Samsung Instinct: Cell Phone is the Perfect iPhone Imitator

It seems that every cell phone company and cell phone manufacturer wants a piece of Apple's iPhone pie. The touch-screen cell phone industry is on the verge of becoming mainstream. The iPhone started it all, but several new cell phones on the market bill themselves as "iPhone killers," offering similar touch-screen software interfaces but promising more features than the iPhone.

Two of the biggest touch-screen cell phone competitors to Apple's iPhone is the LG Dare and the Samsung Instinct. In this article, we will go into an in-depth review of the Samsung Instinct to see whether it is worth the money, or whether you should just go for an iPhone. As they say, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.

A technological review of the Samsung Instinct touchscreen cell phone:

To begin with, the Samsung Instinct looks very similar to the Apple iPhone. It's rectangular and thin, with its front mostly covered with a large touch screen. The Samsung Instinct cell phone is a bit larger than the iPhone, but this size is negligible when you're holding it in your hand.

Unlike some cell phones, the Samsung Instinct feels strong and not like you'll break it if you bend it (like some say the iPod Nano feels like).

I really like the Samsung Instinct's touch screen, although I can't say for sure if it's better than the iPhone's touch-screen. Samsung says that the Instinct's screen can support 262,000 colors. I found that it was very vibrant and easy to read and see, whether in the dark or in the sunlight.

One of my areas of interest was comparing the Samsung Instinct's web browser with the Safari browser on the iPhone. Browsing the Internet on the iPhone is a breeze because it uses a full-featured web browser, not a scaled down, mobile browser. This means every web page you access works just as it should on a regular computer.

While the Internet on the Instinct is not as intuitive or nice, it is still quite better than the old standard of browsing on a cell phone. One thing to note: Samsung's touch screen on the Instinct cell phone is a full inch smaller than the one Apple has on the iPhone. It's not much, but it makes a lot of difference when watching movies or reading the newspaper online.

Using the Instinct for the first time, I found it pretty simple with not much of a learning curve. Like the iPhone, you're greeted with a welcome interface that gives you touch screen shortcuts to things you might want, such as your voicemail, email and the web browser. Speaking of voicemail, Samsung invented a clever, voice-activated voicemail feature that one-ups the iPhone's visual voicemail. Bravo for that!

Call quality seemed satisfactory and clear without any interference, and dialing on the Samsung Instinct was easy. Plus, the Samsung is on Sprint's next-generation wireless network, meaning the cell phone gets great reception and fast browsing speeds.

Young users of the Samsung Instinct will rejoice to see a full-fledged MP3 player built into the cell phone, much like the iPhone or the iPod touch. It works with more file formats than the iPhone, but it doesn't work with the iTunes Store. Too bad, because it works with the Sprint Music Store which barely holds a candle to iTunes' selection. Music quality was fine, and navigating the music player was easy to learn. The Samsung Instinct supports the usual files, as well as AAC and Windows Media files (.WMA).

Overall, the Samsung Instinct is one of the strongest competitors I've seen for the Apple iPhone. Unlike past touch-screen cell phones, which failed at providing a clean user interface, Samsung copied Apple and presented the perfect iPhone imitator, with a few improvements.

It's up to you to see if it's worth $70 a month (the price for Sprint's Simply Everything plan) and $129 upfront after heavy rebates when you sign up for a two-year contract.