Samsung Instinct SPH-M800 user reviews (black, Sprint)

Pros Haptic touch screen
Good alarm clock
okay sound quality
some features that iPhone does not have

Cons Not a smartphone
Cooked the included memory chip
Sometimes will not charge and phone stops charging with an overheat error
Flimsy Screen that flexes too easily
Touch inaccuracy
music player crashes too much
battery finishes too soon

Summary I think apple needs to offer the iPhone for sprint and other carriers soon or the Blackberry storm needs to be available for other carriers soon. Poor imitations like this are no good. The instinct cannot match the iphone even though Sprint claims it is better. Do not buy this phone if you want something that will impress. It feels like a toy phone bought from a toy store. It is not a real phone with guts...

Pros I absolutely fell in love with the virtual voicemail feature. It's easy to use, even for the tech-challenged. The voice activated "411" and "speed-dial" is AMAZING and worth every penny. It's very black and white, but vivid. Also VERY finger friendly

Cons The GPS is VERY choppy. The touch screen is buggy, and there is no T9 for texting. The calendar is no good for reoccurring schedules. Camera is slow, and not detailed for close up. Web is not consistent, or well-fitting to screen.

Summary This is a pretty good phone, and it's size and weight are very appealing. I think that the virtual voicemail is extremely appealing, and am wondering why more phones don't have this.
There is a great feature for speed dialing your contact list with just saying the name the way you typed it into your contact list, it's SO helpful! You don't have to program anything! just push a button and say "Mom" and before you know it it's ringing!
This does the same thing with local businesses! This is the "Live Search" feature. You can say "Wal Mart" and it will give you a list of all the walmarts in the area. Even if you don't know the business name, you can say "pizza" and get a bunch of pizza shops! This is great, and unlimited, so you wont have to ever dial 411 again.
You can't change any "desktop" photo, or really even re-agrrange the menu much, but you can set a screensaver pic, and set a favorite's menu for easy access. The skin is grey and black and white, which is kinda drab, but also classy and simple. There are nice vivid icons.
There is a TON of space on this phone for music and pictures, and it comes with a mini-sd card. SO NEAT! Then, it also comes with a mini-sd adaptar so you can use it like a regular memory card elsewhere! Also, it comes with a usb cable for easy syncing with your computer/charging.
I'm not impressed with the calendar. It's good for checking what day of the week it is, or if you somehow forgot how many months there are in a year... lol. I'm irritated that this "smart" phone doesn't allow you to schedule reoccurring tasks.
Situational GPS is not acceptable for if you're actually lost.
The touch screen has a nice sensitivity adjustment, but even over a few months it goes stale and you end up touching things multiple times before your choice registers. Also after about 1/2 a year the overall quality of the touch screen plummits. For instance it will recognize that you pushed a "button" or "link" but nothing will happen until you press it two or more times. But, only sometimes. Sometimes it will still work fine.
The web is annoying, because often you'll have to scroll right to left to read a full line of text, which is annoying after even a few paragraphs. However, being able to link up to your e-mails, and other online accounts is easy, and VERY convenient for on the go checking.
The camera is great for general use, and I love how you don't have to keep a picture saved in your album, to keep it as a caller ID picture. Even the video is nice! It has a kinda slow shutter speed though. I feel like it was faster when I first got it. The pictures can upload directly to your myspace which is cool. Movies upload as well, but are VERY low quality once on your computer. :(
Also, with time, using things, like viewing your pix, or loading or an app becomes seemingly FOREVER slow. I find about once a month I have to turn off the phone and take out the battery, and restart to get a smoother use out of it.
The phone comes with an extra battery which is really impressive, and nice, but I never use it.
Music plays well, but I'm under qualified to review on that. The sprint TV is cool, but sometimes so slow it wont load.
There are cool weather and news features to keep you up to date, and I DO like those.
Text is glitchy with not much control over the auto-correct feature. It's more of a hassle than a help.
I VERY excitedly got this phone in September, after seeing DOZENS of adds placing it as an equal to the iphone. But frankly, it's the iphone's under-developed little sister that the parents love "just as much." (But we all know who's actually more talented)
For what it is, the phone is really quite impressive. Especially to those of you upgrading from a boring standard cell phone. I just wish that I was more aware of what this phone lacked, before I purchased it.
The long-term durability of the phone is lacking too. When you become entirely reliant on a touch screen, it gets super annoying to have it slow down and get buggy. I've read tons of reviews of people in the same boat as me that loved it to start, but quickly the software fades, and requires the "battery out reboot." I would recommend this phone for about 85% of people looking for a cool phone... But to the rest of us, who are true connoisseurs of technology, you'll become quickly bored with this phone.
I miss buttons!

Pros It is lightweight, attractive, and easy to use.

Cons I hate the 30-second automatic shutoff. The user should be able to choose a longer time for the phone to stay on. I spend more time turning it back on than using it.

Summary This phone is a teenager's dream -- lots of memory for contacts, music and videos - but almost none for the calendar and notes. Adults/business people who want a portable PC should stay away from this cute little gadget. The calendar is limited to 70 entries, which means that you constantly have to delete appointments, making this device unusable as a record of your appointments. Additionally, it comes with a disc that purports to connect to your PC, except that it doesn't (sorry, they say). The storage space on the notes is so limited, you constantly have to dump information from there as well. It is cute and lightweight but useless for business purposes. The promotional materials made it sound like a PPC, which totally misled my husband into buying one for both of us, without mentioning its limitations in the calendar and notes funtions. I am working on transferring my new contacts to my previous PPC and selling this one.

Pros Inexpensive
Great responsive touchscreen
Qwerty keyboard
MP3 player
Speech to Action
HTML Browser

Cons Texts
Bad web Java / Support
No flash/zoom on Camera when taking pictures
Small internal memory
No accelerometer

Summary Overall this is not my favorite phone. It is fun for a little while but you soon realize that it is lacking in comparison to some other touch phones. The MP3 player can only be controlled when the touch screen is unlocked, so it's not easily controlled in your pocket.
The text option is not very good. You can only send texts up to 140 characters long, it's very easy to make mistakes when sending texts, the letters can not keep up when typing texts and when I receive texts from other people in my address book it only shows their number and not their name.
One thing to consider is that the phone is very inexpensive. So even though it may be lacking some options, it's a nice touch phone for the price.