Samsung Instinct M800
Phone Scoop Review
Jun 13, 2008 by Eric M. Zeman
Samsung and Sprint break out the touch screen Instinct to combat the swelling ranks of touch devices. Does it compare to the competition? With video tour. read review ›
User Reviews
Average Ratings
Bad Signal - Great Phone Otherwise
I love this phone for all the perks: music, calendar, web, weather, etc. The touch screen is incredible. However, for the phone portion the signal is terrible. I can't drive on any road without it dropping my call at least 3 times. It seems that any place with trees on both sides of the road will drop your call. At first, I was okay with it because the phone was so great. However, now it's just gotten old. I actually have to pull over on the side of the road to have a conversation to ensure I'm not dropped. I've always had Samsung phones and this has never been an issue. I truly believe it's the phone.
not an iphone or dare but still good
the samsung instinct is a good phone but the iphone is much faster and the lg dare is great i have had all three and i would rate the iphone fist then the dare and then the instinct i like the instinct im not saying its bad im just saying that there are better phones anyway i think if you want to enjoy youre phone you must get good accessories an i tried all the brand name products Motorola, samsung, jabra, ETC.anyway the brand that had the best stuff and affordable is cellular innovations they are awesome i found there items in best buy,big lots,supermarkets and in Canadian tire,the point is the instinct is a good phone but i beleve good accessories make the phone great and the way to go is cellular innovations!!!
amazing product with a little fuss.
Got one the day it came out. Lots of good points will a few bad. But no company is perfect nor is any phone.
PROS
The ability to do multimedia messages w/o doing anything special (eat that iphone).
Touch screen is very responsive, slight lag once.
Panning the phone to go up and down the web page.
Voice to action is very sweet, even great for using the phone altogether.
Camera is alright as well, wish it had a flash :(.
5.7 talk time per battery?! And you get 2 of them?! just might make the Girlfriend jealous.
Sprint TV and Radio are great past times and quality is very good (as long as you stay in EVDO.)
CONS
Camera could stand to be a little better, some pictures can turn out fuzzy, and i would like a flash.
Call quality is a slight weak. Could be the building or other interference going on, but still could've been better.
Signal quality. Well...not the greatest and not the worse...but could really be better.
Overall if your looking for an iphone competitor with a great network to back it up, you have reached your destination.
when instinct takes over
Well this is day 2 with my instinct and i am amazed! threaded texts should be nominated fof cell phone sainthood! its nice to not keep going back to my senf box cuz i forgot what i typed... and yeh the net browser is kinda slow but works awesome! im writing the review with my instinct now :) it does, however suck the battery dry... but still, a stimulus check well spent! youtube and myspace work great!!! i had a dropped call but i live in an area where my signal on my rumor was 1 bar so its just as shotty with this phone... otherwise, this thing is nothing short of spectacular!
Darn good phone...with some drawbacks
I mostly love this phone. it has a lot of great features. i had the htc touch beforew this one and loved that phone as well, but didnt like the windows mobile. this phone has a great os and is faster reacting.the camera is one of the drawbacks. I am always getting the fuzzy picture warning. It comes up constantly to the point i dont even want to use the camera unless im outside. The browser is the other drawback. It is ssllooooowwww! and since the screen is sooo small it doesnt show up very well.Which brings me to the last drawback... the screen size. It is tiny.Teeny tiny. i know its 3.2 and all but it is so thin its hard to use for much.
I like this phone overall. the look of it is great.The screen quality is great, if it was bigger it would be perfect. i loved the size of the HTC touch's screen.This phone has great sound quality of music and movies.The reception was a little weird. Id get it saying no service then full service in like the same spot within seconds of each other.
All in all this is a great phone id recommend.
Great Phone
I love this phone. I like the ease of use for texting. I have found that it has one major drawback... They use a slider to hang up on a call, but the mute button is always getting pushed when I hold the phone against the cheek. I also have found ringers I add myself tend to be quiet, and I cant hear the phone if it's in my pocket. Navigation is awesome. My old phone took forever to load navigator and seemed to never find the satellite. This one rocks. Always up and running fast when I need it the most. Weather is awesome too. Can view radars of any city across the country. This phone is well worth the money!
Very nice phone.....
This phone is super easy to learn and use, and I quickly became attached to its features. It is a very nice looking phone too! I was surprised how often i use the TV feature. Yes the video can be "off" sometimes, but the voice and overall quality of the tv function is way better than I thought--and I use it to catch up on news, etc. and can see using it when at an airport waiting, etc.--and I'm not really a TV person. The overall integration of email and messaging is very good, and the backup of contacts to sprint.com works well. Still can't get my work email to function. Texting works well, and the camera feature is ok but the quality could be better. The only downside for me is the web browser--i expected more from it. However, if Opera mini becomes available for the Instinct, that would put the web browser back into the plus column for me. The voice activated calling is excellent and now can't imagine not having this function.
PROS:
Messaging and email
TV
Ease of use
Voice dialing and search
CONS:
Browser
Mostly Everything to like
I really like this phone thought it has a few quirks like most high end phones. I don't have anything "bad" to say but as nothing is perfect and you would like to know details, here it is: Yes, like most computers it could occassionally freeze up and the touch sometimes was either too sensitive or not at all where you had to touch it a few times. The GPS voice instructions are hard to hear on the little speaker of the phone with all the road noise, get an external speaker and you are OK. No, you can't read e-mail attachments.
That being said....I give it an A-
Pros:
- TWO batteries included (the GPS and TV eat up the battery but otherwise it is quite decent)
- Very INTUITIVE!! Did not have to read the manual! Easy to use.
- Large numbers! You can customize the layout of controls, everything worked!
- The e-mail worked quite well and Sprints everything package is a great companion.
Compared to the Iphone, it is smaller, better on battery life and while limited in application possibilities, ALL THAT IT DOES, IT DOES WELL.....
JUST PEACHY
I just got this phone and cant stop playing with it. I went side by side with my friend and a iphone 3g (3 garbage) and we had a phone off in front of 10 people and he was very impressed with it!! and the 69.99 everything plan is awesome!!
PROS: MP3 is so awesome, 2 batteries so u never have to charge it! battery life is amazing even when browsing stuff. Easy to use. good alarms ringtones, applications. GPS is on the dot accurate.
Cons: maybe new theme for the phone, thats a simple update. other than that nothing!!!
Satisfying but not life-fulfilling
I bought this phone to fill that hole in my soul that can only be sated by consumer electronic devices. Overall i have been happy, but i did experience a major glitch that required Sprint to replace it: my screen randomly became so wildly out of calibration that all touches were registered about 1" higher than where i pressed. What's that you say? Go to the screen re-calibration in the settings? I couldn't because the home, back, and phone buttons are on the bottom of the touchscreen and nothing registered down there. With no hardware keys, there is no bailout for this situation and there's no return to factory default provision either. Of course, it is possible i am the only human being to have experienced this. I could find no other mention of it and the tech guy for Sprint nearly committed hara-kiri he was so confused. But at the end of the day, it is so much faster, more capable, and sexier than my last phone (ppc-6700) i gladly took the replacement and am not looking for another option.
long story short:
Cons:
Glitchy GPS - it looses track of where you are if you go to slow, like when you're stuck in traffic and want a way out or are walking around the city.
fluky browser - you have to change your Google settings or you get this mickey-mouse version of the mobile web with proprietary Google web toolkit rendering (change "format web pages for your phone" to off to get normal rendering). Some lag when switching to the keyboard from a web screen.
News, weather, etc don't update automatically or sometimes at all, even when you start their program
Pros:
Two batteries - those who complain the battery cover is too tough to remove need to toughen up a bit
Good screen lock - i used to pocket dial half my minutes away.
Voice activated everything is awesome - recognized contact names Vasilly, Coley, and Jiz right out of the box. Finds business easier than Googling.
Most apps are user friendly, load quickly and work well.
