Hands-on review: Samsung Instinct

The Voyager, the Vu, the Glyde—all have tried to knock the iPhone off its touchscreen throne, and they've all fallen well short. But while the new Samsung Instinct still isn't an iPhone killer, it comes closer than I expected—and in a few areas, it beats the iPhone at its own game.

I was pretty impressed when I saw a pre-production unit back in March, and now that its software has been perfected, the Instinct ($199 with a two-year contract, set for release June 20) strikes me as the best of the iPhone wanna-bes. It's not perfect—the Web browser needs work, the interface isn't nearly as slick, and it lacks the iPhone's potential as a mobile platform—but it's the first full-on, non-iPhone touchscreen handset for the U.S. that is truly geared toward touch. 

Looks-wise, the Instinct gets off to a strong start. Measuring 4.6 by 2.2 by 0.5 inches and weighing in at about 4.5 ounces, the Instinct is a little taller, narrower, and lighter than the original iPhone—indeed, it felt quite a bit lighter in my pocket than the iPhone ever did.

The Instinct's touchscreen looks reasonably sharp, although its graphics are slightly duller than what you'll find on the iPhone. Also, the Instinct's 3.25-inch display is a little narrower than the iPhone's 3.5-inch display, which makes browsing the Web a little more cramped than it should be.

Just beneath the Instinct's screen are touch-sensitive Back, Home, and Call buttons, while a volume rocker and microSD slot (good for 8GB of additional memory) sits on the left spine, with camera and voice-command buttons along the right side. Atop the phone is a standard 3.5mm headphone jack and a power/sleep button.

As I've written before, the Instinct's display is protected by a plastic coating, versus glass for the iPhone; the plastic makes for a lighter phone, but it could also lead to scratch marks down the line. I don't see any marks on my review unit yet, but then again, it's only been a week.

The Instinct's main touch interface has four tabs: Favorites, Main, Fun, and Web. Tapping the Main tab brings you to the phone's core applications (e-mail, navigation, settings, etc.), while Fun calls up multimedia (music, videos, camera), and Web includes ... well, the Web browser, plus widgets for news, weather, sports, and the like.

As you touch the various tabs, little icon-based boxes slide back and forth, gathering smoothly into a grid—it's one of the little touches that makes browsing the Instinct's menus an iPhone-esque experience.

Indeed, the Instinct's touch UI felt much more responsive than other non-iPhone touchscreen handsets I've tried (some of which have been so sluggish that they're practically unusable). My taps registered almost immediately in most cases, and I liked how you can flick lists up and down, which gives you a roulette wheel-type effect, again akin to the iPhone's UI.

That said, the Instinct's touch interface has its limits. As responsive as it is, the Instinct's UI still feels sluggish compared to the iPhone's, while the physics of the Instinct's roulette-wheel effects—while not bad—aren't completely there yet. Navigation is relatively intuitive, but not effortless; my non-techie pals, who had no trouble with the iPhone, wandered into occasional thickets with the Instinct. 

OK, let's talk messaging. The Instinct does both SMS and picture messaging, and setting up most Web e-mail accounts (including AOL & AIM Mail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Gmail) is a snap. The phone has limited Exchange support—you'll need either Outlook Web Access or a desktop redirector—and you can also set up POP or IMAP accounts manually.

Composing messages on the Instinct's virtual keypad was, well, a so-so experience. Unlike the iPhone, the Instinct lets you enter text in either portrait or landscape mode—nice, except in the portrait mode, letters in the keypad are arranged in alphabetical order rather than in QWERTY style. You also have the option of tracing letters with your fingertip, although (as I've mentioned before) my handwriting is so bad that I quickly went back to tapping.

The Instinct boasts tactile feedback as you type, a feature missing in the iPhone; that said, the Instinct's error-correction method (a critical feature when typing on virtual keypads) forces you to stop and go back to fix mistakes, while the iPhone's suggestion bubble (which you tap only if you don’t want to replace your typing) lets you keep tapping away.

Moving on ... the Instinct comes with GPS and turn-by-turn directions powered by TeleNav, which makes for a pretty slick experience. Meanwhile, the 2MP camera takes decent, if not awe-inspiring images (about on a par with the iPhone), but the Instinct also records video clips—still a (sore) missing iPhone feature. Once you're done shooting, you can send photos and clips via e-mail or MMS, or you can upload them to MySpace.

The Instinct really shines with it comes to music and video. The phone takes full advantage of its access to Sprint's 3G EV-DO network, delivering streaming video from Sprint TV, downloadable songs via Sprint Music (which has been redesigned for the Instinct), and a couple dozen streaming radio stations (some of which require subscriptions).

Not bad, especially compared to the iPhone, which lacks access to AT&T's own video service and—for now, at least—won't let you buy and download songs from iTunes over AT&T's HSDPA network.

Music on the Instinct sounded relatively sharp to my ears, while streaming video looked blocky and a bit jerky—par for the course over a standard 3G cellular connection (as opposed to the sharp images from MediaFlo mobile TV).

Web browsing on the Instinct isn't quite so impressive, however. The browser works well enough with mobile-optimized pages, but (as I've written before) slows to a crawl with full-HTML pages. You can scroll by tapping and dragging Web pages, but there's no "pinching" on the Instinct's non-multitouch display, so you must tap a virtual button to zoom in or out. In other words, while the Instinct's Web browser is certainly above par, it can't hold a candle to the iPhone's.

The Instinct lacks Wi-Fi but boasts stereo Bluetooth support (still missing on the iPhone), and it also comes with an impressive arsenal of accessories in the box, including a wired stereo headset, a USB cable, a carrying case—and an extra battery, plus an external battery charger. Nice.

Samsung promises nearly six hours of talk time from the Instinct—probably a little high, although I've had my review unit still had a good charge after I left it on for a few days. In any case, you'll have the spare battery to tide you over.

Price-wise, the Instinct is on par with the iPhone: $199 with a two-year contract. And then there's service—Sprint requires that Instinct users sign up for a $70/month (ouch) plan that includes unlimited data and 450 minutes.

So, Instinct or iPhone? Not having seen the iPhone 3G in the flesh yet, I'm loath to make a call one way or the other.

But I have to say, the Instinct is the first U.S. touchscreen phone to make a serious run at the iPhone—and if you're a streaming video and music junkie (or stuck in a contract with Sprint, for that matter), it might be your best bet for now.

That said, Apple's upcoming App Store promises to add a universe of features to the iPhone, while the Instinct's closed platform leaves its users with whatever applications Sprint may (or may not) decide to sell. And if you're a Web browsing addict like me, there really is no substitute for the iPhone's top-notch mobile browser.

I'd love to cover more of the Instinct's features, but as you can see, I've already written a novel here. Have questions about specific Instinct features? Leave a comment and I'll get back to you.

Update: After this post was first published, Sprint announced that it was dropping the Instinct's price tag to $129.