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Samsung Instinct HD (Sprint) Video

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Samsung Instinct HD (Sprint)
Created: 09/30/2009
Video description: The Samsung Instinct HD packs a lot of features and satisying performance into a slick design. Yet, at this price we have a hard time recommending it over a full smartphone.

Samsung Instinct HD (Sprint) Video Transcript

[ Music ] ^m00:00:03

>> Hi I'm Kent German, senior editor here at CNET.com. Today we'll take a first look at the Samsung Instinct HD. It's a phone for Sprint service. This is an update to the original Instinct which came out in 2008, and the Instinct S30 which came out early this year. This phone is a real update to that original Instinct. It's a little sleeker, more rounded corners here on the top and the on the sides. It is a little bigger than that original phone as well, but didn't really mind that. Really fits comfortably for typing, for looking at the browser, for interacting with that touchscreen. The touchscreen is 3.2 inches, really rich resolution, so very nice display; easy on the eyes, colors, graphics, they all look really great. Touch interface is pretty responsive. The menu design is very similar to the original Instinct. There's a few pages - there's a main page which has most of your organizer features, there's a fun page for multimedia, and there's a My Stuff page that has games and some customization options. Also there's a dedicated web menu, and there's a favorites menu that you can populate with your most used features. Each menu page can have a couple of designs, so you can just do a simple list, or you can have big tiles or sort of icons. Very intuitive, easy to find your way around, a lot of customization options, which I liked. There's 3 touch controls, just below you'll find a back button, a home button, and a calling button. And the calling button takes you to a second series of menus. You can get your contacts, recent calls list, visual voicemail, speed dial numbers, and also the phone dialer. The phone has an accelerometer that will change between vertical and horizontal orientation automatically. There's also a button relay to do the same thing. The multimedia features are pretty extensive. One of the biggest attractions of this phone, at least Sprint and Samsung are pushing, is it does have an HD capable camcorder. It's important to note though, that you can't actually watch the HD quality videos on the phone, you just get sort of a scaled down version. You'll have to connect to a HD capable monitor or TV with a TV out cable, and watch it there. Beyond the camera you'll find Wi-Fi which is great, it wasn't on the first 2 Instincts so we're very happy to see it here. The phone also comes with a lot of widgets for Facebook, My Space, Twitter, You Tube. Overall the phone is very multimedia intensive, has a lot to offer with a camera, has a lot to offer with social media, with browsing. It is rather expensive though. It's about 249 dollars, which is actually more than the HTC Hero, which is Sprint's first Google android phone, and a full fledged Smart Phone. So you're going to be paying a lot for these high end multimedia features that you may, or may not, really use. I'm Kent German and this is the Samsung Instinct HD. ^m00:02:36 [ Music ]

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Samsung Instinct HD SPH-M850 (Sprint) Review

Editors' rating

The good: The Samsung Instinct HD offers a sleek design with an attractive user interface and a brilliant display. Its HD-capable camera is one of the best around, photo and video quality are sharp, and the loaded feature set includes Wi-Fi.

The bad: The Samsung Instinct HD was sluggish at times, and call quality isn't the sharpest. The Opera 9.7 browser takes some getting used to, and the memory card slot is located behind the battery cover, which is inconvenient. It's also quite expensive.

The bottom line: The Samsung Instinct HD packs a lot of features and decent performance into an appealing design. But even with all it has to offer, we'd prefer to pay less and get a full smartphone.

Read full review

Samsung Instinct HD SPH-M850 (Sprint) Specs

Manufacturer: Samsung
Part number: SPHM850BSS

Product Basic Spec
  • Product Basic Spec

Read full specs

Samsung Instinct HD SPH-M850 (Sprint) Prices

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