[1FastFox]

I came across this earlier this morning on our bloomberg information center here at work and thought I would share...
(Long read, but very informative... )

Review: Sprint's phone is iPhone clone done right


NEW YORK_This is a review of the 3G iPhone. No, not the one Apple announced onMonday. The other one. You know _ the one from Sprint and Samsung? Amid the buzz surrounding Apple Inc.'s new iPhone model, coming out July 11,it's been easy to miss the news that Sprint Nextel Corp. is bringing out aphone on June 20 that is the closest thing so far to an iPhone made by someoneelse. The Samsung Instinct is, like the real iPhone, a slab with a large touch screenand few buttons. There are other touch-screen alternatives, but the Instinct'sthe only one that does what the iPhone does: wrap a wealth of features into apackage that's easy to use. This is a remarkable achievement, mostly on Sprint's part. The hardware, madeby Samsung Electronics Co., is available overseas. Sprint commissioned its ownsoftware to run on it, working very closely with an outside design house on itsdevelopment. The result is a lucid, logical interface. It's not as pretty as the iPhone's,but it allows the user to quickly use e-mail, Web browsing, GPS navigation andtext messaging; watch videos, live TV and photos; and listen to music andonline radio. Of course, Apple should get much of the credit for inspiring competitors tocome up with phones like this. But the Instinct is more than a copy: Sprintpulled out all the stops when it came to adding features, resulting in analmost absurdly capable phone that outdoes the first-generation iPhone in manyways. If that were the only competition, the Instinct would look very good. But afairer comparison is with the upcoming 3G iPhone, so called because it will useAT&T's third-generation wireless network. To start with the similarities, the Instinct's price will likely match that ofthe 8-gigabyte iPhone model: $199 with a two-year contract, but Sprint hasn'tconfirmed this. The cheapest service plans will cost the same, at $69.99 permonth. Both phones will use fast data networks _ the Instinct is one of the very fewphones to use EV-DO Revision A, the fastest flavor of Sprint's network. Both have 2-megapixel cameras. The Instinct comes with less memory, at 2gigabytes, but it's expandable with cheap MicroSD chips. Both use an on-screenkeyboard that's quite usable. Both will connect to corporate e-mail servers andMicrosoft Outlook e-mail programs, though the details differ. The Instinct has several advantages over the new iPhone: _ It's smaller, fitting more comfortably in a pocket. _ It records video. The iPhone only does stills. _ It does picture messaging. _ It has "haptic feedback," fancy words meaning it can be set to vibrate whenit registers a touch. _ Its navigation software gives turn-by-turn directions. _ It can get live, streaming TV service. _ It has a removable battery, and even comes with a spare. The iPhone's batteryis not removable by the user. _ Its applications can be updated over the wireless data network. _ It can send music to stereo headsets using Bluetooth. The iPhone can sendcalls over Bluetooth, but not music. The Instinct has some notable drawbacks as well: _ The screen has two-thirds as many pixels as the iPhone, which means itdisplays less information. Worse, it's limited in the number of colors it candisplay, which spoils the look of some photos and movies. _ The Instinct can only sense the touch of one finger at a time, which makes itmore cumbersome to use. The iPhone will let you zoom into a Web page or pictureby spreading your fingers on the screen. _ Sprint's network is not in very good shape, and I have noticed some problemswith call quality. _ There's very limited international roaming, mainly in South America. Sprint'snetwork isn't compatible with the dominant network standard overseas, whileAT&T's is. That means the iPhone can roam in more than 170 countries. _ Sprint has said the Instinct will be open to third-party software developers,and its software is based on Java, a ubiquitous programming language thatshould make it easy to adapt existing applications. But the cachet and userbase of the iPhone will attract more developers to that platform, which Appleis only now opening up. Ultimately, the Instinct makes me sort of sad. Sprint tried so hard and did so well, but is that going to matter in what isshaping up to be a killer year for "smart" phones? Not only is the second iPhone coming out, backed by tremendous buzz, butthere's a feature-packed high-end BlackBerry in the wings for AT&T. There hasalso been speculation of a touch-screen BlackBerry coming later on VerizonWireless. Still, for those of you who are Sprint customers and want to stay there, theInstinct will do you very well indeed.

[yojoe600]

its just like the vu or the dare by lg and all other touch screen phones its not really like the iphone

[1FastFox]

Looks identical to the Iphone check out the pics in the link below...

Samsung Instinct Review: Best Sprint or Samsung Phone Ever

[atlacatl213]

why don't you just get a iphone thats unlocked?

YouTube - Worlds First Hacked iphone

YouTube - Worlds First Hacked iphone

[1FastFox]

I was under the impression that even an unloacked Iphone wouldnt work with sprint,verizon, ect...

BTW- your vid doesnt work...