Is your Samsung Instinct acting up?

At first, we figured our Instinct here at Engadget HQ had just woken up on the wrong side of the bed, but we're now receiving a flood of tips from individuals nationwide having the same issues. Put simply, it seems that certain data services are thoroughly borked, with our Weather app being unable to refresh for at least the past 18 hours (some are reporting even longer). Additionally, we're hearing that folks are having to manually refresh their email and deal with all sorts of error messages when attempting to use any of the data services. So, what gives? Are you having data-related issues with your Instinct? C'mon Sprint, this is your best-selling EV-DO device of all time -- it'd be nice to have it working for the weekend. Oh, and great job showing all those angered iPhone 3G users that your network doesn't have issues, too.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[MMisterio @ Jul 11th 2008 6:04PM]

you probably won't get many comments because:

a) its on Sprint
b) all the geeks are finger banging their new IPhones

[Micanos @ Jul 11th 2008 6:13PM]

Should've come to T-Mo...

[dan @ Jul 11th 2008 8:00PM]

yeah my instinct sucks i have to always refresh my e-mail, the weather dont work period. myspace works sometimes.
my phone sometimes doesnt even ring, it freezes
im done with it. im getting im cancelling and getting an iphone.

[Matt @ Jul 11th 2008 9:41PM]

I dumped Sprint today for an iPhone... so you're not far off (also bumps my monthly bill from ~$35 to ~$80). So far I couldn't be happier. Sprint's mistake was not letting Sero users in on the Instink... and I mean *all* Sero users - not the ones on the not-very-Sero $99 SE plan. If I had to pay more for a better phone, there's no way I'd have gone with an Instinct over an iPhone. Sprint's like an ugly, cheating, low-maintenance girlfriend. She may be cheap, but she's still an ugly slut. Bye bye Sprint, it wasn't too bad while it lasted.

[SeditioN VII @ Jul 11th 2008 10:51PM]

Should have come to T-Mo?! Tell me, what exactly is the appeal of the this phone with out EVDO rev a, Sprint TV, real GPS and solid CDMA coverage? I don't care for this phone myself but I'm sure its pretty nice. But seriously, take away the things I've mentioned ...and just TRY to sell it to T-Mo customers.

[wjrandon @ Aug 1st 2008 6:05PM]

Real geeks would be using windows mobile anyway.

[Tina Magaddino-Vasquez @ Sep 14th 2008 11:06AM]

Sprint does not know if this is a push or pull device. I beleive it is a pull depending on the email you use. My work....pull....Yahoo....push. I test my email A LOT as I am in Real Estate and my leads and customers are important. Most times I get the email in seconds....

What most people do not get is you have to call and COMPLAIN to customer service. I have gotten two credits because it is not the phone....it is Sprints Network. Everytime I have a problem I call in and they tell me there is a trouble ticket for the Network because it is down. They do not know why their network is having problems but that is it!

Hope that helps someone!

[John H. @ Jul 11th 2008 6:06PM]

thats what she said

[Brian @ Jul 11th 2008 6:06PM]

Mine is working just fine :)

[Steffen Jobbs @ Jul 11th 2008 9:39PM]

Working fine as a paperweight doesn't count.

[John @ Jul 11th 2008 6:07PM]

not that i would ever buy this thing, but its obviously timed to coincide with the release of the new iphone.

[erik @ Jul 11th 2008 6:07PM]

what a surprise, iPhone wannabee doesn't work :)

[aaron @ Jul 11th 2008 6:10PM]

whatdya know neither does the iphone....

i bet it has something to do with the new sero plans coming for the instinct...

[erik @ Jul 11th 2008 6:16PM]

I'm sending this comment from an iPhone, working fine :)
On top of that apple managed to sell over a million more iphone's than instincts :)

[CUBSWILLWIN @ Jul 11th 2008 7:02PM]

It's the curse of the iphone...

[mike @ Jul 12th 2008 12:53AM]

@aaron

iphones don't work? what? oh wait, you're pretending the issues with iPhone activation somehow imply the device itself has bugs that prevent simple functionality from taking place.

no no, you're analytical ability is the only flaw with your comment.

-----

1. iphones... work now that activation servers can handle capacity.
2. instincts... still have OS issues and so does the data network.

go ahead everyone and low rank me... the truth hurts and we know the masses often can't handle it!

[bob @ Jul 11th 2008 6:08PM]

you probably won't get many comments because:

a) its on Sprint
b) all the geeks are finger banging their new IPhones

you probably won't get many comments because:

a) its on Sprint
b) all the geeks are finger banging their new IPhones

[Krush @ Jul 11th 2008 6:13PM]

I second that ... oh wait u already did?

[serg2299 @ Jul 11th 2008 6:10PM]

My buddy has this phone and he thought you HAD to manually refresh emails. I guess it's just not working properly.

[giantenemycrab @ Jul 11th 2008 6:11PM]

This is why the iPhone is better, it just works.

Oh, wait...

[Sundog @ Jul 11th 2008 6:13PM]

"All right", not "Alright". Let's not abuse the language.

[mariohardleft @ Jul 11th 2008 6:16PM]

Sundog:
As long as we're proofing grammar, periods and commas go inside quotation marks. Your post should've read:

"All right," not "Alright." Let's not abuse the language.

[Peter @ Jul 11th 2008 6:48PM]

I'm all in favor of correcting people's use of English, but "alright" is fairly common and accepted now, at least in informal writing. There are many other examples of more unforgivable mistakes (e.g. I saw someone spell "people" as "peaple" today here...)

[Andrew H. @ Jul 13th 2008 7:26PM]

aite...point taken =)

[mike @ Jul 12th 2008 1:01AM]

@ mariohardleft

actually, you fail.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark
- The section on punctuation is a must read for you!

[Travis @ Jul 11th 2008 6:18PM]

What does the GPS have to do with the Sprint network?

[Ty @ Jul 11th 2008 6:19PM]

Wow, what impeccable timing. The boiling point for this reached the day the iPhone is released. Gotta love engadget.

[p3t3b2 @ Jul 11th 2008 7:20PM]

Exactly, this news is over a week old, why release it now Engadget?... For the record, it's not wide spread, only a few customers are having this issue. Sprint has been updating data since the beginning of June, they just recently finished updating picture mail, *COUGH* which the iphone does not have!

[mike @ Jul 12th 2008 12:45AM]

@p3t3b2

haha funny... "picture mail" is selling feature... the iphone does this thing called email... with viewable attachments... including pictures, office docs, pdfs, and iwork docs.... so picture mail is the best we can talk about here?

oh, and i'm glad they want to improve their data network after releasing a phone that breaks it... real good planning.

yeah, no excuses for the activation servers going down... but it's a one day thing. unfortunately for the instink, this is systemic and not easily resolved.

[John @ Jul 12th 2008 10:42AM]

The Instinct does email IIRC as well. But MMS is a convenient way to send pictures to any phone number without the need to know what their service is, and its pushed to the phone. MMS is MUCH better than using email to send another phone pictures.

[brettcarlsen @ Jul 11th 2008 6:22PM]

Co worker of mine had it from about the 3rd day it was out and had so many data issues (mostly lost text messages) that he returned it and went back to verizon. sent from my iPhone hehe

[Mr. Biggz @ Jul 11th 2008 6:27PM]

This touch craze will end, and people will go back to happily pushing buttong once again...

[Frisco34 @ Jul 11th 2008 7:20PM]

had about 7 to 10 people in emeryville today looking at my instinct.The iphone feels nice, but $150 for a plan is crazy in this market.

[Mike Tobolka @ Jul 11th 2008 6:29PM]

I have been having the same problems, no email since 11am this morning, and I just tried to access weather and it couldnt refresh. Seems as though this is def. a problem with instinct users. Are there any people with other sprint phones that are having data service problems?

[Loker @ Jul 12th 2008 5:24PM]

I am on a Centro and had issues with the On Demand weather app refusing to update....and Sprint's push e-mail only seems to push every so often so unless you manually check you may not see messages for an hour or two...

[mart @ Jul 11th 2008 6:32PM]

I don't have any problems because i don't have one. HOWEVER. I AM HAVING PROBLEMS WITH MY iPhone haha..........

[Fernando Dasilva @ Jul 11th 2008 6:34PM]

That's funny that they are having data issues. Seems to me that it their network should be just fine considering the herds of people that jumped ship today. I personally know 2 people that jumped ship to the death star today. I was advising against it because of service but the iPhone is a very nice device.

[mike @ Jul 12th 2008 1:03AM]

Not only that, but Sprint lost 1 million customers in the 1st Qtr of 2008. That should free up some bandwidth.

[Jubei @ Jul 11th 2008 6:35PM]

Perhaps the OS and the many work arounds to make this piece of a "me too" product release as early as possible is finally showing its buggy code. In a rush garner massive sales, one would not put it past Sprint to rush their engineers to the point of quality being last on the list for them.

Many are curious on how many units Sprint has moved with Instinct. Being a braggart for so many weeks, many expect huge sales numbers. Where are your numbers Sprint?

[nryder @ Jul 11th 2008 6:37PM]

At least it's not the iBrick right?

Whats worse:

a) Having a brick for an iphone

or

b) Having an Instinct that works minus the data troubles

[erik @ Jul 11th 2008 6:51PM]

lol. They don't stay as bricks... They can be activated.

You can't fix crap. (instinct)

[mike @ Jul 12th 2008 1:16AM]

the iBrick in a few short hours was converted to the iPhone that is still the best mobile device on the market hands down.

what will they upgrade the Instinct to be? Obviously, the fix there will take more than a few hours... by the way, the word instinct comes form the Latin word meaning "to prick". It appears that'll this thing is good for, both for users and competitors. Just an irritation... that sounds like a good name.

[Logik @ Jul 12th 2008 3:16PM]

"... by the way, the word instinct comes form the Latin word meaning "to prick"..."

Thanks for the laugh.

[mackycorp @ Jul 11th 2008 6:43PM]

My email has been working fine all day, everything seems to be updating fine except for the weather app. "Error 7000: Internal Server error. Please try again."

[Harrison @ Jul 11th 2008 6:49PM]

What suckers actually bought the Instinct when they could have the iPhone?

[Quikboy @ Jul 11th 2008 6:27PM]

You know when Engadget has gone overboard with the iPhone hype, when half the comments on a non-iPhone cellphone (including myself), say something about the iPhone.

[Dale @ Jul 11th 2008 6:41PM]

Quikboy, the device couldn't mention the iPhone more in its marketing if it tried... naturally, the comparison is going to be made.

[willythegnome @ Jul 11th 2008 7:09PM]

Hm, maybe because the iphone plans are ridiculous?

Instinct on Sprint: $69.99, Unlimited Data, text, 450 minutes, Unlimited Weekend and Night minutes that start at 7pm. SERO plans will be better, and $7 a month you can fully insure your phone and replace it for just about any reason.

Iphone on AT & T: $69.99, Unlimited data, No text!!, 5000 Weekend and Night minutes that start at 9pm. Hm, there is rollover, but that's about all I can say that's positive.

[fred @ Jul 11th 2008 7:45PM]

"What suckers actually bought the Instinct when they could have the iPhone?"

People that wanted a different choice?

And what happened to the army of people that were POd that people are saying negative stuff about the iPhone on threads about it when the same thing is being done on stories about other phones.?

[mike @ Jul 12th 2008 1:08AM]

hahaha... yeah... every friggin movie i went to see had a samsung instinct ad with a threatening male voice saying it would be an "iPhone killer".

Apple only had one ad and it has only run for a few days and doesn't mention competitors... probably because it's still in a class by itself... i wouldn't muck up my ad by mentioning inferior products.