Review: Samsung Instinct
Screen
Smudge factor aside, the Instinct's screen is nice, but not astounding by any stretch of the imagination. To our eyes, all the icons, images and pictures had a soft look to them. I am not sure if this is an issue with the screen or the design of the UI, but the lack of sharpness, even of images, left me wanting to continually rub the screen to remove a non-existent film that gave it a clouded look. What's more, the screen is darn near impossible to view when outdoors. With indirect sunlight, making out text and icons was difficult at best.
Signal
The Instinct's signal indicator ranged wildly all over the place. Sitting on my couch, the Instinct has zero bars. Moving to another spot in my living room (we're talking six feet away), and it suddenly had 5 bars. Walking into my kitchen dropped the signal strength to 3 bars. Even when stationary, signal strength waffled between 0 bars and 2 bars most of the time. Granted, Sprint's network is not really strong where I live, but this is below-par performance. This made for lots of dropped calls. I was often in the middle of a conversation when the call was dropped, and the phone gave me the "Entering Sprint Service Area" message. Clearly the dropped call is related to poor signal strength.
Sound
Calls that went through and remained connected sounded very good. There was only the slightest amount of hiss every so often. Never were callers garbled or difficult to understand. The ringer could be made plenty loud, as could music through the phone's ear piece speaker.
Battery
We've only been able to pass the Instinct through one charge/discharge cycle since we've had it. The battery lasted for three full days, with consistent usage, including phone calls, speakerphone, music listening and web browsing.
Video: Live Demo of Snapdragon AI Noise Suppression
Samsung Refines its Foldable Phones
Hands On with Xplora Kids Smartwatches
TCL's Newest Concept Phone has a Matte Screen
iMovie Makes it Easier to Create Polished Videos
Samsung Instinct M800
