or
Store Cell PhonesSamsung Instinct Phone (Sprint)
From Sprint
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #183 in Cell Phone Accessories
- Brand: Samsung
- Model: SPHM800ZKS
- Released on: 2008-09-01
Features
- Award-winning phone featuring 3.1-inch touchscreen with vibrating feedback, GPS navigation, visual voicemail
- Access Sprint Mobile Broadband Network via EV-DO Rev. A connectivity; Sprint TV and Sprint Music Store enabled; access personal and corporate email
- 2-megapixel camera/camcorder; Bluetooth for handsfree devices and stereo music streaming; MicroSD expansion up to 8 GB
- Up to 5.75 hours of talk time; measures 4.6 x 2.2 x 0.5 inches and weighs 4.4 ounces
- Includes: handset, rechargeable battery, charger, USB cable, 3.5mm headphones with microphone, carrying case with stylus, quick start guide
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Product Description
The Samsung Instinct takes touchscreen phones to the next level with a 3.1-inch touchscreen with haptic feedback, advanced features including Visual Voicemail, and access to Sprint's EV-DO 3G network--perfect for surfing the Web as well as downloading music and video from Sprint's Music Store and TV service. It also includes GPS capabilities for turn-by-turn navigation provided by the optional Sprint Navigation service. Other features include a 2-megapixel camera/camcorder, Bluetooth for handsfree communication and stereo music streaming, MicroSD memory expansion up to 8 GB, voice dialing capabilities, and up to 5.75 hours of talk time.
The Instinct's touchscreen keeps you in touch better than any other, with an interface designed to quickly take you right to where you want to go. |
Sprint Service OptionsSupporting the EV-DO Rev. A high-speed data standard, Sprint's Mobile Broadband Network provides blazing fast speeds on the nation's largest mobile broadband network (based on covered square miles), covering more than 15,000 cities and 1,400 airports. With EV-DO Rev. A, peak download data rates increase to 3.1 Mbps and peak upload data rates increase to 1.8 Mbps; average download speeds improve to 600 kbps to 1.4 mbps and average uplink speeds increase to 350 to 500 kbps.
The Sprint Music Store enables you to buy, download, and then jam out wherever you are with new songs or old favorites. Offering a growing selection of more than 1.6 million songs, the store provides you two copies of each song--one for the phone and another for the PC, as well as the ability to burn songs to a CD using Windows Media Player. Save your songs to a memory card with a capacity that's right for you. Use the Sprint Music Store to listen to music while sending text messages, browsing the Web, or playing a downloaded game. And get over 30 channels of music--Hip Hop, Top Hits, Latin Pop, music videos and shows from NPR, Sporting News and more--treamed to your phone.
With Sprint TV, you can make your cell phone your always-on source for news, weather, sports and more. This comprehensive video service combines high-quality streaming audio and video from channels including the NFL Network, ABC, The Weather Channel, Fox Sports, E!, CNN, The Discovery Channel, and more.
Whether you use your finger or a stylus, the Instinct responds to every touch with a slight vibration. |
Other features include a 2-megapixel camera/camcorder, Bluetooth music streaming, and MicroSD memory expansion up to 8 GB. |
Nicely slim, the Instinct measures 0.5 inches thin and weighs 4.4 ounces. |
This GPS-enabled phone provides optional access to Sprint Navigation for driving directions on your mobile phone--by voice and onscreen. Along the way, turn-by-turn directions will be announced in a clear voice and displayed on your phone. For example, Sprint Navigation will say, "Go 1.2 miles and turn right on Elm Street." As you approach the turn, you will hear, "Turn right on Elm Street." Sprint Navigation also provides proactive traffic alerts with one click re-routing. And it's easy to find restaurants, banks, cafes, hotels and more from over 10 million points of interest across the U.S.
With Sprint Mobile Email, you'll get easy access to your favorite home email services including AOL, Yahoo!, Gmail, and MSN/Windows Live Hotmail and more. And Sprint Mobile Email Work enables you to access email from corporate servers, including Microsoft Exchange 2000, 2003, 2007 and Lotus Notes Domino versions 6.0, 6.5 and 7.0 (with the latest software update).
Phone Features
Named "Best in Show" in the third annual Emerging Technology (E-Tech) Award competition in April at CTIA Wireless 2008, the innovative Samsung Instinct speeds up the user experience like no other touchscreen phone and brings your most-used applications and contacts within a single finger tap. With the Instinct, you don't have to listen to voicemail anymore. Just one quick glance at the Visual Voicemail display and you'll know who called and when--and even delete messages without having to listen to them first. The device also offers a Speech to Action button providing many functions using speech activation for calling, texting, picture messaging, traffic, movie, sports, news, weather and search.
It has a high-tech look with large, vibrant touchscreen a 240 x 432-pixel resolution and support for 262K colors for excellent depth. And whether you use your finger or a stylus, the Instinct responds to every touch with a slight vibration. This localized tactile feedback, called haptics, transforms the virtual QWERTY keypad and other screen interactions into a sensory experience.
This sleek, stylish device offers three dedicated keys on the lower portion of the device to make operation of the device very straightforward and easy to navigate--phone, back and home. The phone key always takes you back to essential voice calling and features including speed dial, visual voicemail, contacts and the dial pad. The back key is a consistent way to take a step back in the operation. The home key provides quick access to the four menus of functionality included in the user interface:
With Live Search, you can use that GPS technology to search for the nearest gas station by location, price or even grade of gasoline. |
- Favorites provides one-touch access to the things you do most, making customization and personalization extremely simple. Web sites, TV channels, text messaging friends and much more can be saved in the Favorites menu so the items used most are always at the user's fingertips.
- Main includes applications such as Messaging, Voicemail, GPS Navigation and more.
- Fun takes you to Music, TV, photos, games and more.
- Web provides a fast, real Internet experience and all things Web-related, including weather and news.
This phone provides Bluetooth version 2.0 wireless connectivity, and includes profiles for communication headset, handsfree car kits, audio/video remote control, and printing. With the A2DP Bluetooth profile, you can stream your music to a pair of compatible Bluetooth stereo headphones. When connected to a Bluetooth device, caller information for incoming calls will be spoken through the Bluetooth device. Decide to answer the call without ever looking at your phone.
The 2-megapixel camera can capture images up to 1600 x 1200 pixels for prints up to 8 x 10 inches. It features a 2x digital zoom, "fuzzy picture" warning that lets you know if you're about to take a bad picture, and easy viewing of photos by simply swiping your finger across the screen to move from one photo to the next. It also includes a video camcorder function that lets you record video clips up to 2 MB (approximately 6 minutes) for sending via messaging or for as long as you have space on an inserted MicroSD memory card for saving.
The music player is compatible with MP3, WMA, AAC/AAC+, and KOZ digital audio formats, and it will play in the background even while sending text messages, browsing the Web, or playing a downloaded game. This phone is also compatible with 72-chord polyphonic ringtones, and it includes a vibrate silent mode.
The phone is compatible with text (SMS) and multimedia (MMS) messaging, as well as POP3 personal email accounts. It includes XT9 predictive text entry (the new version of the T9), with such features as a word prediction list and spelling correction that spots transposed letters and missed keys, as well as instant integration into all applications on the device.
Other features include:
- Live Search for Sprint, powered by Microsoft, provides easy access to directory information on-the-go, GPS-enabled directions, interactive maps and one-touch click to call access
- Store up to 600 contact entries, each with fields for five phone numbers, an email address, a web site, and notes
- Organizational tools: Calendar, calculator, alarm clock, world clock, stopwatch and notepad
- Speech to Action feature let's you place calls using your voice, store voice reminders, and record voice memos right on your device
- Sprint Mobile Sync: Load contact info to your phone and sync with PC, any time you add, edit or remove contacts it auto updates the back-up PC contact list.
- Speaker-Independent Voice Dialing: Say the name of any entry in your phone book and the number is dialed automatically without using the keypad. This feature is speaker-independent, so there is no need to train the phone to respond to any one person's voice. Receive an audible status report of your phone's coverage, signal strength, and battery strength.
- Hearing Aid Compatibility = M3/T3
- Bluetooth version 2.0 with the following profiles: A2DP (stereo music streaming), AVRC (remote control), HFP (hands-free car kits), HSP (communication headsets), DUN (dial-up networking), FTP (file transfer), OPP (object push for business cards, calendar items, and pictures), PBA (transfer contacts)
Vital Statistics
The Samsung Instinct weighs 4.4 ounces and measures 4.6 x 2.2 x 0.5 inches. Its 1000 mAh lithium-ion battery is rated at up to 5.75 hours of talk time. It runs on the 800/1900 CDMA/EV-DO frequencies.
Customer Reviews
Did not meet my expectations
The Bad :
Battery Life (grade : F)- short, I can go through 2-3 batteries in a day easily, also once the battery reaches a certain level, no functions work on the device except call effectively shortening the battery functional life even further
Music Player (grade : F)- has quirks that really inconvenience me. rescans the SD card each time you go to the playlist, I only have 345 songs loaded and it has delay time to scan all these songs each time. I imagine if I had more songs it would be even more annoying. You can't re-order songs in a playlist on the device. The software/music manager on the PC is also cumbersome and slow. The most annoying feature is the inability to set a song to stop after playing once. It will automatically continue to play to the next track or repeat itself. I teach a class and during my class, only want to play a song once and not have to return to the device to thumb around and stop things.
Navigation (grade : D): my Garmin is far superior, it has made some mistakes like running me into a cul de sac and wasting about 20 minutes of my time doing so.
web (grade : D): slower than my previous phone Treo 700, it's so slow I don't find myself interested in using the web at all, I just wait until I can reach a desktop
call quality (grade : D): in general Sprint Call quality in my area (NC) is poor, I have tried about 7 different Sprint phones w/ the same result, would change except I am getting a good deal on my plan right now.
The Good :
Camera (B+): picture mail and video mail is cool , my sister reports that the pictures and video are clear
Email (A): very decent interface
Vmail (A+): Very good interface, you don't have to call in to check your voicemail and can scroll through and choose which ones you want to listen to.
Voice to action (B): pretty nice feature, although if you have several names that sound alike Holly, Honey, Bonnie - it ends up taking more time than speed dial
Sports (A): I like sports and the customizable team feature I found to be useful and efficient for my wants, a lot faster than going to [...] or whatever to check scores
Overall interface (A): nice, fun to use, easy to use
Swappable batteries : this is a good feature even though battery life is poor
SD Card : definitely useful, although I haven't found a need to use more than 1 yet.
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Overall Rating :
unfortunately , I would not recommend this phone to anyone. I wish I had gotten it free but I paid over $100 and don't feel that it's worth it. I am sure there are better phones to be had at this point. The music player is extremely aggravating and seems to have been designed in a hurry.
I actually bought the phone b/c I read many favorable reviews on it including reviews that placed it comparable to the expensive iphone. I haven't had an iphone, but I imagine that the iphone music player is solid. My experience with this product has not been good although I can read that other people have had a better experience.
The best phone I've had but...
This is a great phone, but there are a few things that could really turn this phone into an amazing phone.
1. Better music player: The phone comes with a 2gb card which is great for storing music. However I have put on 2gb's worth of music and the phone takes forever to load, probably about 6-8 minutes. I thought this was only going to be the first time it read the music, but that is definitely not the case. Everytime I open the music player it has to go throught this whole process again. I tried taking of a lot of the music and put on about 30 songs to see if it would be faster. Well it was faster, but still not nearly fast enough. It takes about 1-2 minutes to play those songs. I am hoping for a program update to resolve this issue. Until then I am stuck.
2. Viewing of Word, Excel, Powerpoint: This phone is very capable of viewing e-mail and it does a great job of it, even managing 2 e-mail accounts(yahoo mail, and my work e-mail through microsoft exchange server). The only problem is that I have a lot of e-mails that contain attachments of word, excel, and occassionaly powerpoint. There are several other phones, in this class of phones,that have capabilities of doing this and this one should be included. Another thing that I will hope a program update will fix. Until then...
Other than the 2 points above I would say this phone is great! It is by far the best phone I have ever had and everything else that it does is awesome. My favorite feature is the GPS with search. I can pull up the program and say "pizza" and boom within seconds I have 20 pizza places that are close to me to choose from. Even better I can click on the one I want and see the phone number (one click to call), address (one click to start my GPS driving me there), and reviews which I can view and create.
Very Slick with Lots of Potential
I have used many mobile "smartphones" / "featurephones" in the last year trying to settle on something that meets my needs. The list includes iPhone (1st gen), HTC Mogul, Q9C, Palm Treo 755p, Treo 800w and the Instinct.
My needs and expectations might be different from the reader's, so let me lay them out in advance:
* A decent web browsing experience for regular "desktop" sites.
* Sufficient music capabilities to replace my iPod for most purposes.
* Basic email and calendaring capabilities (Outlook "PUSH" is not one of them).
* An easy-to-use and "fun" interface.
* A reliable phone, with good battery life.
* Navigation, if I can get it.
* MMS capabilities, if I can get it.
Here is where the previous devices have fallen short:
iPhone - Bad AT&T service in my area made it challenging to use as a phone. At the time, EDGE data was too slow to enjoy surfing the web. Pages look great once loaded, but who has 3-4 minutes per page to surf. If I am using WiFi, I might as well have my laptop. No MMS offered. Why?
I know the 3G version improves on this, but AT&T 3G coverage is still not up to par with the EVDO offered by Verizon/Sprint. This is simply the case of a good phone on a bad network.
Mogul - Poor reliability with many bugs that have not been fixed with several firmware update releases. This makes it unsatisfactory to use even for basic voice calls. Who can cope with a phone that reboots during a call? Not a good iPod replacement because you have to use the USB jack or an adapter to hook up a good pair of headphones and bluetooth stereo quality was not good enough to replace wired headphones in my experience. No MMS (can't send pictures of kids to my parents while out-and-about without using email).
Q9C - Almost good enough. Just too darn slow. Too little memory. It does run Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphone with some UI enhancements, and includes a 2.5mm headphone jack for audio. A good choice for anyone willing to live with performance drawbacks. Good voice quality and reasonably reliable for a Microsoft-powered device. My back-up device. No MMS (on Sprint).
Treo 755p - Simply not able to get a decent web browser on the device. It does almost everything else OK, even if the interface is a bit too simplistic. The included Blazer browser has difficulty digesting most modern web sites, runs out of memory and is too slow. Although there are J2ME runtime engines that can be used to run Opera Mini, it frequently crashes the phone.
Treo 800w - Does everything, just not that well. Makes a pig of itself with battery use (see my review elsewhere on Amazon). The phone really falls down as an iPod replacement because it does not have an audio jack, only a microUSB connector. Hard to find good headphones for this jack. Stereo bluetooth on the device with my Moto S9 headphones introduces alot of noise. Still no MMS (on Sprint).
Now we come to the Instinct:
WEB BROWSER:
The browser has been greatly improved by the latest MR-3 firmware update, and Samsung/Sprint does seem inclined to continue to roll out improvements. I think the record sales of the device serves as an incentive to continue offering updates to the software. An MR-4 firmware is slated that is supposed to add keyboard support to J2ME applications that should allow the device to run Opera Mini and many other programs. The browser is not perfect, but it is fast enough to surf the web and get a reasonable approximation of most pages I visit. With the latest update you can take advantage of the entire screen for the browser, hiding all controls. Panning is simple with fingertip swipes. Zoom is still a bit clunky but reasonably fast.
A few "web applications" are present under the web tab that offer an attractive interface to some features you would normally use the browser for such as: weather, news, movie times and sports scores. Much better than using any browser to access this data. I would like to see more of these offered, in fact (how about a YouTube front-end?).
You will also find a version of Microsoft's Live Search to use speech to find local business found with the assistance of the built-in GPS. A very nice touch. Once found, you can call them up or get turn-by-turn directions to get there.
MUSIC
Ahh... finally, a phone with a 3.5mm headphone jack. This allows you to plug in standard iPod-like headphones and enjoy music. Bluetooth playback on the S9 headphones is also very good. The music application is nice, and you can use up to an 8GB SD card to store songs. You can buy music over-the-air from the Sprint Music Store which is integrated into the music application. Still not an iPod touch, but plenty good enough for my uses.
EMAIL AND CALENDAR
The email is simple and easy to use. It offers enough features for a mobile device, although a few options such as a custom signature would be nice. It does not render HTML email, but does help you along by including any web links that might be embedded in an HTML message. For my use, this is a faster alternative than asking the phone to download and render a full HTML version with images for my email on the go.
I would appreciate the capability to view some simple file formats, particularly PDF. I understand this is slated for the MR-4 release and the fact they recognize this need placates me for the time being.
Calendering, on the other hand, is the Achilles Heel for replacing a typical smartphone with this device. There is no provision to sync your calendar with the web or desktop. Accordingly, while there is a calendar app built in, I don't even use it. For the present, I muddle through accessing the mobile version of Google Calendar. Sprint needs to do something to fix this. Maybe a front-end to Google Calendar. If not, it is my hope that a more complete Java stack will open the door for third-party solutions. (See more about Java on the Instinct below).
INTERFACE
The interface is attractive and easy to use. Much better than poking around menus with the tiny stylus on a Windows Mobile device. I know about keyboard shortcuts, but I am more of a point-and-click kind of guy. Just personal preference.
The touch screen is very responsive for a non-capacitive sensor, much better than say the Treo. Not as good as the iPhone, but nothing has a better touch interface than the iPhone.
The Instinct does have "haptic" (vibration) feedback that makes it feel almost as if you are touching physical buttons and makes the phone very satisfying to use.
PHONE, NAV AND MMS
The phone sounds great. Call options are right where they should be, with easy ability to add a conference call or mute the microphone, for example. An in-call menu allows you to access common functions such as the address book or notes while in a call. Photos linked to contacts show up during income/outgoing calls.
The phone also has very good "speech to action" capabilities. You can use this to quickly dial a number or call one from you address book. No voice training is necessary and it is very accurate and usable.
Navigation is simply second-to-none. Tell it where you want to go by talking (through the Live Search discussed above) or type an address, intersection or business name and you are off with turn-by-turn directions and an animated moving map. You can also search for close by businesses and the like (such as the closest gas station or fast-food joint while on the road). Easily meets my navigation needs. Apple should take note and try to put something similar on the iPhone. Google Maps is good, but not like this.
MMS is the cherry on top. You can easily send and receive pictures and short video clips. I use this all the time to send quick snapshots to my wife's phone (a Centro) or my parents. The Treo 755p is the only phone listed above that has this capability. Why such a common innovation is left out of Sprint's smartphone lineup is simply beyond me. There are hacks to do it on Windows Mobile, but it is not the same as having it built into the phone's UI.
MISC
In terms of other attributes, I find the phone has enough battery power for my needs. It is attractive and easy to slip in/out of your pocket. Bluetooth pairing is simple (Widows Mobile -- take note). The speaker is loud enough for ringers. Physical controls are easy to understand. Sprint includes a generous accessory package with the phone: Music syncing application (Windows only), USB cable, wall charger, 2 batteries, a spare battery charger, a handsfree stereo headset, and a 2GB SD card.
The camera is perfectly fine for a phone. Nice pictures and a simple interface. If I want something better I'll use my Nikon dSLR. It records video and the quality is actually surprisingly good for what it is. I always wished Apple would put this on the iPhone, but they just don't want their customers to have it for some reason.
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CAVEATS
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Now the downsides, many of which I hope to see remedied:
JAVA
This phone is advertised as being based on an "open" platform in that J2ME applications can be run on the phone, opening the door to many third-party applications. The problem is that Sprint inexplicably does not offer the standard text input libraries developers expect to have present on a J2ME device. This means you can load Opera Mini, but you can't use the on-screen keyboard to enter a URL. Sprint knows this was a gaff, and they assure that a fix is in the works for this year.
CALENDAR
As mentioned above, I consider the calendar next to useless without some syncing ability. It's an internet-connected mobile phone -- why does the user operate the calendar on an "island?" If Sprint doesn't fix this, a J2ME app likely will take its place. If not, I'll write one.
BROWSER STILL NEEDS WORK
As much improved as the Instinct's Teleca OBIGO-based browser is with the recent update, it still falls short in many areas. It seems to have a problem rendering either PNG or GIF images with alpha transparency, leading to some ugly looking logos and the like on pages.
An option to save images from the browser to the SD card would be nice. More granular zoom control would be nice (currently just 1/2X, 1X and 2X). Ability to change the font size would be nice (some fonts are too small).
Rather than hope that Sprint/Samsung will perfect this browser, I would prefer work be done to make this a first-class J2ME platform so we can run Opera Mini. Samsung should make phones, and leave browser design to a browser software company.
STILL A BIT SLOW
The specifications on RAM and processor type are hard to find, so I am not sure what kind of speed improvements to expect.
I can say that some of the most frustrating slow aspects of the device ARE the result of poor software design. For example, the media player is compelled to rescan your SD card for music each time it is opened. Why not just detect when a folder modification date has changed and update then?
In a similar vein, the photo viewing application is slick enough, but it slows considerably with any reasonable number of photos loaded onto the card. The reason? It does not appear that the software caches photo thumbnails for later use. It appears to generate thumbnails on the fly each time you open the photo application. This demands considerable processor power and slows the whole works down to a grinding halt. Solution? Simply create a folder with a thumbnail cache on the memory card. Generate a hash for each photo for tracking and only create a new thumbnail when a photo is added. This is Software Design 101 people.
Finally, although the internet is fairly fast on the device, it does not appear to be reaching the potential of Rev A.. I have tested the device side-by-side with my Treo 800W (another Rev A device) at www.dslreports.com/mspeed. The result: Instinct - 369kbit/sec; Palm - 865kbit/sec. Big difference. Why?
THE SPRINT TV APP IS BROKEN, FIX IT...NOW
Sprint TV is a nice service included in their newer plans. You can watch CNN live, full episodes of ABC TV series, and many, many other quality programming options with your plan.
The device has an included TV application to take advantage of this programming. With speedy Rev A and a nice large screen, the Instinct should be ideal for this purpose. It's not. The video is either a mosaic of color blocks, or a low-quality slideshow. Audio is OK, but video just cannot keep up.
This is not a function of the Sprint TV service. Other devices listed above render much better picture quality.
Whatever the reason, the Sprint TV application is a very poor showcase of what should be one of the phone's best applications. Sprint, you need to fix this feature. It's an embarrassment. If you want to compete in the iPhone space, you need to learn a few lessons from Apple: do not advertise a feature on the device if it doesn't work. It just pisses people off. Fix it now.
CONCLUSION
Despite several limitations, I really like the Instinct as a whole. It shows great potential and it does not look like Sprint has abandoned hopes of making it better -- YET. This is what makes the difference between a three-star and four-star review. A few key fixes and it will do everything I want it to do.
It is really important that Sprint delivers on making this phone live up to its marketing expectations. If the Instinct never really works the way it was touted, I won't be buying the Instinct II or whatever replacement you roll out for it. Don't convince me that Apple or the OHA are the only entities that can deliver the promise of a quality, converged device by failing to clean the Instinct up.
Even without the hoped-for upgrades, this is the phone to get if you want a smooth user interface and don't want to deal with AT&T or T-Mobile GSM networks with spotty 3G coverage.
| List Price: | $449.99 |
| Price: | $99.99 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details |
