At April Fooling around, Samsung has come out with the Samsung 3G Instinct.Apple teamed up with AT&T, LG with Verizon and now Samsung has chosen to launch the Instinct with Sprint.
Measuring 4.6" by 2.2" by 0.49", the Instinct is a tad narrower but a bit thicker than the iPhone, and it's also a bit lighter, weighing in at 4.4 ounces.
The Instinct's sleek, animated touch interface looks promising, if still a bit rough-and-ready. The unit I tried was still in the testing stage, so I'll hold off on direct iPhone comparisons until I've seen a final device.
Still, a lot of the UI innovations that I love on the iPhone are right here. Navigating on the touchscreen was a pleasure, and I liked the roulette wheel-like scrolling through long lists of items.
Another ace up the Instinct's sleeve is its access to Sprint's 3G "EV-DO Rev. A" data network, which means speedy Web surfing, full-track downloads from the Sprint Music Store (which got a badly needed makeover for the Instinct), video clips from Sprint TV, and the ability to tether the phone to your laptop for on-the-road Net access.
Rounding out the Instinct's features are microSD memory expansion (up to 8GB), a 2MP camera, stereo Bluetooth, and a media manager for sideloading music and videos.
Good stuff, although I should point out that the Instinct's Web browser (or at least the version I saw) looked pretty clunky compared to the iPhone's, and the Instinct's POP/IMAP/Outlook Web access messaging won't be able to match the iPhone's upcoming support for Microsoft Exchange servers. There's also the iPhone's potential as a software platform to consider, now that the iPhone SDK is out in the wild.
And of course, by the time the Instinct arrives in Sprint stores (sometime in mid-June), we may well have a new 3G iPhone on our hands.
No definitive word on pricing for the Instinct quite yet, although I'm told it could be in the $200-250 range.
