Comments on: How's your Instinct?

CNET wants to hear what Samsung Instinct owners like and dislike about their device.

[john063]

Kent,

Just a heads up. There is a concerted effort on many of the Sprint related forums to bomb your request for comments here with repeated and overly negative reviews. There are some valid complaints...browser is slow and buggy (but is due for an upgrade in 2 days) and the music player has a few strange quirks, but overall it's a pretty damn good phone. LCDUI would be nice, but Sprint never advertised the phone as Java 2.0...you actually had to dig into the specs on the developer site to even find mention of that and Sprint/Samsung are working on an update to make the phone compliant.

Anyway, right now it a very good phone with the potential to become a great phone if Sprint gets a few fixes out within a reasonable amount of time.

[0to60]

RE: by john063 September 22, 2008 7:39 PM PDT

I find it funny that the person defending the phone, can't write a message that does not point out the phones problems.

By the specific update that john is talking about in 2 days was promised 5 days AGO, but never got delivered. Sprint waited till afternoon on the promised day of the update to tell everyone it will be a week late.
If one does not look at this specific update, Sprint has been promising to fix the browser and LCDUI issue since month 1, and then delaying every month for a month. (i.e. there already been 3 promises that where not kept) Now they've decided that it would be more efficient for them just to let people know that maybe by the end of the year they will have the LCDUI fix.

[hiox018]

Happy, content, and satisfied with my Instinct. Here's why:

The price of $69 + 450 mins + unlimited multimedia = savings. More savings if you have a corporate discount. Mine is a bargain @23%. That?s 54/mo.

The Instinct?s slim silhouette, sleek profile, sexy black fits my pocket well.

The Phone works; hasn?t failed. I love the big & bright dialer with a nice contrast, the speaker phone, contact access during a call, contact touch or voice commands for quick dialing, call history info layout, and clear call sound.

Email is fun. I like sending out picture mail & video mail with voice clips?no need to type. Hit send! 99.99% near-perfect delivery. My Comcast, Gmail, and AOL email are fetched with no fuss. E-mail delivery hasn?t failed.

Visual voice mail is great. Click voicemail and out comes a list with names, phone numbers, time, length. Imagine fast forwarding a lengthy voicemail! Voice-mail delivery hasn?t failed. Best part of VVM=sending voicemail to any cell # or e-mail.

Navigation has worked for me 99% of the time. I love using it with Live Search, contacts, keyword search, movies, and Telenav?s website. Traffic report and all the other extras are great. Accuracy has been nearly-perfect.

By the way, Live Search is nice--show off to friends and speak commands. But as far as search is concerned, I find it MOST EFFECTIVE BY TYPING IN MY SEARCH WORD IN THE KEYWORD BOX OF THE NAVIGATION SECTION. Nav finds my search nearly all the time (99.99%).

Mobile sync maybe basic, but it sure does work. I make sure I type an address to any number so when it comes time to go see somebody, I can always check for traffic and mapping just by accessing my contacts.

Calc & clock are fine. Use them a lot. 100% service.

Notes and Calendar--they?re OK. I prefer to record notes via videocam or voicemail to send to my cell #. And if they?re longer notes, Google docs can?t be beat. Google access on the Instinct--hasn?t failed. I still prefer to read my calendar on paper--I can see 12 months just by one look.

I still find the automatic & timely updates from the National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center?really helpful!!!! I don?t go to any other weather service anymore except Sprint TV?s the Weather Channel. Doppler radar--nice touch. Works all the time.

Mp3 player is adequate. I don?t drool over album covers?I just listen. I use my Instinct now at the gym versus 80G Zune and XM Inno of yore. I?ve loaded all my trance tunes into an 8G MicroSDHC. I do all my music management on my pc so I don?t have to fumble with the Instinct?s basic player system. Also, when I?m at the gym, I just hit random play. I don?t have to forward, rewind, search. All my loaded tunes have gone through my stringent selective process. I have to, because for the most part, it?s the music that pushes me to do what I have to do at the gym.

Web browsing is also adequate. As long as I?m able to browse my favorite news and adult websites?I?m happy. I mainly surf to read news and access my Google docs and 99% of the time, it works. Instinct?s browser may falter at times, but it?s all right with me--I still have my home lap/desktop pc to go to, as well as work, school, library pc.

Sprint TV & Radio--they work great when the signal is great. I mainly access them if I?m in a 3+bar-spot. Late night is also a good time to use both. Live tv stations are better than the clips--Comedy Central and Weather Channel. Focus on the DJ series of radio channels are excellent.

All in all, the Instinct is wonderful. If I come across a problem, there?s always a workaround. I haven?t called Customer Support lately for anything; only in the beginning (July 08).

Samsung Instinct was an upgrade from my old Samsung VGA1000 (SPHa620). I?m happy, content, and satisfied with my Instinct. I knew in the beginning it wasn?t perfect. Just like most tech stuff--imperfection is the norm. Updates are forthcoming. Improvements continue.

[thelemurking]

I'm not the first person to say this, but I would love to see your Sprint TV so if you can, record it some how with a digicam or camcorder and post your Sprint TV on YouTube. I'm in a Rev A with full signal and Sprint TV sucks!

Calc and Clock are the only applications that do not crash, so thats why they work 100%

Live Search is great, when it actually has a listing for something. I had a guy call in and want to advertise with us, so I figured this would be a good thing to show off Live Search, so I pop out the phone, say Fischer Auto Parts only to get No Listing Found. I try just "auto parts" and scroll through the list and it's not there. I call GOOG 411, and instantly get the number. I check the phone book and it's in the phone book and just 6 miles from my office. That's just one of the many times that Live Search has not found a business I have asked for.

I hope you don't look at your favorite adult websites at the library.

Try sending picture mail to people on other carriers and watch how long it sits as PENDING! It took 3 days before my sister finally got the picture of my niece I sent her. Sometimes it will take 5 minutes, sometimes 5 hours and other times a few days.

I will give you the nice form factor. It's a great looking phone. It would be a great phone if it actually worked. Hard to use a phone when it constantly crashes and freezes up.

[Common_Tater]

I had the Samsung Instinct for 23 hours. Although you can port your Outlook contacts via web-based Sprint Sync, I quickly discovered that only 600 of my 1,047 Outlook contacts were able to be imported. Of the 600 contacts, the Sprint Sync program would only download 569 contacts to the phone. In addition, I did not have access to my Outlook Notes, ToDo, or Calandar on the phone. I am now happily back on my previous Sprint plan and I am very happy to using my ol' chunky, but very versatile TREO!

[AppleSuxLeo]

Wow...glad I didn`t buy this half-baked product. The one good thing every poster mentioned is Microsoft`s Live Search. Nice to see Microsoft doing a good job at least.

[thelemurking]

It really isn't that bad of a phone. All the problems with it are software based and can be easily corrected if Sprint would just get off their lazy ass and do it. But then again, Apple isn't doing that spectacular of a job right now either with the iPhone.

I want to play with the HTC Dream and see how that works when T Mobile gets it out. Then again, Samsung has some new phones coming out that should do a whole lot better than the Instinct, like the upcoming AnyCall. I'd rather do T Mobile than AT&T, so maybe jailbreak an iPhone and go to T Mobile, or get some of those fancy GSM phones that Europe and Asia have that still aren't in the US yet.

[ijerbell1]

i've had my instinct since June 23. So far the phone is so so.

Pros:
userinterface is intuitive
Multi media features: picture mail, video mail, mp3 player
Phone as modem capability with a few simple mods
has many features iphone lacks

Cons
Phone moves slow when moving from app to app
phone takes forever to access memory card information i.e. pics, vidos, mp3s
battery life is so so
Web browser isn't as advertised
sprint tv is choppy and poor quality

Overall this is the best phone i've ever had, my prior phone was a krzr. I think if sprint keeps this phone and tries to develop it it'll get better. I have a feeling though they are just going to let it fizzle away to obscurity.

[bnapy]

Anyone whose says this phone was an iphone killer, was mistaken. The Instinct only has several advantages over the iphone but lacks a certain fluidity found on the iphone or even the HTC Touch, yet the instinct is still a great phone, though bugged out. I paid 129.99 plus tax for my Instinct, I've been a long time Sprint customer and got the phone when i renewed my contract. Alot of people just don't know how to take advantage of sprints features to get the most out of their phone.

I for one have my entire Movie/TV show collection available to stream to my instinct via mycast.orb.com, so where ever i'm at, i can acess my entire media library. Samsung conveniently packages an extra battery with the instinct so i'm never left without power. When streaming the same media that played flawlessly over the Evdo network, an iphone that a friend of mine had stuttered over the 3G network. In a side by side comparison webpages loaded quicker, and streams were accessed faster on my Instinct compared to my buddies iPhone. Though web browsing on my Instinct is still no where as enjoyable as using my buddies iphone.

Music ripped at 320kbps sounded nearly as good as the iphone, though they needed to put alot more thought into the interface, i expect this will be updated in the future. Sprint has a great opportunity to regain some footing lost over the last several years with the Instinct. If the continue to update the product.

As early adopters alot of people are frustrated with their Instinct, people say it was rushed out. I can think of several new products that are not perfect when they first hit market, but are later hailed as exceptional products...The Xbox 360 comes to mind...Yet people want perfection, I am confident that Sprint, Samsung and Qualcom will tweak the instinct in the coming months cementing its flagship status over the next coming months.

[thelemurking]

Kent,

Would you do a follow up article and take the group consensus on the pros and cons of the phone?

[phoneitis]

As already mentioned in many online forums, this phone is a FAILURE.

Sure it has some features that make it appealing. But the cons are just too big to overlook. Horrendous browser, no gmail notifications, lack of java keyboard, terrible calendar (alarms are inconsistent and sometimes don't indicate preset reminders), terrible "notes" application (essentially useless).. this phone is basically a piece of garbage. It was rushed to make a quick profit and sprint, as seems characteristic of the company, has failed once again to take its PAYING customers into account.

And yes there have been mentions of lawsuits. And YES I will definitely be the first to sign up for an class action suit as what was promised is very far from what was delivered. This is the classic bait and switch. Just as Sprint's customers had to pay, now Sprint should be the one paying for this greed- motivated embarrassment of a phone.

Shame on you, Sprint.

[thelemurking]

What are you talking about? No Gmail notifications? I get those all the time!

[my-instinct-was-wrong]

We've had two Instincts since 7/11. As a phone it's great. Like so many have said, the Live Search and GPS were delightful surprises and things we use regularly without issue.

Granted the browser sucks, but neither of us depend on it as our primary access to the net - we mostly use it for fact finding through google and wikipedia. Even so, the need to side scroll the browser is a real pain. We've had some occasional crashes back to the menu, but it's not as often as others have experienced.

The music player is disappointing, but it works. Better organization of music would be nice - hopefully this will get updated someday.

Calculator only has 2 decimal places? I'm sure that saved a ton of money in development costs, lol. There is a real nice port of a java scientific calc that I found on the instinct-samsung.com forums that works great and is all I use when I need a calc on the phone.

I agree with a couple of the other posters - the user interface seems nice on the surface, but it's not real intuitive - like finding the time of call being buried deep. Like many things these days - the guys that designed it, never had to use it the real world - I think that should be a requirement for all engineers - a new law or even a constitutional amendent may be in order for that though.

Theming would be a nice touch, but based on a post by the Sprint ADP team on the developer forums, they seem to think they have the next cat's meow in interface styling and colors, so we may never see theming.

Calendar alarms - I agree that since the last update, it only notifies on the exact time - but my mind is functional enough that I can set the alarm time 10-15 minutes early and still deal with it - it's 6 one way half a dozen the other - get over it folks.

For those that say it can't be used as a modem - that's not true - dig around on the net (obviously not on any of the Sprint sites since they don't want you doing this) - the instructions are readily available to do this with little to no effort, and in such a way that Sprint will not know if you are browsing with the phone's built in browser or using the PAM feature. It works great.

As for Sprint wanting to charge more for PAM - I already have a "Simply Everything" plan - that should cover it, so KMA!

We've been with Sprint for 10 years - never had a problem getting things straightened out if we had a problem, so we can't compalin about Sprint support.

Now their forums are another story - I rarely visit them any more due to the constant deleting of whole threads that berate their products or reveal something (PAM) that they don't want us to know, and the closing/moving posts when they get PO'd about something someone said. Granted they are Sprint's forums, and I guess that give them the right to censor the content, but it's exactly that CENSORSHIP.

My biggest complaint is from a programmer's point of view. I've been a programmer for many years, but never written apps for a phone before, and until this phone, I never wanted to. The lack of complete LCDUI support in the Instinct is making it difficult to even try. My other observation as a programmer - I feel like the guy who has a Pentium 4 quad core machine who is forced to use a 386 - this phone seems way under powered.

Lastly, I agree with the guy who said he depends on CNET for decent reviews. I've bought many things through the years based on CNET reviews and always been happy. After using my Instinct for a while, I too think your review of the Instinct was a bit lacking. But, even had you been spot on about the phone, we probably still would have purchased the Instinct..

[my-instinct-was-wrong]

A couple more thoughts -

About the User Interface design - 1) I can't delete the built in ringers and 2) In the browser, even after making another bookmark my "home page", I can't delete the bookmark to Sprint's Store.

Sprint TV needs improvement as well. Very pixelated at times - others, it's not - occasional bumps back to the menu - but again, not my primary source for TV.

The News, Weather, Sports stuff is handy when I am out and about.

NFL Live - they sure spend a lot of money advertising this feature. I've tried using it the last 3 weekends while watching football. I am not impressed - so many "features" say "check back next week for this" and those that do work are pretty useless.

Very Useful - Live Search, GPS, News, Sports, Weather (& radar) are all things we use regularly without issue.

Somewhat useful - browser, music player

Useless - calendar, alarm, calculator

Would be great if I was stuck on Gilligan's Island - Sprint TV, NFL Mobile Live, and the built in browser

[my-instinct-was-wrong]

and the fact that some words lock up the phone is just hilarious - some programmer, somewhere, is laughing his butt off

[mderby05]

After making the decision to go with the Instinct over the iPhone, Blackberry and LG Dare, I am glad that I have done so. The look is very classy, and the unit has held up over a month and half without so much as a single scratch on the surface. I love the call quality, and I also like the haptic touch screen feedback. I like that because I am someone who texts thousands of times per month, and need to know if I hit a button.
The only things that I don?t like about the instinct is that when I text, I have to hit ?done?, and then ?send? in order to send a text, and it also will not allow me to attach a signature, which is HUGE for me. I think that I mark it down ?a full point? just because of the lack of that feature. Also, the browser is not as good as I would like it to be, and I wish that the app store had more options. I am afraid that we will lose support for the app store before it even goes any further, and that was one reason I bought the unit also. I apologize for any grammatical errors, I am in class right now, and have to sacrifice grammar for intent.:)

[dheck19]

Kent: Thank you for listening to everyone's concerns about their instincts, I hope that you are able to write an article that will maybe pressure sprint or samsung to figure these issues out, to restore their reputation among consumers. I along with so many others have passed the 30 day trial and am locked into another two year contract, as a result of being told "We understand the issues sir, and there is an update coming out to fix the known issues" well that update never came. It seems like we have enough people now complaining and that are unhappy to be able to pursue something. To those who's phones are working, be glad they are, unlike the rest of us that own a hand-held GPS unit with a built in phone that sometimes works, cause that's about all this thing is anymore.

[Eleniflo]

I would advise everyone reading these reviews to take this all in with a grain of salt. Use your own judgement in making such a personal decision as purchasing a cell phone.

I became an Instinct user after having a Nextel Blackberry. I was specifically told by Sprint that the Istinct was not a smart phone, and that it would not have calendar sync. I knew all this going into this relationship. I was not happy about it but i accepted it.

I had my phone for about 3 weeks when i had to get a replacement phone. My original phone got an "error" that no one could help me with. Sprint had no clue how to operate the phone. Their advice was to restart, and remove the battery. During my time of distress (i was out of town when the phone "died") Sprint phone support was less than helpfull, Sprint stores were less than helpfull. The only reason why i did get a new phone is because i told the sales people (at the 2nd Sprint store i went to in one day) that after 3 days of this horrible service, i was either going to leave with a new phone, or with no contract and a full refund.

Personaly, comming from a Blackberry with very little "fun", i was happy to have a phone that had some fun apsects to it. Putting aside my initial issues here is my review.

-Phone: As a phone i could not ask for better. I love the 3 way calling features. The visual voice mail is awesome! The reception is spotty at times but the 3g network is still new.

-email: I stress that this phone is not a "work" phone. You can read/respond to emails but you cannot open attachments. On another hand who wants to open attachments on a phone!

-Web: Compared to my old phone this is AMAZING. There have been times where my browser has locked up, but all in all, it's OK.

-TV/Radio: I admit, i am not very happy with this part of the phone. The TV is spotty and locks up often. The radio has never worked on my phone.

-GPS: My GPS seems to work fine. I have had a few and far inbetween issues with this. I used to have a TomTom and this GPS / Live search is realy good. I live in an area where there are a lot of new roads being built, and the maps have not been updated.

Music: My ONLY issue with this is the slow loading time. It can take up to 5 minutes for my songs to load. I have about 3 Gigs on a 8 gig card. I had to purchase the 8 gig card seperatite. The ohone comes with 2 gig.

-Other: The calendar is horrible. I tired to input my events/meetings and it was awful. I tried the google calendar workaround but i found that this did not work for me.

Bottom line if you want a fun phone get the Instinct. If you are looking for a work phone DONT get the Instinct, get a Blackberry (awesome with outlook). I truly believe that Sprint will fix the bugs with this phone. They have invested a lot of money on this, and they don't want to mess it up. I agree that Sprint needs to work on their customer service, and on training their tech support staff. We all need to step back and breathe....... this is just a phone.............it cannot make your breakfast for you. When you sit back and see what it can do it's pretty inpressive. Go look at the Apple Iphone message boards; they are just as long and compain as much as we do on BuzzAboutWireless.com
Thanks for your time!

[Groovydude]

I was once an owner of the Instinct, however I've decided to trade it for something else and Sprint gave me a Blackberry Pearl.

The thing about the Instinct was it had alot of promise, but the device lacked on performing technology it was built for. Granted it was hyped as a multimedia phone, and it did do multimedia, just not as fluid as it was advertised.

The more disappointing features were the Sprint TV, Web Browsing and lack of compatibility with Java applications. Hardware wise, it was okay, but the battery constantly drained, had no wifi and there was some problems bluetooth connectivity.

The browser was totally done from the ground up, but it was totally half baked. Rendering the pages were very slow, especially for websites like Yahoo that required a lot of images to display. When the browser got to the point where there were too many images, the browser would actually lock up and default back to the Favorites screen. Controlling wasn't very easy either, for panning the website with either you finger or the gimmicy accelerometer, the page would constantly drag and you would often overshoot what you were looking for.

Sprint TV was Okay... we got the channels we wanted, but the video would be very laggy and would cause pixelation and framerate issues. We put the phone side by side with my Mogul, and the mogul of course displayed the TV video clearer and smoother then the instinct.

The java application was a total let down, and I can safely say that Samsung and Sprint really kicked each other in the butt with this one. After installing Opera Mini onto the phone to compensate for the poor instinct browser, Opera would allow you to click on your favorite links and as soon as you start to enter a web address, the soft keyboard will not display because the program wasn't designed to call a software keyboard on the instinct in specific. Because of this, you are stuck at the text entry screen to enter a web address, and as soon as you exit out of the applications, Opera will fail to load the second time. Granted there are other applications built for it, like games, news and weather that you have to pay for, we were promised that Java applications would indeed work and that it was java compliant.

Of course the other noticible issues were the lack of synchronizing data between computer and phone. The software that you downloaded only really organized pictures and music. Even with the music tools, you can't even add your own ringtones without having to send it from websites like www.myxer.com. Sprint did offer the Mobile Sync which failed me terribly. I had about over 25 contacts and we activated the mobile sync. We would get the successful message and go about our business. A month later we were forced to flash the phone because it was freezing a lot and of course our contacts were gone. When trying to retrieve them via the mobile sync we later found out that our contacts were not backed up at all. So we lost every number.

Of course this is a lot of negativity coming from one user, but there are some positive aspects, such as the touch screen interface. It was easy and fast, and it didn't require a steep learning curve to get used to. The GPS and Live Search was excellent and spot on, a feature I will definitely miss. Texting was not bad at all, the software keyboard was realy good, but lacked any great spell check as you type functions. The haptic feedback made it a plus and gave me a sense of physical association when pressing buttons. The threaded text messaging was great as well as the visual voice mail. Accessing these features and customizing it was very easy, especially the playback of visual voicemail. Another true feature that will be missed.

However it's not a PDA, and the Blackberry does out perform it, in terms of support and feature base. It's not a fair comparison, but the negatives still outweigh the positive. It's understandable that the phone was promised updates, however the owners of this phone was totally left in the dark about release dates, tech notes and demonstrations for the so called updates.

If we were provided better PR about the updates and were kept in close contact about it, I would probably still be with the handset. However with the upcoming diamond, I'm sure this phone will make heads turn the other way, which is unfortunate for the Instinct.

[das7771]

I will not get into detail about this phone because most of the comments on here have pretty much hit it spot on. The only features of this phone that are actually usable at this time are to make calls and GPS.I spent 449 bucks on something that I could have paid about 200 on and received the same funtions. The phone is supposed to be java compliant but really isn't. Sprint TV is a blocky, pixelated, choppy audio joke.The web browser is not that good for browsing. The only thing that is good about this phone is the reception and the GPS. It does look and feel good as well. If you think you will depend on Sprint to help you out or even compensate you in some way for this pile of junk you paid for well your wrong. I have contacted Sprint several times through email and phone with the same results. I am pretty much screwed. They have my money, I have a $449 dollar phone that is just a phone. So Sprint is happy because they manage to sucker some one else out of their money and now take no responsibility for doing so.

[kopfermw]

My wife and I both have Instincts and it's been a mostly disappointing experience:

THE BAD: The requirement to hold down the lock button to see the screen EVERY DARN TIME THE SCREEN SHUTS DOWN. There's been talk of a program to allow a screen swipe to turn it on, but others have made clear we're getting nowhere on Instinct apps. Calendar is totally useless, since repeating entries don't always work and you can't sync it with anything (that I'm aware if). The Nav fails repeatedly, giving false turn directions, "you're off track" messages, and often says destination is on one side of the street when it's on the other. As many have said, the browser often fails, even on the Sprint forum. Dropped calls in green (maximum coverage) ares is common. There's no extended battery yet, so the advice of those who say "quit whining" is to turn off every feature except the phone itself to last a reasonable period. We've resorted to chargers at home, in both cars, in the both offices, and USB cables in the laptop bags just in case we're stuck away from the office or home. Videos, if not choppy, often kick you back to the main menu. My wife's phone gives false notices of emails received, even though email notification is turned off. News is very limited, with no options to expand news delivery other than using the browser, which again others have explained is among the worst. The alarm sound is tied to the main sound, so don't forget to turn up your volume at night and back down in the morning (I prefer to keep main sound on vibrate only, but still hear the alarm). No ability to manipulate photos. Music player mixes up tracks on one album, displaying each track separately. I've tried different ways to get the sync tool to give me the songs as an album, how I want to play it. So, I end up either selecting one song at a time or all songs (250 at this point) in a random shuffle mode. Weather app is quite often wrong. Not sure where they get the weather updates, but I decided a long time ago to always have an umbrella in the car....just in case. It'll say clear skies and sunny and we'll get thunderstorms. Customer service....where do I begin. Even now Sprint customer support has no idea how to support this phone, giving conflicting or frankly wrong advice on how to fix issues. I've had 3 different support and advanced support promisses to provide fixes for the GPS Navigation issues, one saying "you'll get it by text", another saying "you'll get it OTA", another saying "we fixed it with release .23" One problem...I had .23 long enough to find it didn't fix the issues before they retracted the .23 update because it was crashing phones.

THE GOOD: The promise of a lot of services/features for a great price (even if only 25-50% are effective for use). Email, which works great with my Gmail account. I can't see the actual Sent Items box, only what I send from this phone, but the inbox works. Attachments are hit and miss. Forget embedded photos, but attached photos are viewable. Messaging...kinda hard to screw up, like boiling water. Visual Voicemail.....LOVE IT!! So nice not to have to log in every time. Calculator has some great features, like a tip calculator to split a ticket and tips between multiple individuals. Notes app...just noise on the screen. Does anyone actually use it and get value from it? The clock works fine for alarm. I use that every day. TV has a nice selection of channels, but the good ones cost more (like FoxNews). As I said above, sometimes the picture is choppy, but when it's good it's really good. Radio works, though don't take "local" to mean local. It's some predefined set of channels from across the country. No idea why it's called local. Camera works fine in well lighted settings. I use it frequently at work to capture whiteboards at my desk or in conference rooms. Saves having to write all that down quickly at the end of meetings. Some good games. My wife and I enjoy SceneIt while waiting for meals at restaurants. I've been expanding my grey matter with Brain Challenge. NFL Mobile Live works OK, and my son and I enjoy having one place to view Cowboy's stats, listen to Cowboy's radio, and link to videos. Live Search is among the best apps. Many times we've found ourselves in some distant location wondering "where do we find X locally?" Just say what it is you're looking for, select from the list, and navigate to it. Movies....nice app, and it works great. Integrate with Fandango and it'd be perfect. Screen and touch works fine. I put a screen schield on and it does cause a little finger stutter, but not too bad.

We're promissed updates.....some day. MR3 was to be released.....well....let's not go into all the delays. Latest is that Sprint will announce (not necessarily release) when MR3 will be released 9/24. It could be later in the day 9/24, perhaps not. The HTC Touch Pro is out next year, an AT&T Tilt killer, I'm hoping. I'll stick with Instinct, pray for imrovements, and reevaluate when the Pro comes out. You'd think that by Q1/09 Sprint might get its act together on the Instinct

[goygacon]

Today is the ummm...what is it...third time this update is supposed to happen....But rest assured, Sprint doesn't want to release any flawed browser update for concerns of the customers...Hey Sprint....You Did That Already....June 19th!!!...Concerns???...What's it going to possibly do that it doesn't do now? Kick us out...Freeze...Reboot to the speed dial...Blink Blink....Release The Update Already...No improvement would be like all the other updates so far...Thanks to forums, most of us can already PAM, Recieve calls while using data, and sped up the browser alittle more already...Help us out here....

Oh Yeah....I Love My Phone....Wha???

[clesshawn]

I work in Sprint's Network Operations in Atlanta. What people don'r realize is that anytime a product comes out there will be kinks in the system and it will take time to work out those kinks. That was certainly the case with the iphone when it first came on the market, so why would anyone be surprised with the Instinct?. Even when the iphone upgrade came out this summer, at&t had issues with their network, and many iphone users could not activate their phones. People can be so stupid!!

[mlblack16]

I have a friend who bought the first generation iPhone. Perhaps his situation was different than most, but he did not have any major concerns with his device, nor did he have to wait 3 months before he could use his phone in a practical manner. The problems iPhoners had with activation was because it was such an overwhelming demand to activate the phone. It lasted one day and that's about all, and I can tell you he did not experience constant basic functionality problems, which almost every Instinct owner posting here did prior to the update.

Yes, this phone is a LOT better, but still needs more work to be a legit contender with iPhone. I am mostly pleased with the phone since the 9/24 update, and the upcoming MR update sounds very promising. The fact that anyone associated with Sprint would respond in this manner is unprofessional and unacceptable.

KENT == please use clesshawn's post as an example of the customer service mindset for Sprint, which obviously is still one of the worst in the entire country. People on here aren't talking about "kinks" as this moron so conveniently labeled them. Hopefully someone with Sprint can track down who he/she is and make an example out of him/her.