Comments on: How's your Instinct?

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

[clesshawn]

Why don't you damn cry babies wait for the bugs and the kinks to get fixed. I don't know of ANY hi tech product or software product to come out and have not heard the same complaints i.e. windows OS, playstation, 1st release of iphone, etc. If by next year the same issues exist, then you complaint has merit. Why don't people give sprint the same patience they gave the apple iphone, which had many glitches at first.

[Levi4u]

Of course this is coming from a Sprint employee. If I bought any other product with What sprint admits to having 249+ bugs It would fall under the lemon law in my state.
I expected this phone to do a least what the manufacture designed it to do. If I wanted a buggy iphone I would have bought one, but Sprint is the one who advertised this as the iphone killer.

[thelemurking]

Because Apple is QUICK to fix their products. Sprint is SLOW. My patience sort of went out the window with my first Instinct.

If Sprint put the money into actually fixing the phone as they did into their ad campaign, we might actually have a phone worthy of being compared to the iPhone.

Microsoft releases patches once a month, usually the first Tuesday of the month. Sure I laugh at all the problems the iPhone is having, but it doesn't make me like my Instink any more or any less. I simply want Sprint to take some accountability for the problems, admit that they rushed it and it was not ready for the public and actually let us know what they are fixing.

Still no word on what those 249 bugs were that was fixed with BH29.

[goygacon]

Working for a Sprint network operations in Atlanta...A Typical Sprint Response. There's only 90+ responses to C-Nets article and yet, you assume we're impatient crybabies...Nice. We are waiting...we are calling...286 tickets on issues we're having, uh, maybe your a moron in your assessment that we want our phones to work properly.
But being as you work for a Sprint Network Operations In Atlanta...you were probably one of the workers who Didn't buy this phone...And make excuses for a company you Don't work for Ex: iphone, Windows, Playstation, Jaguar, Boeing, whomever...
This Section is for people responses to the Instinct. We have issues, that doesn't make it less unimportant because you don't like the responses.
Think it's all heaven, have your phone shut off for no reason in an emergency situation.
Crybabies...Professional, Thanks Sprint.

[tharealpushab]

I had this phone the day before it came out and i love it. The only thing that isnt so great is the web browser isnt obviously up to par with the iphone. But i mean i only paid $70 for mine so im happy with having a great phone for such a great price.

[goygacon]

Kent, Sprint finally updated, and boy they updated alot...I can say this.
Internet, Faster, Full page, Smooth Scrolling...New glitch (but not crash) when you scroll up or down too fast, you'll see a checkerboard thing happening, no hesitations anymore and the checkerboard thing dissapears pretty fast...Overall 1000% better...I can actually surf the internet fast.
Texting, you can text any word now
TV, quality/sound, all better
Calendar, better
Crashing/Freezing, Gone completely...
Only time will tell, but for now it seems the glitches are gone.
This is what I wanted, this is what I got...Happy Customer Again
Thanks Sprint...Instinct rules..Bring on the apps...

[foxfamily238]

We love the Instinct! However..... There are some very KEY features that we are very disappointed about.

1. No instant / text message icons/emoticons. This phone being visually and mulitmedia driven, it is a shame that they have no real visually appealing text messaging.


2. No bluetooth modem capability. This is a REAL stinker. I could use any of our previous phones to use for our laptop as a modem. The fact that so far, they have not allowed usage for this phone to be used as a modem REALLY REALLY stinks.

3. 3rd party apps. Yes, a Sprint Developer team is being employed currently, but compared to the open source iPhone, that was a negative bomb dropped, and literally "gave" the iPhone to middle-of-the-road customers.

4. Stylus holder. While 99% of the time I use the phone solely for everything, it was still nice to have the stylus around to use if necessary.

5. Unless we're doing something wrong, when in Navigation mode, if we recieve an important call, we must go through the whole, entire process of returning to the main screen, navigation, recent places, get navigation, etc. I have NO idea why it does not "stay" on the screen previous to recieving a call.

6. The volume does NOT stay! Same thing with navigation or other menus. Example, when in Navigation, I need the volume to be up to about 8 to hear anything. When the screen goes off, or a text message or call comes in, for some reason, the volume goes back DOWN. I have to manually push the volume back up to 8. Not cool.

Other than that, we have been very, very pleased with the layout, features, interactivity, everything else. We really do love it!

[traderofkind]

Ok... let me preface by saying I like my phone. It does everything well that a phone should do. Call quality is great compared to some other phones I've had. Visual voicemail is a handy feature. Menus and standard functions like text messages seem intuitive and work well. Navigation has worked extremely well for me on numerous occasions with only a few problems more than like caused by out of date maps. Live search is extremely handy, and I use the news and movie features all the time.

Now on to the bad parts. While the web browser was just updated it still seems pretty slow, although features such as full screen and enhanced scrolling are much better. Another small thing is the built in calculator only lets you go up to two decimal places. Um... can I calculate tax at 6.75%? Nope. Had to find a member made calculator application on instinct-samsung.com just to do basic math. The major problem is the lack of Java compliance. No opera mini, or any of the other plethora of programs available out there will work on this phone (even though the phone claims JAVA compliance). No instant messaging clients as well. I won't ramble on as many things have been covered in other comments so check em out. This is a pretty good phone overall and perfect for people who don't want to leave Sprint as a carrier. It's no Iphone killer though, at least not yet. Here's hoping for the future updates and applications to come.

[musicxbballfreak]

i personally think they couldve adapted a better java configuration in case they wanted to port things from iphone to this like pocketguitar or iAno, which right now are being developed (im somewhat of a beta tester for a solo developer) and hes working around as much as he can, but with the java config the way it is you cant play multiple sounds at a time, you cant really animate the keys unless you are a super code monkey sorta person which nobody really is that doesnt work for a company'
but for now im satisfied with the current freeware ive helped to develop

[rl1211]

I think the phone is awesome. Samsung loaded the phone with a lot of potential. It has GPS, a very nice camera, voice microphone, speakers, a bright LCD, touch-screen, headphone jack, 3G, etc... Personally, I use the phone to read personal emails, light web-browsing, music listening, and to watch some of the videos available on the sprint service. I think the Sprint Music and TV service is well integrated with the mobile phone's software. I update my music collection from the phone when I'm not in front of my computer. However, I still think the Sprint Software still barely realizes the phone's actual potential.

Sprint did release a SDK for the phone that would allow independant developers to continue where the Sprint developers left off, but it requires a $500/year software certificate contract with Sun.

All in all, for the price, the phone is the best out there right now.

[spencewesttx]

This phone is a huge disappointment. No different than any other regular phone out there except it has a touch screen instead of physical buttons. Freezes up unexpectedly, music player takes forever to load everytime you want to use it, the browser is crap, and there are NO 3rd party apps out there yet. I should have kept my Treo and waited on the Touch Diamond to come out. DO NOT BUY THIS PHONE, unless you want a regular cellphone made to look like something better than it really is.

[Levi4u]

first the nav upgrade, F'ed up had to recall the upgrade. then the TV upgrade made the tv unusable??? Do they have product testers or monkeys working for them? Simply the most dissaponting purchase I ever made.

[oneboricua1]

Hello,
I'm a soldier in the New Mexico National Guard as a part of the 64th Civil Support Team. We respond to Terrorist incident that involve WMD's and also to natural disasters. My unit was activated to respond to hurricane Ike in southern Texas. This was an awesome oportunity to use the my instinct, I was pulling weather data for the commander every hour on the hour for 4 different cities at the same time, surf the internet for data searching, locate hospitals, police and fire departments, and other public buildings using the navigation tool...all this when we were on the road!!!

All of this was done on the Sprint network (the only network that was up and running...our unit cellphones use verizon and they are the cheapest phone uncle sam can buy...they did not work at all!!!) my commander was so impress that he will request that we change carriers and get better smart phones....maybe instincts...

This is my personal experience with this phone. Sure it needs a better browser, java support, sync with Google calendar would be awesome and more utilities but for what is worth this phone saved the day.

SSG. Roberto Felix

[larich777]

My husband purchased 4 Instinct phones for the family. I just wanted a phone but he was excited about the instinct. Everything was fine (besides having the same issues as above) until his phone was stolen. He called Sprint and had the services suspended until he could get a replacement phone. When the replacement phone arrived, he got the service reconnected. When we received our bill a few weeks latere , we had $160 in download chares on it from his line. These downloads (ringtones, movies etc) were being done, apparently from the stolen phone. I don't know how they did it and perhaps someone can help us with this. Sprint told us that we must have let a teenager download these things because the downloads came from his phone. My husband has never downloaded anything and these occurred maybe 3-4 times per day. Sprint said that the only way a download occurs is if a text message confirming the download is accepted. My husband has never received such a message. Somehow, the person who stole his phone has figured out how to download these things and it appear that he is doing it. You technical people out there, please help. We are fighting with Sprint but we can't prove how they did it.

[rbrown13]

I do agree with some of the posters that say this is a new phone and fixes will come but the problem with that is that sprint went so hard after the "instinct vs. iphone" thing that anyone that had ever tried an iphone expected instinct to be at least on par with the iphone. I do like my instinct and as for my phone I have had no problems with it save for some issues with the browser and the TV but I don't blame the TV thing entirely on the instinct because I had an HTC touch prior to the instinct and the TV wasn't much better on that. one of the issues that gets overlooked so many times with this phone is the lack of processor speed (201mhz) compared to the iphone with over a 600mhz processor, I don't think software fixes are ever really going to fix alot of the issues that some people have with this device because of the under powered processor. Everyone has to remember that iphone is the only phone that Apple has and it has been the flagship phone phone for AT&T for almost 2 years so I don't expect sprint/samsung to spend to much more time or money on this phone seeing how sprint will be launching a new line of phones at the beginning of the new year and that is what really makes me angry is the lack of support and apps. I think sprint wants this phone to just go away and move on to the next money maker, I hope I'm wrong.

[sprint1one]

i got my tv to work but you have to go into the main fram of the phone

from the dialer put in ##3282# ?

you will see (data programming)
NOW DO WHAT I TELL YOU ((DONOT PLAY AROUND HERE ))) AT ANY TIME HIT THE BACK ARROW AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PHONE TO BACK YOURSELF OUT.....

next go down to (multimedia) hit it

you see (view) hit it

you see (buffer length) hit it

if you see (07) that needs to be increase++

to do that you need to call sprint and get your phone unlocking code or what ever it called (someone help me what is it called ?)
i called sprint told the guy i needed it to make changes on my tv? he gave it to no problems( i call from my cell phone)

when you get the code you see (edit) hit it
key pad your code in
change that 07 back space arrow bottom of phone----- key pad the new 20 in

there is one more thing there is a (time out buffer length) below set that to never time out it (OK TO DO THAT)

hit done the phone will reboot .

[eqspeedracer]

Hello, I've been an instinct owner since the release date. I first i was very excited about the phone and thought that it was an "iphone killer". Since then, I have regreted ever getting this phone. Here are a couple of reasons why:

1. Telenave is not useable at all. On my other sprint phone i used to use it everyday on my way to work to check traffic conditions and so forth and it used to work without any problems. Now, when use telenav, it freezes up on me all time and it hardly responds to the touch screen.

2. The first Instinct i had, i had to return after 3 months because the earpiece jack got screwed up and somehow when i was not using my earpiece, my phone was still in headset mode. so i took it in and got it replace.

3. Now I'm on my second Instinct and i just called sprint customer service the other day to replace it as well because the touch screen literally stopped responding. Only the side buttons worked on it.

In general, i would not recommend the Samsung Instinct to anyone because it was a piece to junk and it is not worth the money.

[eqspeedracer]

Hey it's eqspeedracer again. Well, after getting my replacement phone yesterday, i noetice that the repalcement phone i got also has issues with it. For some odd reason, when i have the phone on, it screen dims and then gets bright. it flashes really fast and then it stops. So once again, I'm going to have to call Sprint, AGAIN, and get my phone replaced for the forth time. Right now, the easiest thing for me to do is to just pay the early termintation fee and get out. any suggestions?

[bstott2002]

Ditto above disappointments and problems. My phone quality is poorer then my previous samsung and I don't have good coverage with the instinct. I've now got blind spots. I'm on phone two and customer service now is saying swap for number three because tv software doesn't work.

Amazing that cell phones have been out decades. Browsers on phones for about 10. Java, Brew & Java Beans longer. Linux and such longer yet. Fancy business features on phones available going on ten and a ton of software available to alter or copy or recompile with developed standards for them all. Don't forget touch screens for ? over 10? -- Poor -- Samsung and Sprint can't make a little touch screen computer with a phone feature work. Why keep chiseling out wheels of stone with hand held rocks?

By the by. My daughter's Vverizon slide phone with gps, music and tv works great. We watched football with no pixellation, lag or jitters and perfect sync of audio.

P.S. With this alpha phone and software and features you shouldn't don't believe any glowing reviews. The phone's fantasy ideal is awsome. The real phone's functions are barely useful and definitely a hinderance at times.

[gpru56]

I have a Sprint Instinct and have several issues. Myself and several friends have several issues. I have been on the phone with Sprint for over a week and no resolvement. I have two clients who call me from their businesses which the last 4 of their number has zeros. THEY CANNOT LEAVE ME A VOICEMAIL. I called from their establishment to verify. I have spoken with customer service, technicians and the retention department. I have invested over $450 in this phone which I purchased in July and they only want to give me $150 from their retention department.

[afguynbham]

I simply love Samsung phones, however there is one specific reason that I did NOT buy this phone. With my previous Samsung, I was allowed to choose the roaming options, of Sprint, automatic, or roaming. With the Instinct, you only have the choice of Sprint or automatic. This means that if the phone picks up the most faint signal from Sprint, it will assume that you have coverage. I would drop a call 5 times in less than 10 min in a primary location where I use my phone. Since I can choose the roaming option only when I am in this location. I do not have that problem. Not the case with the Instinct. Hopefully when they come out with the next version, this simple addition can be fixed.

[jel693]

I have used the Instinct for quite a while now, One of the big things that I love about this phone is that when I get an email with a .pdf attachment I can view it and even save it on my phone for later viewing. I find that feature really helpful. As for the web browser, I wouldn't say I hate it, ut isn't the greatest but it gets the job done. The qwerty keyboard did take a while to get used to but once you got the hang of it, it is super easy. Overall I really like my instinct. I have tried the iPhone, Blackberry Storm, LG Vu, LG Voyager, and the one I like the most is the Instinct.