Sprint instinct wifi

The Instinct does not correct your spelling like the iPhone does. Alternatively, you can enter text with a graffiti method. You will have to switch the display's orientation to portrait using the onscreen button--unlike the iPhone, the Instinct doesn't have an accelerometer. When using graffiti mode, the Instinct recognized most of our entries without any problem. The included stylus is a big help for writing in the small space allowed, but unfortunately the Instinct doesn't include a storage slot for the stylus for when you're on the go.

On the left side of the Instinct are a camera shutter, a voice activation control, and the microSD card slot. The camera lens and the self-portrait mirror sit on the back of the Instinct; it's a convenient spot for taking all types of photos. The Instinct comes with a variety of accessories in the box. Besides the requisite charger and headset, you'll also find a USB cable, a software CD, and a carrying case.

There's even an extra battery with a special case. You can power the extra battery with the same charger and keep it on hand when you need emergency power. That's a nice touch. Features The Instinct phone book holds contacts with room in each entry for five phone numbers, an e-mail address, a URL, and notes.

All in all, that's a fairly small set of options for such a high-end phone. On the other hand, you can save callers to groups and you can pair them with a photo and one of 27 polyphonic ringtones.

That's a fair assortment, and we like the design of the settings menu, which allowed us to test one or as many tones as we'd like. The Instinct also offers a vibrate mode for when you need to keep it quiet.

The Instinct steps up the plate in a big way by offering its own version of visual voice mail. Similar to the iPhone, each message is displayed on your screen in list format along with the message sender's ID, the time received, and the length.

You then can listen to messages in the order you choose. The service works just as it's intended. Organizer features are plentiful and include text and multimedia messaging, a calendar, a notepad you can use the keyboard or the graffiti method , a calculator, a unit converter, a tip calculator, an alarm clock, a timer, a stopwatch, and a world clock.

Most of the organizer features are easy to use and we couldn't help but notice that the stopwatch and the timer look exactly as they do on the iPhone. On the downside, the calendar was a bit cramped and it doesn't offer a week view. Also, the world clock was rather buggy.

Instead of typing in the city name, you have to select the exact location on the map and then touch your desired city in the highlighted area. It's a clunky and imprecise process; we kept getting Buenos Aires when we tried to touch the map near New York City. Also, you can only show four cities at one time.

Other features include full Bluetooth with a stereo profile, audible caller ID, a speakerphone, mobile syncing for stored contacts, and USB storage. Samsung included phone-as-modem support, but Sprint has not enabled the feature. The Instinct also offers an extensive voice-command feature that you can use to dial phone numbers or call contacts, address a text or multimedia message, and access information like traffic, sports, weather, or news.

There's no speech-to-text support but the voice-command function does integrate with a nifty Microsoft Live Search. By speaking the name of a business or even the type of business like "pizza" , it will use the phone's GPS connection to search your surrounding location for a match.

You can then get a map and directions to the business, share it with a friend via a message, or call the location with one touch. In our tests it worked quite well. When we tried saying "Maya," we got not only a restaurant located a block away, but also a doctor in Palo Alto, Calif.

And when we tried saying "pizza," we got a long list of choices. This is one of the Instinct's better features. Messaging options are plentiful and we were surprised at the clean and intuitive e-mail integration.

Text messaging and multimedia messaging options are mostly standard but the Instinct goes a step further with its texting. Like the iPhone, it displays the full thread of a text conversation so you don't have to sort through individual messages. Instant messaging was not present, however. That's a disappointing omission on a phone of this caliber. The Instinct does an excellent job with its e-mail features. It's not quite a smartphone, but it's far ahead of most other handsets on the market, including the first iPhone.

We had only to enter our Yahoo account information and we were up and running in no time. You can keep multiple accounts open at once and the Instinct will let you know of new messages by showing a blue star on the Main menu icon. E-mail syncing was rather random. At times, new messages would show up in our in-box automatically, while other times we had to press the Refresh button. Either way, it's not a big deal. Just be aware that the Instinct e-mail application does limit you in a few ways.

The Instinct's in-box can show a maximum of messages, and you can't access individual folders inside your in-box. The latter quirk is particularly troublesome. Also, only messages sent from the phone will show in Instinct's sent box. On the work side, you can connect directly to your e-mail if your company supports Outlook Web Access. We used this method, and again we had our e-mail in minutes. OWA mail is subject to the same limitations described above, but if you need work e-mail on the fly, it's a satisfying option.

Fortunately, any e-mails sent from the phone will appear back on your office computer. Admittedly, that experience isn't as fluid as a smartphone with true Microsoft Exchange server support. You can read but not edit attachments many attachments including word documents and photos. What's more, you can send messages with attachments stored on your phone. We had to download three software updates, which took about 20 minutes, but the updates loaded without incident or a missed connection.

Pressing that button synced the Instinct and my Outlook calendar in just a few seconds. The data connection cut out on our first try, but the second attempt brought success. All of our current appointments then appeared under their appropriate days with the correct times, locations and descriptions. To get back to the calendar from the main menu, we could choose either the calendar or e-mail icons. As Sprint promised, we were able to create a new appointment on the Instinct, which then synced back to our PC automatically.

Also, we could get meeting reminders, accept or decline new appointments, and edit or delete current meetings right on the phone.

Any edits made on the Instinct synced back to our PC in just a few seconds, but the reverse process took a bit longer. Despite that, it was a satisfying experience on the whole. Still, there were a few quirks. If we made a change to one instance of a recurring meeting, it applied only to that specific meeting. We didn't have the option to apply it to every meeting in the series.

What's more, we could get only daily and monthly views--weekly views were not a possibility. The Instinct defaults to separate personal and work calendars, but you don't have to use them.

There's nothing to stop you from entering all events, personal or otherwise, under your work calendar. In any case, that probably is your best bet, considering that since the syncing function doesn't support calendars through IMAP4, e-mail services like Hotmail, AOL, and Yahoo are not supported.

The Instinct's Web browser excited us, but we came away with mixed impressions. It lacks support for Flash, but that's common on devices likes this. Alternatively, we liked that you can choose to see stripped-down mobile versions of pages instead. That's a great option for times when you're away from a fast 3G connection.

What's more, inputting new URLs via the onscreen keyboard was easy. Yet at the end of the day, the browser's interface was disappointing. The actual pages are squashed into a small area of an already small display. That left us feeling rather cramped and we had to do a lot of scrolling to see the whole pages. You can drag the page by moving your finger, but the screen responded slowly with jerky movements. We had the same experience on the LG Voyager ; in other words, it's like the iPhone but not quite as elegant.

Alternately, the Instinct offers a unique Web-panning method for moving around a page. Just hold down the camera shutter that will be on the top of the Instinct since the Web browser defaults to landscape mode and move the phone up and down and from left to right.

The Web page will move correspondingly, which allows you to sweep throughout the page. It's a neat idea but the concept is better than the reality. But it takes more than a label on a tab to make something fun and pleasurable to use. The Samsung Instinct is pleasant to use and we particularly like the Favs tab where you can put your most used applications, web pages and even TV or radio stations as shortcuts.

The touch screen with haptic vibration feedback generally works well- it's responsive and accurate. Not as good as the iPhone's, and there's no multi-touch but it's worlds better than the Samsung Glyde for Verizon we recently reviewed, and on par with the LG Voyager Verizon's fall attempt at an iPhone killer.

The 3. The interface with its tabs reminds us of the Samsung Glyde, LG Voyager and LG Vu, and in terms of form and function, we'd say the Instinct is more aptly a Voyager competitor than an iPhone competitor. In fact, the fierce comparisons with the iPhone may hurt the Instinct because the iPhone is an impossibly tough adversary with a unique user interface. The Instinct is no iPhone duh and while it's generally easy to use, it hasn't found that holy grail of near-perfect usability combined with the iPhone's fun factor.

Sprint TV has been enhanced on the Instinct and fills up a large portion of the x pixel display in landscape orientation. Video quality is variable, from fairly sharp and in-sync to blocky, balky, and seriously out of sync, even with 1 bar short of a full signal. Generally, the stronger the signal, the better the video quality on the Instinct, but we found it hard to get a full strength signal unless we were outdoors and the Instinct's display is nearly impossible to view outdoors.

Like the LG Voyager, the Instinct is large and isn't a lightweight at 4. It's not too wide to be comfy in hand, even for a woman though and we really like the black soft-touch finish on the back, making it one of the few touch screen feature phones that isn't too darned slippery to hold. The Instinct is attractive and looks more chic and high-ticket than the Voyager but not as good as the glass, metal and chrome iPhone. The entire front surface is covered with highly reflective clear plastic that shows fingerprints and creates glare.

The screen is quite hard to see outdoors but looks good indoors as long as you avoid windows and overhead lights which bring out the glare. Fingerprint smudges increase the glare, so keep this baby polished. Three touch controls live below the display: the back button, home button and what looks like a call end key but is actually a phone functions keys: it brings up the phone-related applications at any time with a press.

The buttons aren't really buttons, they're touch-sensitive controls and they require a much harder press than the display. However, you need not beat on it, as we sometimes felt we had to do with the Glyde and it's easier to adjust to the required pressure than the HTC Touch Diamond which requires more finesse.

Swiping, tapping and scrolling work well enough, though occasionally we found ourselves accidentally selecting an item in a list we didn't want when finger-scrolling. The screen automatically locks after a set period of time you can set the timeout. Unlocking the screen is annoying-- first you must press the power button to wake up the phone, then you must press and hold the power button until the device unlocks.

If you don't hold it down long enough the screen turns off again but if you hold it too long the phone doesn't power off, thankfully. We're thrilled that the screen doesn't turn off during a phone call so you can use the on-screen keypad, speaker controls and etc. To hang up a call, you must slide the red end call button on screen; just tapping it doesn't work. To dial a number, select the keypad from the 4-tabbed phone application the tabs are Speed Dial, Contacts, History and Dialer , tap out your numbers on the large keypad then hit the green window near the top that shows the numbers you've tapped in so far.

Kinda weird-- when you first open the dialer that green window says "TALK" with a phone icon beside it; just the kind of thing you'd figure you should press to start the call. Once it shows numbers instead, it's a bit unintuitive. On the sides, the Instinct has dedicated keys for voice command, the camera and volume yay! Sprint includes both a stereo earbud headset and a 2 gig starter card: very nice!

In fact they also include a stylus though there's no silo on the phone to stash it , a second battery with external charger and a slip case.

Good stuff. A picture tells a thousand words, so we'll show you a video of the 4 tab UI rather than describe it. I will say that the UI is very responsive, accurate when it comes to touch and fairly fast. Most everything we wanted on a high end phone is here, except a file manager. When entering data, in most cases the phone presents you with a landscape keyboard, though sometimes it's portrait orientation. In most but not all cases, you can tap an on-screen button to switch orientations.

As you'd guess, the landscape keyboard is easier to type on since the virtual keys are larger, but neither is hard to use as long as you're sitting still riding in bumpy train or car gets a little hairy.

Occasionally, you'll run into a data entry event that is inconsistent. When we first launched the Navigation application it wanted us to register with first name, last name and email address. The first and last name fields got a landscape keyboard and the email address field got a portrait orientation keyboard with no option to switch. But wait, there's more! The Instinct also sports handwriting recognition, a relative rarity outside of PDA phones.

The phone comes with a stylus in the box, though there's no place to store it in the phone and you can use it or any PDA stylus to enter text via print or cursive. This works passably if you're right handed and poorly if you're a lefty with nasty scrawl like me. The phone uses dictionary lookup to figure out the word you wrote. NB: make sure to put a space between your works using a left to right stroke, otherwise the phone will assume everything is one word, baffling the dictionary.

Our advice? Leave the stylus in the box and stick with the on-screen keyboard. Handwriting recognition is offered only in portrait mode likely because your hand would tend to touch the screen in landscape mode, confusing the recognizer. Like the iPhone, most application settings live in the Settings application rather than as menu items or buttons in the application. These include web browser preferences, Speech to Action prefs, volume, display, Bluetooth, Mobile Sync and ringers.

Remember when a phone was just a phone? Forget those memories. Right click on the COM port you want to change. Left click on Properties. Click on the Port Settings tab. Click on the Advanced… button. Use the drop down list to select the COM port number you want to use. Click OK. Click on OK again and close Device Manager. On the main screen on the right, make sure the settings are as follows:.

This is where some people have problems. Your Samsung Instinct is actually on 2 ports at the same time. So in my case, 5 did not work. I had to use port 4. So If your computer said your phone was on port 5, try ports 3 and 6. One of them will work. Password 16 digits —————— samsung this is the default. Is your MSL. Congratulations, you can now find hidden secrets on your phone. If you want to change your MSL code you can. Well, this is relatively easy. And if you followed my other instructions, you should have very good browsing speed.

Sprint disabled the USB option we had before. But we are sneaky, and figured out that you can either take the memory card out of the phone, which makes the computer not sense the phone as a storage unit, allowing you to PAM. Samsung Wireless — Shop today at the Samsung Wireless store.

Samsung Instinct has so many possibilities, it is crazy. Here we go:. Some have reported a success in forcing the phone to be forced into using the EVDO mode faster than any other cell company out , instead of taking the CDMA mode slower if it is available. I myself, have not changed it permanently , as I saw my speeds actually slowing down. I average 2Mbps to 5Mbps on my speed tests. That is insane fast! So what you just did there was two things. Factory settings do not allow that. You may choose to dismiss the call or text, or take it.

After you hang up, the Internet browser or TV will resume playing. That is one of the coolest and best tricks for someone with a cell phone and a serious need for an internet connection. You just activated your Samsung instinct as a modem setting. Now, how do you configure your hacked Samsung Instinct to work?

All MSL codes are different for every Sprint phone. You must have this code to access the locked functions on your Samsung Instinct. Yes it increases your internet browsing quite a bit. Works on all Samsung phones with a Multimedia buffer. The Samsung instinct comes with this feature turned off.

Calls go to VM when you do not unlock this feature. Who has seen that geeky guy at Starbucks or the park, surfing the internet without WiFi in the area, or has a phone connected to his laptop?

That means I can connect to the internet on my PC or laptop anywhere I get a data signal. I even went 3 months without my cable internet service and just used my Samsung Instinct. Not quite as fast as my cable, but it was faster than some of my friends broadband home service. Why spend money on a EVDO card or a card that gets internet access you pay for the service like other types of broadband such as cable or DSL , when you can just hack your Samsung Instinct?

You are walking around with a modem in your pocket.