Samsung phone has a lot of good instincts

Ever since the iPhone went on sale last summer, cell-phone companies and manufacturers have been doing everything they can to steal some of Apple and AT&T's thunder by releasing iPhone clones. And with the second version of the iPhone -- the iPhone 3G --going on sale on Friday, expect the attack of the clones to continue.

The newest clone, the Samsung Instinct from Sprint, is the best effort yet to mimic the iPhone's simplicity, elegant hardware and interface and overall fun factor. As with the iPhone, you're able to immediately pick up the Instinct and start using it without having to consult the manual.

The Instinct also gets points for stealing some of the iPhone's best features, such as visual voice mail, and adding ones the iPhone lacks, such as external storage (it comes with a 2GB microSD card that can hold about 2,000 songs), more buttons, a removable battery, a stylus and voice-activated commands.

But what the Instinct (and the other iPhone clones) has failed to do is create a phone that's not only a phone, but a whole new platform that comes close to the experience of using a computer. Case in point: the Web browser. Surfing the Internet on the iPhone is almost identical to doing it on a computer. On the Instinct, it still feels like you're browsing the Web on a phone. Also, while Sprint says developers are free to create applications for the Instinct, unlike the iPhone, there are no plans for a formalized store where users can download some of the coolest applications.The phone costs $130 (after a $100 rebate and with a two-year contract), $70 less than the cheapest iPhone 3G. Service plans start at $70, which is comparable to the new iPhone plans, except all of the Instinct plans include unlimited text messaging.

Both phones are black rectangular slabs with a large video screen and no physical keyboard. Many of the on-screen icons and colors are also similar to the iPhone, such as sliding your finger on a virtual bar to enable something. Both are digital music and video players and cameras, though only the Instinct can record video.

The Instinct has more than one fixed button to access features. There's a home button, a phone button and a back button. The back button is especially useful because you don't have to go all the way back to the home screen every time you want to do something else.

A glaring omission in the Instinct's hardware is the lack of Wi-Fi connectivity, which would have made this phone even more attractive because having Wi-Fi gives you another option for getting online if you can't get a cell signal.

The phone's interface is divided into logical and accurately labeled sections: favorites, main, fun and Web. The favorites section saves you loads of time by letting you add buttons to launch your favorite activities, such as calling or sending a text message to a particular person, launching a Web site or even opening a specific live radio or TV station.

The Instinct's applications play nice with each other, so when there's a phone number, e-mail address or address on the screen, you can tap it to dial the number, send an e-mail, or get turn-by-turn, voice-guided GPS driving directions. You can also find local businesses by speaking what you are looking for, such as "Thai food" or "libraries."

Typing on the Instinct's virtual keyboard is pretty easy to master, especially since you can display the on-screen keyboard in a horizontal mode, giving you more space. But there is no predictive text and the auto correct function isn't great. Alternatively, you can use the stylus to write on the screen, but the handwriting recognition is hit or miss.

Setting up an e-mail is as simple as selecting your e-mail service and typing in your username and password.

You can also set up a work e-mail address, and e-mail is pushed to you so the phone automatically checks for new messages and notifies you when one comes in.

But viewing some messages and attachments on the Instinct is pretty difficult, which limits the business uses of the phone.

Although the Instinct is a touch-screen phone, it's not a multitouch phone, which is a crippling blow for its Web browser. Reading a Web page on any mobile device is going to require a lot of resizing and zooming. The iPhone makes this easier by being a multitouch phone, so you can pinch Web pages with two fingers to change the size.

The Instinct doesn't have pinching so you have to rely on zoom and resize buttons, which takes more time and is frustrating. You can use your finger to scroll up and down on a page, but it was hard not to click on links when doing this. Unlike the iPhone, you can only have one Web page up at a time and you can only view Web pages horizontally, which makes it hard to read long news articles.

I don't think many people will (or should) switch carriers to get the Instinct, but it's a great device for Sprint customers looking for a stylish and easy-to-use phone with lots of multimedia and communication features.