The Music Gallery

The Samsung Instinct is a touch-screen smartphone.

The front face is pretty simple. It’s got three buttons in the front.

ON the left side you’ll see the hatch which is for the data port. You also have the volume toggle. Unlike some phones, these buttons have good “travel and feedback,” i.e., you can easily tell that you’re pressing them to adjust the volume.

On the right side, you’ve got the micro SD hatch (with hot swapping available). Also on that side is the voice-activation feature and the camera button.

On the back is the lens for the 2 megapixel camera along with the vanity mirror.

On the top is the port for the 3-1/2 mm headset jack as well as the lock and the power button.

On the front again, the Samsung Instinct has four icons along the bottom:

Favorites Main Fun Web

The home screen is fully customizable. You can add applications to it easily. For example it is quite easy to add a link to the web browser with a couple of finger clicks.

And speaking of finger clicks, the Samsung Instinct uses haptic technology, i.e., it gives you tactile feedback when you click the buttons onscreen.

The main menu on the Samsung Instinct is a standard grid. It gives you access to the phone’s software, tools and functions.

One square on the grid is for “Fun” which is where you find the music player, the camera, access to shopping, radio, games, and applications.

The “Web” square will load the browser and give you access to localized information, i.e., weather reports, etc.

If you touch the phone button on the bottom front face of the Samsung Instinct, it brings up a speed dial page. The icons along the bottom of the screen change, displaying speed dial, contacts, calling history and the dialer.

Once you’ve dialed a call, you have onscreen buttons available for mute and un-mute, turning the speaker phone on and off, ending the call, accessing your contacts and also accessing the dialpad again. Ending a call is easy — just move the onscreen slider and you’ve hung up. After that you have onscreen buttons that allow you to redial and/or save the number to your contacts list.

The Samsung Instinct is easy to use. For example if you want to add a contact, go to the contacts page and press the plus symbol — you’ll get a simple form to fill in. Press any of the fields and you’ll get access to the on screen keyboard.

The Samsung Instinct also uses “handwriting recognition,” i.e., you can draw a letter on the screen instead of tapping it out on the keypad.

The browser on the Samsung Instinct automatically reorients the phone into the landscape view. The home page is customized for the Instinct with recommended sites already set. YOu can use your finger to scroll the browser window up and down. Or you can hold down the camera key and tilt the phone up and back — that will scroll the display as well. Cool!

There are also some onscreen icons along the left edge of the screen. One activates additional icons along the right edge of the screen for search, home, favorites and refresh. Another toggles between standard and full HTML mode. Yet another onscreen button on left side allows you to easily zoom in on whatever is showing in the broswer window.

The music player on the Samsung Instinct is easily access from the main grid. Push the music player button and you’ll get a menu with items such as playlists, artists, all songs, albums, genres and options — standard fare for ipod-like players. When you play a song, it will display album artwork. You have onscreen controls for rewind, play/pause, fast forward as well as shuffle and repeat. One thing the Samsung Instinct does not have is an EQ button to refine the sound output. What you hear is what you get.

The camera is launched through the side button. It is a no-frills affair — not a lot of options. In the lower left, a display counter shows you how many pix you have left; lower right launches your gallery; and upper right will start the video recorder/player.

In your gallery, on the left side of the Samsung Instinct’s display you have a delete button, a bluetooth button for sending pix, and a play button for videos. On the right side of the display you have a button to take you back to the camera, a button for emailing pix, an upload button for sending your pix to flickr or whomever, and also a button that launches a copycat version of cover flow, where you can flip through your pix with your finger. No picture editing tools come on board the Samsung Instnct, however.

Messaging with the Instinct is straightforward — hit the button on the main grid and you are on your way. You can choose between text or picture messages.

Bottom line: the Samsung Instinct provides you with a very pleasant experience. There is a lot to like about this phone. Fast browsing, a nice music player, a so-so camera, and the haptic interface. On that last point, occasionally the interface would not respond as fast as it should (or at all). The opposite would also occasionally happen: it did feel as though you had pressed it but nothing happened.

All in all, however, it has a ton of features found in more expensive phones, it’s a nice looking phone, feels good in your hand, and you’ll be happy you bought it.

By: Ara Rubyan

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