Home › Reviews ›

Review: Samsung Instinct

Body Basics Extras Video Wrap Up Comments 100+

Screen

Smudge factor aside, the Instinct's screen is nice, but not astounding by any stretch of the imagination. To our eyes, all the icons, images and pictures had a soft look to them. I am not sure if this is an issue with the screen or the design of the UI, but the lack of sharpness, even of images, left me wanting to continually rub the screen to remove a non-existent film that gave it a clouded look. What's more, the screen is darn near impossible to view when outdoors. With indirect sunlight, making out text and icons was difficult at best.

Signal

The Instinct's signal indicator ranged wildly all over the place. Sitting on my couch, the Instinct has zero bars. Moving to another spot in my living room (we're talking six feet away), and it suddenly had 5 bars. Walking into my kitchen dropped the signal strength to 3 bars. Even when stationary, signal strength waffled between 0 bars and 2 bars most of the time. Granted, Sprint's network is not really strong where I live, but this is below-par performance. This made for lots of dropped calls. I was often in the middle of a conversation when the call was dropped, and the phone gave me the "Entering Sprint Service Area" message. Clearly the dropped call is related to poor signal strength.

Sound

Calls that went through and remained connected sounded very good. There was only the slightest amount of hiss every so often. Never were callers garbled or difficult to understand. The ringer could be made plenty loud, as could music through the phone's ear piece speaker.

Battery

We've only been able to pass the Instinct through one charge/discharge cycle since we've had it. The battery lasted for three full days, with consistent usage, including phone calls, speakerphone, music listening and web browsing.

Next page: Touch

Related

Hands On with the T-Mobile SyncUp Kids Watch

There have been a number of "smartwatches" for kids in recent years. They all have GPS and let you keep tabs on your kid's location, and offer some limited forms of communication.

Video: Live Demo of Snapdragon AI Noise Suppression

Qualcomm has a new AI-based noise suppression technology that does an amazing job of singling out your voice and removing all other sounds in the background. How well does it work?

Samsung Refines its Foldable Phones

Aug 10, 2022
Samsung has announced its newest generation of foldable phones: the Galaxy Z Fold4 and Galaxy Z Flip4. Both have similar designs and features compared to their predecessors, with a slew of small updates and refinements across the board.

TCL's Newest Concept Phone has a Matte Screen

TCL is showing off a concept phone at CES that it calls the NXTPAPER Phone, a phone that implements the paper-like display technology the company has put in some of its recents tablets. Unlike almost all other phones on the market today, the display surface has a matte finish, somewhat like paper, instead of the usual glossy glass.

CAT Puts Android With Play Store in a Compact Flip Design

Sep 16, 2021
T-Mobile has started selling the CAT S22 Flip, a unique phone that blurs the line between smartphone and flip phone. The S22 Flip has the size and design of a typical rugged flip phone, but its 2.8-inch main display is a touch screen that provides access to the full Android interface, including third-party Android apps.

Samsung Instinct M800

3.2" display 240 x 432 pixels
1,000 mAh battery
Memory Card Slot, Headphone Jack (3.5mm)

more news about: