How would you change the Samsung Instinct?

Samsung sure managed to move a lot of these Instincts, but the real question is: how many are on their way back tomorrow? With the 30-day trial period quickly closing in on the earliest of adopters, we've seen a myriad complaints about Sprint's iPhone slayer (its words, not ours), and the first official software update isn't rumored to occur for at least another week or so. For those folks who plan on sticking with it (or those who've already said their final goodbyes), what would you have Sprint include in the next firmware? Better still, what would you change about the design? Are you sick and tired of the inexplicable reception fluctuations? Are you fed up with holding down a button to unlock the display? Aggravated with lockups twice a day, everyday? Enraged by the omission of a "force roam" option? And really, could Sprint have made the battery door any more impossible to remove? Rant on, ranters!

[creepinshadow @ Jul 18th 2008 6:34PM]

If it had Wi-Fi i'd buy it. period.

[chris @ Jul 18th 2008 7:16PM]

Take it off the sprint network for starters. Bigger screen, WiFi and 3G.
Oh wait they have one of those already, the iPhone...

[DefPo3t @ Jul 18th 2008 7:32PM]

hey chris. Apparently you didn't get the memo the instinct has 3g that was one of the selling points in the commercials

[Ethyriel @ Jul 18th 2008 7:50PM]

I'd much rather pay Sprint's up front rates than AT&T or Verizon with all their additional charges.

As far as improvements... port Opera and/or Firefox Mobile for starters...

[periks19 @ Jul 18th 2008 8:27PM]

I think having with Sprint is a good idea, think about it this way why would a phone like the Instinct or the competitor (IPHONE) be launched on ATT when its 3g network sucks big time I would understand VZW but ATT?? Iphone 3g stills switches back and forth to Edge I went to the store and was looking at the Iphone 3g and just to make fun of the Sales representatives I asked what"s the difference between this and the old Iphone they said well this one has 3g as soon as they said that I said well why is this one running on Edge and is taking to long for pages to load they just stood quiet and said well it sometimes goes back and forth but the whole 10 minutes I was there it never switched to 3g. Not a hater of the Iphone think is a nice device but it sucks with att not to mention how they rape you just to have it.

[Steffen Jobbs @ Jul 18th 2008 8:26PM]

I'd been looking around for my sledgehammer in order to make a few minor modifications to the Instinct. Ah.... found it. Look out Instinct, here I come.

[arthur barnhouse @ Jul 19th 2008 12:15AM]

if anyone is not interested in reading periks19 post allow me to summarize:

"I went to the Apple store and acted like a huge asshole. I clearly think I deserve a metal for this, assuming I'm not lying in the first place."

[Shonit @ Jul 19th 2008 10:07AM]

So... been using this phone for a 29 days or so...
I think they should release the OS/Firmware so if Sprint/Samsung does not want to build Apps third parties can. Now on their side the reason they are not doing so might be because the phone is up to par in ram, as it freezes every now and then, hence adding third part apps might offset the whole experience.

So with that said lets talk some very small changes...
1. When the phone is portrait... having the option to have a numbered T9 Keyboard such as the HTC touch where you can have 2-3 letter per number, and with its haptic touch, and kick ass touch screen this will be a Texter's must have...
2. Small and Simple Calendar Syn Utility. It could be as simple as time blocking with 1 line of subject and location. Sync with iCal and Outlook. (Are you trying to convince people to buy an iPhone...?)
3. Small improvements on the Web Browser such as...
> Some sites such as eBay.com ( I am unable to sign into)
> Unable to actually experience 3G, specially due to the clunky browser.
> Youtube works but its annoying.
> Support www.hulu.com. ( simply doing this will increase their sales)
> Live Search should have CASHBACK!!!! think of all the money you would make just using the phone! its available on the internet why not on the phone, every month money is remitted to your sprint bill.... (Say I say Pizza and I see 5 options Dominos* Pizza Hut* Mamaias, etc. The once with * will be the once currently offering Cash Back, say 2-10% now once I go there and eat I enter a coupon code or maybe the receipt number which sprint will send over to Pizza Hut and they will pay sprint who will pay me.)
> PDF, DOC's Reader
4. Visually there is nothing you can do... any one could get board after 20-30 days. so maybe some themes where the color can be changed from Black, to blue, yellow, red, green, silver, gold and so on...
5. When you click on the "Phone" button I would like to not see the speed dial and see the Dial Pad... Maybe when I click it twice I see the Call History.
5. A Small Dock that plugs into your cigarette lighter plug in the car, which has a Mike built on it, along with an optional FM transmitter and or regular head phone Jack which can be pluged into my car. I have 8GB card-lots of music, not to mention when a calls comes in HANDs free driving.

So as mentioned earlier just small little changes. One of the biggest losses of this phone is the fact that no one has yet to be able to build things for it. Simply just putting out a phone which can do little things only so people get board of it within 20-30 days and lock them selves into a contract is a white SCAM, Dan if you really want to build long term relation you want something where people can have the option of customization, where if not you or the manufacturer atleast Third parties can go places with it, and please ppl don't say WM6 or else i will type another long rant about that as well....

Good Night, & Looking forward to whats next.
Shonit

[Cajones @ Jul 18th 2008 6:35PM]

Enable the phone-as-modem and sync with Outlook!

It wouldn't do either, so I went back to my Crackberry...

[bjay @ Jul 18th 2008 6:41PM]

it dosen't sync with outlook? wow that a big letdown, i cant survive with that as well.

[kellybrf @ Jul 18th 2008 6:53PM]

it will, via the mobile sync program. the web client can interface with outlook, and the phone and web client sync with each other

[Mike E. @ Jul 18th 2008 7:04PM]

If you go to the dial pad and type in ##USB# (##872#) it will switch between Phone as modem and storage device. Just make sure to hit the back arrow after, otherwise it'll look like it's frozen.

Speaking of freezing up, I haven't had any issues with my Instinct. I've had it for a week, and it's been a pretty solid replacement for my Centro. I do miss having true push mail for my work account, but since I'm on an exchange server, it works just as well.

I have to agree with the browser issue. I'm mainly using it to check out my Fantasy Baseball team, because everything else just takes too long to load.

I absolutely LOVE the GPS that's built into the Instinct. It was quite accurate when leading me to my destination, and it's actually quicker at finding satellites than my Garmin C550 is. Kudos to sprint for putting in the "Live Search" feature on this phone.

Most importantly, I haven't had too many issues with call quality. I did, however go from having full bars on my Centro at work to having barely 1 bar at work. There are others at my job that have Sprint and have reported having bad service there, so maybe I was lucky with my Centro (no worries, as I start my new job next week.)

Will I be returning my Instinct before the 30 days are up? Nope. I hope that the next software update includes a new browser (I hear Opera is pretty sweet.)

[deyanimay @ Jul 18th 2008 9:37PM]

Does it have java if so just get opera mini.

[Logik @ Jul 19th 2008 7:03PM]

It is Java based, but Sprint fucked up on the programming. You can load O Mini 3x/4x but you can't type anything, because the keyboard function is fucked up.

[MalaysianMafia @ Jul 18th 2008 6:35PM]

I would change the fact that, 1 year into a 2 year contract, getting the Instinct would cost me just as much as canceling my contract with Sprint and getting an iPhone...

Sprint may want to look into that...

[youngcalihottie @ Jul 18th 2008 6:36PM]

had mine for a week and returned it because i just got too frustrated with it. i actually made a list of what i didn't like, but i'm not at home right now. im glad engadget brought this up. i'll update in a bit with my notes.

[vdogg89 @ Jul 18th 2008 11:45PM]

wheres the update :(

[youngcalihottie @ Jul 19th 2008 3:35AM]

awesome. wasnt sure anyone really cared. lol. well i went home briefly but forgot to grab the list. here are some things off the top of my head:

1) cannot customize existing menus/icon order

2) cannot make something other than favs the default tab / "home screen"

3) there is no phone tab. you must hit the phone button to get the phone menu

4) cannot add sub-menus to the favs tab (i.e. "Create Message" or "Inbox" as opposed to simply "Messages")

5) cannot add items from the phone menu to favs (i.e. "Dialer" or "Contacts")

6) cannot multitask

7) the back button was sometimes not responsive. would have to press hard or a couple times for it to register

8) if a task in a program takes you to another program, then you cannot get back to the first program
...i better explain this one. a perfect example is the navigator.
a) click navigator
b) click search
c) type in a keyword (i.e. "starbucks")
d) a list of nearby locations will appear. click on the first one.
e) the phone number and address are shown. click the phone number to call them (you are now moved to the phone app)
f) starbucks answers. you ask if they are still open. they say they are not but some of the other ones might be. you hang up.
...where do you think you would be at next on the screen? if you said back to the search results, then you are DEAD WRONG. this "BRILLIANT" phone puts you back at the m***** f****** HOME SCREEN!!!!!!!!!!!!
g) now you have to continually repeat steps a through f as you go down the list one-at-a-time to find a location that is still open so you can navigate to it.
PS: if your solution is to use the web instead, sorry... its the same exact pattern. hope you have a pen and paper with you to just write down all the numbers so you can dial them manually.

9) pressing the phone button twice does not redial. three times neither. nor 100 times.

10) navigator does not remember your recent search results. in #8 above, you would have to type out "starbucks" every single time

11) text messages and sprint picture mail are in two separate tabs

12) intermittently when you click to save a picture from a picture message, the progress bar will go away and it will appear everything is fine, but when you go to your saved pictures the image will not be there.

13) someone at samsung must think people type in abc order. because when you switch the keyboard to portrait, that is how it is displayed. there is no way to change the keyboard to qwerty in portrait mode.

14) cannot use multi-tap or t9. it would be nice to have those options in portrait mode. i can type much faster with t9 (only 12 keys) than with qwerty (way more keys)

15) the instinct does have an auto-correct dictionary similar to the way the iphone guesses what you meant to type. (i.e. "hekko" would change to "hello"). but the problem is that you need to turn it on manually. ...for every single individual text message. i could not find any place that had "text messaging options" where i could set auto-correct to always be on by default.

16) the lock button does not function in a consistent matter. in some instances you have to press lock then press and hold it to unlock it. other times you only have to press it. since the former is the case more often, i got in the habit of always pressing then pressing and holding. the problem with that is if the phone only expected a quick press of the lock button, then holding it again after that will shut off the phone.

17) to correct a typo, you have to enter a different menu. you have to press a special icon that brings up the up, down, left, right arrows on-screen. this is extremely annoying. trying to circumvent this menu by clicking within the text will often lead to frustration and inaccurate cursor repositions

18) the on-screen backspace button is right next to the aforementioned icon in #17. often times when i was only trying to delete a letter, i instead found myself on the menu for moving the cursor

19) the web browser blows. forget about it. most pages do not display correctly.

20) scrolling up/down web pages often results in unexpected link clicks

21) sometimes it is hard to get to the bottom of a web page because the gui has a "bouncy" effect that inaccurately bounces you back up from being at the bottom of the page

22) attempting to scroll through lists often results in unexpected clicks. even with exaggerated scrolls from the bottom of the screen to the top.

23) sometimes it is also hard to get to the bottom of lists because of the same gui effect mentioned in #21. it bounces the list back up a little too high

24) you cannot set an mp3 or audio file as a ringtone.

25) the alert/text message/voicemail tones use the same library as call ringtones. most are too long for frequent texters or voicemail tones.

26) you cannot do anything outside of basic "call options" while in a call. no texting, calculator, notepad, anything at all while on a call.

27) once you join another person to a call (conference call/"three way" call) you cannot remove only one party. you have to keep everyone on the call or hang up with everyone. (i.e. no single party "dismiss" or "remove" button)

28) once you join another person to a call (conference call/"three way" call) you cannot move back to just one of the callers to say something to them in private and then resume the conference. (i.e. no single party "hold" button)

29) you cannot lock the screen while on a call

30) the backlight stays on while on a call

31) you cannot access your contacts when adding a person to a conference call / "three way" call

32) the address book returns an error message when adding in apt, suite, unit, or other space numbers into an address or when using the "#" sign.

33) the address book returns an error message when correctly using two spaces between a state and zip code (yes, theres actually supposed to be two spaces. see: http://pe.usps.gov/text/pub28/28c2_002.html#NL508_11 ...section 224 note)

34) you cannot set what portion of an image to use as a contact's picture. the phone just automatically uses the center. i had a couple contacts who were just boobs due to the image size. those people probably wouldve gotten the wrong idea if they ever saw that on my phone!


--okay well that is all i have for now. thats just off the top of my head. ill add more when i get home and get to my entire list. please note that i had the phone for the first week that the phone was out. so it is possible some of these might have been corrected if they have done any software updates.

[loosely_coupled @ Jul 19th 2008 6:05AM]

HOLY CRAP! Jeeez dude. Just get an iPhone. I don't say that as a fanboy, I don't even own one. But many of those problems don't exist, and I'm sure either an Apple update or some 3rd party app will do most of what you wish to be able to do.

[EdgeOne @ Jul 19th 2008 7:41AM]

Dude, how big is your head?!? lol

[youngcalihottie @ Jul 19th 2008 4:14PM]

thats what she said
:P

[Logik @ Jul 19th 2008 7:11PM]

Yeah, this phone is going back pretty soon. I would add another 15-20 shortcomings about this phone, but that list is plenty long already.

[punta @ Jul 19th 2008 9:26PM]

wow that would drive me crazy especially the way the key board is displayed and the fact that you cant use mp3's for ringtones.

[leetgeek @ Jul 22nd 2008 1:17PM]

just a few things in response to your long list of complaints...

1) rarely can you do this with any other phone so i dont see why this is really a complaint

13) if the keyboard was in qwerty mode in portrait mode the keys would be too small to even be of any use, unless you like typing with the stylus

17) dont HAVE to enter a different menu, you can select where you want the cursor to be without minimizing the keyboard

19) never had a problem with this

20)never had a problem with this either

24) but you can upload it from an uploader and have it sent to your phone

26) cant text, but you can use notepad, calculator, and etc, by pressing the HOME button while on a call

31) when you click on add contact "contacts" is the 2nd button from the top


i knew all this stuff now and ive had it less than a week...and you have probably had it longer

[Cajones @ Jul 18th 2008 6:37PM]

Enable phone-as-modem and sync with Outlook!

It won't do either, so I went back to my Crackberry.

[icepop4who @ Jul 18th 2008 6:39PM]

Two heads might be better than one but two posts do just the opposite.

[icepop4who @ Jul 18th 2008 6:38PM]

Wi-fi and a bigger screen. At least as big as iphone's size and resolution.

[David Southwick @ Jul 19th 2008 9:48AM]

I agree! I am considering the 800w after a horrible 2 years chained to the upstage! I know EXACTLY what you mean by not having a door to remove a battery. My upstage lasts less than 14 hours in STANDBY.

[tcano2003 @ Jul 20th 2008 12:37PM]

I traded my Instinct for a Treo 800W and I will never go back. :)

[DefPo3t @ Jul 18th 2008 6:39PM]

a door to replace the battery(no matter how hard it is to remove) is still better than not having a door to remove the battery. Just saying engadget.
Although I do agree that's there is no reason that it should be as hard as it is

[hemmy @ Jul 18th 2008 6:40PM]

I snagged one of these, I'm mostly happy with it. However, I did have a devil of a time trying to open the thing up for the other battery. No lockups. The lock button took a few days to get used to - I thought I'd hate it, but it doesn't bother me now.

What sucks is no Opera for it yet.

[Podaman @ Jul 18th 2008 7:37PM]

FOUR FEET above the covers.

[retro77 @ Jul 18th 2008 6:41PM]

I'd put the word basic in front of it.

[Wicker24 @ Jul 18th 2008 6:56PM]

That really was Retro

[Richie @ Jul 18th 2008 6:43PM]

a ui that doesn't look like it tries too hard :(

although I have never used one so I don't know if it feels different or has it's own charm in person. But screen shots and demo vids make it look clunky and annoying.

[Jeff @ Jul 18th 2008 7:41PM]

it is.

[SuperSexyErik @ Jul 18th 2008 6:46PM]

I've been using iPhone and instinct side by side for 20 days. But this isn't an add for iPhone so I'm not gonna talk about it.

Instinct:

Likes:
Turn by turn gps


(yeah that's about it... I was expecting better)

Dislikes:
-flaky software. Ok I don't understand how the comercial shows smooth interface, yet the actual phone is slow and laggy.
-apps take long to load and don't work well
-scrolling through things is awefully laggy
-Internet browser is horrible for a mobile device. Apple still winning there.
-gps is nice, but say bye to your battery, now I see why they have to offer two. And I now understand why apple left it out of the iPhone .
- bad call quality. Might have been sprints coverage.. But voice didn't sound good
-lack of developers , small problem now, but can't compete with apple in the long run
Overall I didn't like the phone much, still needs slot of work. I'll be returning it soon.

[vdogg89 @ Jul 18th 2008 11:51PM]

Im not one to vouch for the iPhone that much, but apple simply has the best web based phone. Ive never seen a phone that has the same user experience while surfing. Its sad because I want competition for the iPhone, but the web browsing is still a main factor for me

[griff @ Jul 21st 2008 9:39AM]

@SuperSexyEric

They didn't leave gps out of the iphone.

[Tim @ Jul 22nd 2008 6:10PM]

Skyfire is better, it does flash and java.

[Jake @ Jul 18th 2008 6:50PM]

Bought it the first day, returned it the 12th, the morning after replacing it with the new iPhone. It needed a bigger screen, unlocking was a PAIN (especially when you had it in a case), lack of WiFi, and the absolute worst, going from 3 bars to dropping a call while sitting on my couch and not moving. It had so much promise. The lack of app support ala iPhone sucks as well. Oh right and the browser!! Complete crap compared to iphone, skyfire on WM, opera on WM... that was a real big let down.

[Ian @ Jul 18th 2008 6:50PM]

Add an Apple logo.

[Ignatius @ Jul 18th 2008 9:19PM]

That'd probably guarantee sales no matter how bad the product is...

Like it does already.

[Ted @ Jul 18th 2008 6:50PM]

3rd party applications.

[CaberetVoltaire @ Jul 19th 2008 5:57PM]

Their 3rd party app store isn't open yet, it will be soon

[Luddy @ Jul 21st 2008 8:05PM]

I've found that 99.99999999% of the time that any error on the phone (and every other electronic device in existence) can be fixed with the simple ritual of turning off the phone, waiting a couple of seconds, and then turning it back on. Works like a charm every time.

I don't really have any issues with it, I just wish the browser was snappier, such as when I use opera mini, which sadly lacks text support. :(

Easy software fixes could be the ability to use the mp3's you load as ring tones, but I've found an easy work around via audacity and myxer.com

On a whole I've yet to find a place in the San Francisco Bay area that my phone did not work in. If a future version included flash for the camera that'd be great. It doesn't really matter if wifi is included or not, you've got unlimited broadband on the phone which isn't that slow when compared to campus wifi on a regular day. :|

A simple battery meter would be nice too, I go from green to red in like 20 minutes and basically would like to have more warning. I always forget the spare battery at home.

Oh, and lets not forget the ability to do some simple image editing. My female friends have the habit of using it like they would their phone, never mind the fact that they're 90 degrees off.

[RSHL @ Jul 18th 2008 7:41PM]

So.... you've tested 1 billion phones?

[joe blow @ Jul 19th 2008 1:38AM]

Turn it off and on? Doh, why didn't I think of that. Next time I drop a call, I'll just turn it off and on to prevent the call from being dropped. No, wait....

[MacVicta @ Jul 18th 2008 6:54PM]

I wouldn't change anything because I want it to continue to suck.

[CUBSWILLWIN @ Jul 18th 2008 7:27PM]

Telling from your comment, picture, and name, I think you are a very disturbed person