Don't let the prospect of an even-better iPhone get you down, Sprint subscribers. The Samsung Instinct is coming on June 20, giving you an iPhone clone all your own, and it'll likely be a pretty good one once the bugs are worked out. I hate comparing other devices to the iPhone, but the Instinct is basically Samsung's reinvention of the iPhone idea: a slick-looking, touch-driven, multimedia handheld that brings a lot of non-phone features to the front, without being a full-fledged smartphone. (Yes, I realize the iPhone is now a bona fide smartphone.)And, you know what? It's not bad, mostly because of its excellent touch screen, which is accurate and instinctive, and a far cry from the frustrating experience you get with the Samsung Glyde. Maybe this slightly boxy phone doesn't have all the sex appeal of Apple's phone, but it's pretty snazzy in its own right, and has enough pluses to satisfy those who can't part with their Sprint Simply Everything plan.The 2.17 by 4.57 by .49-inch, 4.5-ounce phone is a little squarer around the edges when compared with the iPhone, and it's a bit lighter, but still satisfyingly solid feeling. The 3.1-inch, 240 by 432-pixel display is slightly smaller and less-sharp than the iPhone's 3.5-inch, 480 by 320-pixel screen. Nonetheless, it's clear and bright, but tends to get washed out in direct sunlight.
Let's start with the phone part, after all, it is a phone. And hooray – it's a better one than the iPhone. The Instinct's reception is just so-so, but it gets earpiece and speakerphone volume and sound quality right, delivering voices that sound deep and loud. The mic is more of a mixed bag; on the other end of calls, I sounded even more nasal than usual, and calls made from the speakerphone echoed a bit.
The Instinct comes bundled with a stereo headset, but uses Samsung's proprietary headset jack, not a standard 2.5mm or 3.5mm one. The handset paired automatically with our Plantronics 590 headset and delivered good voice quality over Bluetooth. But I couldn't trigger voice dialing over Bluetooth–to activate the generally solid VoiceSignal voice dialing, you need to press a button on the side of the phone.
We weren't able to complete the Instinct's battery life test in time, but will update this review with those results soon. The phone does comes with a spare battery and USB charging cable, which is unusual, and perhaps it's a direct shot at the iPhone, which has a non-removable battery.
Smart Device Central
