Samsung Instinct Cell Phone Review - Multimedia

We liked the revamped Sprint Music software on the Instinct, we just wish it didn't take forever to launch. The video software was even slower, if you believe it, but once again we liked the interface.

Accessing Music Software (3.10)
It took us an average of 6.46 seconds to get a song playing on the Samsung Instinct. This is pretty slow, but it's also what we've come to expect from Sprint's music software. Other Sprint phones like the Samsung M520 is even worse at 11.22 seconds. Of course it's not just Sprint that offends in this area, you can see below that the Samsung Glyde and LG Voyager, both from Verizon, also performed worse on this test than the Instinct.

The common theme running through here is that both Sprint and Verizon use carrier specific music software, and apparently neither has figured out how to get the thing to launch quickly. Anyhow, the point is that you should expect to wait awhile before you can start listening to music on the Instinct.
For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Time to Play Music (sec)

Dedicated Music Controls (1.0)
When music is playing on the Samsung Instinct and you are on the home screen there are no dedicated music controls aside from the volume keys. In fact you'll have to go back into the Fun tab to even get back to the music player, although you can add it to your Favorites tab to get quicker access to it.

Music Software Functionality and Organization (6.2)
The Sprint music software on the Samsung Instinct is a little different from the Sprint music software found on most of their devices, which in this case is a good thing. The interface is tabbed, as many of the Instinct's programs are, with four tabs running across the bottom for My Music, Player, Store and Search. The first tab is where you can sort through your music, you can view music by title, artist, album or genre. Tags for our test Mp3, AAC and WMA files were all recognized. You can also access the player's options from here as well as playlists. We were happy to see that standard .m3u playlists are supported, and you can both create and edit playlists on the device. There is no support for searching through your music library.

The second tab just shows you what song is playing, with album art displayed, but only if it's embedded in the file. There's a play/pause button at the bottom flanked by next and previous buttons. Above these is a scrubber so you can quickly jump forward or back in a song and at the top of the screen are buttons to enable Shuffle and Repeat functions. Music can be played in the background and the library is updated automatically every time you launch the software. There is no support for visualizations and ratings and there's no equalizer on board. Overall we found the music software on the Samsung Instinct to be easy to use, but lacking in some of the more advanced features.

Online Song Downloading (7.0)
The third and fourth tabs in the music software are used to access Sprint's music store. The third tab takes you to the store's front page where you can see featured tracks, browse by Genre and get other promotional stuff. The fourth tab allows you to search the store by artist, title or all, and it allows you to browse genres as well. We like the Sprint music store better than other carrier's stores because their tracks are priced at a much more reasonable 99 cents each. By contrast Verizon charges twice. That said tracks will still be DRM'd so they will only play on the Instinct. You may want to consider purchasing DRM free tracks from online stores like Rhapsody and Amazon instead.

Streaming (0.0)
The Samsung Instinct was unable to play streaming audio in Windows Media, Real or Mp3 format. There is also a Radio application on the Instinct that allows you to stream audio content from Sprint, however we don't award points for carrier services as they usually cost users extra money.

Podcast Support (0.0)
There is no support for organizing or downloading podcasts on the Samsung Instinct.

Music Sync with PC (7.0)
You can synchronize music on the Instinct with your desktop computer using the included data cable. If you want to manage music purchased from Sprint's music store you will need to use Sprint's Media Manager software. If you're just moving your own unprotected music you can use Windows Media Player.

Music Formats and DRM (3.5)
The Samsung Instinct supports Mp3, AAC and WMA music files. The only form of DRM it supports is Sprint's proprietary DRM for music purchased from their store.

Music Interruption (9.0)
The Samsung Instinct does a good job handling an interruption to music playback by a phone call. The music is paused automatically so you can answer the call and then starts up again once the call is over. Our only issue is that there is a few seconds of delay before the music starts up again.

Video Software Access (1.36)
It took us an average of 14.66 seconds to get a video playing on the Samsung Instinct. This is a remarkably long time, you can see below that it's more than twice as long as average and none of our comparison phones came anywhere close to it.

To get a video playing you first tap on the Fun tab, then go to the TV/Video application. Here you select My Videos and then choose Sideloaded to see videos you've placed on the device. This is where most of the delay occurs as it takes quite awhile for the software to load your videos. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Time to Play Video (sec)

Video Controls (8.0)
When a video is playing on the Samsung Instinct the center part of the screen is taken up by the video with controls to the left/right and overlaid at the top and bottom. To the left is a button that shows you all the videos in your list and a second button that takes the video full screen. The video will also go full screen automatically after playing for a moment. At the top of the screen is your video's title and at the bottom is a scrubber. To the right are playback controls, starting from the top you have Mute, Next, Play/Pause and Previous. If the controls disappear when the video goes full screen just tap on the screen to bring them back. We found all of the controls useful, well laid out and intuitive, something we can't often say about video playback software on phones.

Video Software & Organization (4.0)
The video software on the Samsung Instinct requires you to hold the phone in landscape orientation. When you first enter the software you see two tabs on the left, one for Sprint's TV service and the other for My Videos. Choose the second and you see a list of options for Sideloaded videos, those captured on your camcorder, playlists and Help. It's nice to see support for playlists, although you can't create them on the device itself. Sideloaded is also something of a strange term as many won't recognize it. Basically it refer to videos you placed on your memory card while the Camcorder button takes you to videos you recorded on the Instinct.

When you select an item like Sideloaded you see a list of your available videos on the right two thirds of the screen while the four options described above shift over to the left side of the phone. Videos are sorted by title with no additional sorting options available and no support for folders. There is a small info button to the right of each video where you see more information about each, the option to delete it and the ability to add the video to your Favorites tab on your home screen. Strangely you get the exact same information and options if you hit the icon to the left of the video title. The software does a reasonable job of organizing your videos, certainly better than the simple album software that most phones come with. Still, there are few advanced features like Search and Rating videos.

Video Sync with PC (7.0)
As with music you can synchronize video content onto your Instinct using the included data cable and Windows Media Player.

Video Formats (5.0)
The Samsung Instinct was able to play back all three of our test 3GP files and was also able to play back Mpeg-4 and H264 videos. It does not support Real, Quicktime, Flash or Windows Media videos.

Video DRM (0.0)
The Samsung Instinct does not support any form of DRM protected video.

Video Playback Smoothness (9.0)
The Samsung Instinct was able to play back all five of our test H264 encoded video up to a bitrate of 768 kbps. The higher quality videos did show a few small artifacts, for which we are deducting a single point, but they were still smooth and very watchable.

Online Video Downloading (0.0)
The Samsung Instinct does not allow you to download videos directly to your device from online stores.

Video Streaming unscored
We don't score this section because there are no standard for mobile video yet. We do test a few sites to see if they are supported, however. The Samsung Instinct was unable to play streaming Windows Media content from Windowsmedia.com. It was able to play streaming video from Youtube's mobile site, however. Sprint also has a wide variety of premium video content available in their Sprint TV application, although you'll have to pay for most of this content.