Samsung Instinct Cell Phone Review - Value & Comparisons

Value (7.0)
The Samsung Instinct is available exclusively from Sprint in the U.S. and goes for $129.99 with a two-year contract and after a $100 mail-in rebate. You also have to sign up for Sprint's Simply Everything plan, which starts at $69.99 a month for 450 minutes and unlimited access to data, GPS, messaging and other services. This is an important distinction because the Simply Everything plans cost more than a standard voice plan without data. Of course with a device like the Instinct you'll probably appreciate and use the unlimited data access. For $129.99 we consider the Instinct to be a pretty good value. It's not a perfect phone, in fact we still think the Palm Centro is a better value, but the Instinct does have a certain appeal given the popularity of touch screen devices, and it does a decent job at many advanced tasks despite not being a smart phone like the Centro. Certainly there are much more expensive phones like the Razr2 V9m that does a lot less than the Instinct.

Comparisons

Samsung Glyde - The Glyde is another touch screen device from Samsung, this one available from Verizon rather than Sprint. We'll make this one pretty easy for you, the touch screen on the Glyde = the sucks. The touch screen on the Instinct = pretty decent. Definitely go with the latter.

Nokia N81 (8GB) - The Nokia N81 is a media focused device from Nokia that's only available as an unlocked phone. The N81 is a full fledged smart phone, so it has the Instinct beat out in a lot of areas like organizer and email. Obviously the 8GB of internal storage also beat out the Instinct. You'll have to pay for the extras however as the Nokia N81 goes for north of $400. We'd go with the Instinct here as the N81 also has its flaws and you can get better devices for over $400.

LG Voyager - The Voyager is another touch screen phone from Verizon, they just keep on throwing them up there. Thankfully the touch screen on the Voyager is much better than the Glyde's, making it more of a reasonable competitor to the Instinct. The Voyager's camera took much better photos than the Instinct's, but it lacks the true email client that the Instinct provides. We did like the Instinct's music and video capabilities a bit better, and Sprint's music store is a better value than Verizon's. The Voyager has a full QWERTY keyboard, however, a real on rather than the Instinct's not so good virtual one. Price is pretty close, with the Voyager just $20 more than the Instinct. This one's a close call, we recommend you use both devices a bit in the store to see which one you like better.

Palm Centro - We have to admit that we really like the Palm Centro. It's not the best smart phone out there, it's not the prettiest, it's not even the smallest. What it is, however, is very capable and very inexpensive. The Centro is actually a better device than the Instinct in many ways, the camera's slightly better, the organizer features are much better, the email client is slightly better and the keyboard is way better. It even has a touch screen that's pretty decent, although it lacks the flash of the Instinct's touch screen. It also lacks the sexiness factor and GPS. We'll call it this way, if you want sleek and sexy go with the Instinct, if you want utilitarian and cute go with the Centro. Both are good values.

Apple iPhone - Let's face it, the iPhone is the device the Instinct is aimed squarely at. So how does it stack up? Not bad, at least for now. The iPhone's stills camera is much better than the Instinct's, but the latter has pretty good video recording that the iPhone lacks completely. The iPhone's email and organizer capabilities are slightly better, but only slightly. Even in multimedia, the iPhone's core competency, it's not that much better than the Instinct. Battery life life is slightly better on the iPhone too. Are you starting to see a pattern? Almost across the board the iPhone is just slightly better, and that's before the new iPhone 3G comes out (this review is being written a few days before that launch). You can see that if you have the choice we'd probably lean towards the iPhone, but it's not an overwhelming endorsement. If you want to stick with Sprint, the Instinct is a worthy competitor.