Samsung Instinct Cell Phone Review - Hardware

We were not impressed by the Instinct's virtual keyboard, it was slower to type on than even many standard keypads we've seen, and it's no contest compared to a BlackBerry or even the iPhone's virtual keyboard. The touch screen was generally responsive, much more so than the Samsung Glyde, but not quite up to iPhone standards. Oh, and we like the standard 3.5mm headphone jack.

Text Words Per Minute (6.50)
The Samsung Instinct offers users three methods of text entry, all on screen. The first is a wide QWERTY keyboard that can only be used in landscape orientation. The second is an alphabet that is used in horizontal orientation and the last is a writing recognition tool also used in landscape orientation. We found that the fastest method using two hands was the QWERTY keyboard, but fastest is relative.

We were only able to type a pretty mediocre 32.5 words per minute (WPM) on the Instinct's virtual QWERTY, and that was with a couple of errors each time. You'd have to slow down even more to make sure you're error free because, unlike the iPhone, the Instinct doesn't automatically correct your misspelled words.Instead it will highlight them so you can go back and fix them yourself.

You can see below that the Instinct's performance in this test was not good, falling significantly below average and the slowest amongst our comparison phones. In particular you'll notice that the iPhone's virtual keyboard was over 20% faster than the Instinct's. Those who need to do a lot of typing on their cell phone might want to consider another device, the Instinct is just going to cause you pain. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Words Per Minute

T9 and Auto Complete (0.0)
The Samsung Instinct support neither predictive text nor an auto-complete feature that attempts to guess the word you're typing. This is a shame as the latter would probably help it's anemic typing performance.

One-Handed Typing (3.92)
For those who like to type out a message one handed we recommend you don't buy the Instinct. But if you insist we do our words per minute (WPM) test one-handed so you can see what happens.  For this test we used the alphabetical arrangement that's presented with the phone held vertically as this makes it easier to reach the buttons than the horizontally oriented QWERTY.

Unfortunately we were only able to manage a terrible 19.6 WPM using a single hand on the Instinct. This is because the letters on the horizontally oriented alphabet are just that, alphabetical. For anyone used to typing on a QWERTY this becomes incredibly confusing very quickly, and slows you down tremendously. As we said at the beginning, just don't do it. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Words Per Minute

Keypad Backlighting (0.0)
There is no keypad on the Instinct, as such there is no keypad backlighting.

D-Pad/Joystick (0.0)
The Samsung Instinct does not have a D-Pad or Joystick.

Touch Screen (8.0)
Almost your entire interaction with the Samsung Instinct occurs via it's touch screen interface. We were quite happy, then, to discover that the screen was reasonably responsive. We did still find ourselves having to tap on an icon a couple times every now and then, but once you get the hang of how much pressure needs to be put on the screen to register a response you shouldn't have too many problems.

That said the touch screen isn't as good as the iPhone's, whose capacitive technology is just fundamentally more responsive than the pressure technology used on the Instinct. It is much better than the terrible touch screen found on the Samsung Glyde, however, and about the equal of the LG Voyager's. The Haptic feedback on the device is a love it or hate it feature. We don't find it particularly useful, but we know that many do. The Touch Screen likely won't be the reason you don't like this phone, unless you're coming from an iPhone perhaps.

Jog Dial (1.0)
There is no jog dial on the Instinct for quickly moving up and down lists, however the action of flicking your finger up or down does give you a similar ability, so we'll be awarding a single point here.

Soft Buttons (0.0)
The Samsung Instinct doesn't have any soft buttons.

Volume Control (8.0)
The volume control on the Samsung Instinct is found on the left side of the device near the middle. The button is a rocker switch with raised ends that allow you to easily distinguish between up and down. When pressed you get nice key travel and tactile feedback. These are amongst the best volume keys we've seen.

Power and Standby (7.0)
The power button on the Samsung Instinct is found on the top of the device on the right side when looking at it from the front. The button does a solid job, it's very slightly raised so you can find it by feel, but not so prominent that you'll get a lot of accidental presses, exactly what a power button should be.

Other Buttons (6.0)
In addition to the buttons discussed above the Samsung Instinct has several other controls that come in very useful. First up are three touch sensitive controls found beneath the display. These are the Back, Home and Phone buttons. They pretty much do what you'd expect them to do, as they are touch sensitive there's no key travel or tactile feedback, apart from the haptic feedback, but they do their job and are the buttons you'll likely be using the most. On the right side of the Instinct you'll find the dedicated camera button and the dedicated voice command buttons. Both are slightly raised above the surrounding plastic making them easy to find by feel. They both provide good feedback and key travel when pressed, as well. None of these buttons can be reassigned and except for the camera key, which launches the camcorder with a long press, none have secondary functions.

Primary Screen Gross Resolution (8.5)
The Samsung Instinct's display resolution is 240 x 432 pixels. This is significantly higher resolution than the standard 320 x 240 pixels found on many cell phones, although it falls short of the iPhone's 480 x 320 pixel resolution. It is quite high enough that you should get sharp images on the display and won't be a problem for any users.

Primary Screen Pixels per Inch (7.97)
Pixels per inch (PPI) is a measure of pixel density. Higher pixel density leads to richer colors and sharp images while lower pixel density can make the display seem washed out and pixelated. The Samsung Instinct's pixel density is 159.4 PPI. You can see below that this is slightly below average and the lowest amongst our comparison phones, but not by a huge margin. The Instinct's pixel density should be no problem, we detected no problems while using the phone and most users will be fine with it.

Pixels Per Inch

Screen Physical Size (7.75)
The Samsung Instinct display measures 3.1 inches diagonal. This is a very large display for a cell phone, much larger than average and amongst our comparison phones only the iPhone has a larger display. A large display like this is nice for browsing web pages and viewing media like photos and video. It's also very nice for a phone that has a touch screen interface where screen real estate become very valuable. We're glad to see that Samsung put such a good sized display on the Instinct.

Screen Size Diagonal (inches)

Screen Brightness (6.2)
To measure screen brightness we navigate the phone's browser to a blank white page, turn up the brightness to maximum and use a lux meter to measure the brightness. The Samsung Instinct's display measured 99 lux in our test, which is significantly above average and amongst our comparison phones only the Voyager and the iPhone matched or exceeded it. The screen should be plenty bright for most users. The Instinct does not automatically adjust your display brightness for surroundings, however it does give you five levels of brightness you can adjust manually.

Screen Brightness (lux)

Screen Bright Light Performance (2.0)
Unfortunately the Instinct's bright display doesn't help you out in bright light situations. We found that when we shone 3000 lux of light on the display, equivalent to a bright sunny day, the glare became overwhelming making it almost impossible to make out anything on the screen. If it's bright out you better go find some shade to use the Instinct.

Color Depth (8.0)
The Samsung Instinct's screen is capable of displaying 262,000 colors, which is better than 65,000 color display found on many phones, although not as good as the Nokia N81's 16 million color display. The Instinct's color depth should be quite good enough for most users, you'll get fairly accurate colors when viewing media like photos and video.

Secondary Screen (0.0)
Write

Power & Data Ports (2.0)
The Samsung Instinct uses the same proprietary port for both data and power. We're not fans of proprietary ports, as you can see reflected in the score the Instinct received here. We much prefer to see an industry standard like Mini USB used.

Headphone Compatibility (8.0)
Unlike most Samsung phones that use the same proprietary port for headphones we're very happy to see that the Instinct has a proper 3.5mm headphone jack, allowing you to use any pair of headphones you want. The phone also supports wireless Bluetooth Stereo headphones.

Internal Storage (1.0)
Surprisingly the Samsung Instinct has only 32MB of internal memory. It's a good thing the phone comes with a 2GB Micro SD card as this is barely enough for things like contacts, email and calendar appointments, much less multimedia like photos, video and music.

Expansion Slot & Format (9.0)
The Samsung Instinct support Micro SD expansion cards including High Capacity cards up to 8GB in size. The phone comes with a 2GB card, which is a nice bonus, especially since the internal memory is so sparse. The memory card slot is found on the right side of the phone near the top. It is protected by a tethered cover that rotates nicely out of the way and is spring loaded so getting cards in and out is as bereft of fiddlyness as handling anything that small can be.

Previous    Next