When my contract with Sprint renewed this past January I decided to upgrade to a touch screen phone called the Samsung Instinct which I had my eye on for quite some time. Sprint had originally hyped the Samsung Instinct M800 to be the iPhone killer but since it’s release has not produced an app store that can compete. The phone may not be the iPhone killer but it is a great competitor in my opinion!

Despite the fact that third party apps are very limited for the Instinct I feel the phone comes pre loaded with more features than the average user will ever require! I would also like to add that I have not found a better price on service through any other provider since Sprint has started offering the “Everything” plans. All of the Everything plans include unlimited data (internet etc.), unlimited texting, unlimited picture mail and you can even opt for unlimited anytime minutes with the top Everything plan costing only $99. I pay $69 which has unlimited everything with the exception that I have only 450 anytime minutes.

Some of my favorite features on the Samsung Instinct would be:

• The music player allows me to use this phone as my MP3 player
• Expandable memory allows up to an 8 GB SD card
• Sprint Navigation with GPS-enabled audio and visual turn-by-turn driving directions
• Live Search, powered by Microsoft, provides easy access to directory information with integrated GPS-enabled directions and maps
• Visual Voicemail allows you to see who left the message which is stored on the phone for playback
• Threaded text messaging provides you a view of the full conversation with out having to jump back and forth between sent and received messages
• The 2.0 megapixel camera which takes great pictures in well lit area, sadly there is not flash on this phone
• The ability to send and receive email, I use it with Gmail but it can be used with Yahoo, MSN, AOL and others

There are a couple things about this phone which I feel could be improved such as:

• The default web browser is kinda slow and clunky but no worries, just download the Opera Mini browser right to your phone like I did and problem solved
• Also the touchscreen qwerty keyboard is a bit laggy at times

Other than those small issues I really have no complaints about this phone and would highly recommend it!

There is also a Samsung Instinct forum the I’ve found useful for many tips, tricks and questions I’ve had about this phone!