with the USB cable as well.
The favorites feature is fairly unique as well. Essentially it’s a menu option where you can put your favorite applications and functions on their own page. Not only can this include launching applications but it can include specific tasks like “Send Message to Wife” or “Open Google Calendar” web page. This is really nice for common functions.
Entering text on the touch screen has three possible modes. Held horizontally is a customized Qwerty keyboard. Held vertically is an alphabetic keyboard suited to typing one handed. There is a third mode that will allow you to use a stylus to do hand writing recognition. In this last mode you can write one letter a time or entire words at a time. I normally find myself using the Qwerty keyboard with both hands. The screen uses vibration and clicks to give tactile feedback as you type.
The touch screen on the phone is large enough to make photo and video viewing a real pleasure. Unlike the iPhone the screen is single touch versus iPhone’s multi-touch display. The phone is really thin and narrow though. I would say it compares to my Razr when it was closed.
You would think that this small footprint would mean lower battery life but it easily outlasts my Razr and comes with an extra battery and an external charger. To the best of my knowledge this is not a feature the iPhone supports and one of the things I really prefer about this phone over the iPhone.
The batteries really need to be conditioned the first time they are used. The official specifications report 5.75 hours of talk time. On a typical day I regularly check my email, send and receive a lot text messages, check weather, take and send pictures, and talk to friends and family. One charge will easily last the entire day. Today, I’m still on the same charge from when I took it off the charger yesterday morning. There are exceptions though that will eat up battery far faster than normal, this includes video and navigation.
Things are not all roses though. There is no way of grouping contacts for the purpose of sending picture mails or text messages to a group of people regularly. The calendar functions in the phone aren’t exportable or syncable with other calendaring systems. The web browser could use a little provement as it can crash on certain sites and some times, though rarely, has dificulty filling out forms on some sites. Existing mobile apps that require a keypad are not currently compatable. Google Maps for example will run but you can’t do a search. You can however press the on screen zoom in and out buttons and drag the map around with your finger.
On the whole, I’m really happy with the phone. If you’re considering a smart phone this is certainly a strong contender at a comparable price. I’d easily give it an eight out of ten. Hopefully with software updates over the next year we’ll see that score improve.
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December 3rd, 2008 at 5:48 am
Nice article.
How do you access the option to override the 2 minute video recording limitation?
Thanks
December 3rd, 2008 at 11:57 am
When you have the camera up I think it’s the button in the bottom left hand corner of the camera window. It isn’t intuitively obvious. I think I found the details buried in the manual.