Wirelessnorth.ca

[This report brought to you by special correspondent  Andrew Duchesne of Teclaration.com and Gadgetnorth.com. Thanks Andrew! -ed]

Well last night I was privileged to be on the VIP guest list to the official Canadian Launch of the Samsung Instinct, and it was quit an affair. Held in Downtown Toronto at the “Social” club as well different locals in Vancouver ad Montreal, there was lots of Champagne flowing, lights flashing and good groves pumping. There were a couple handfuls of Instincts to play with and 5 to be given away….Ahem..I did not win one??? On to the good stuff.

I found the instinct to be very sturdy, it feels well made as do most Samsung products, the instinct fits very well in your hands, dare I say even better than the iPhone It is not as slippery feeling and can be gripped a little easier as well thanks to it’s narrower width. The home screen is eye pleasing and easy to navigate and to get back to with its home key button, 1 of 3 buttons you have a choice of using ( Home , Back, Call). I found it easy to return to your last position at any time by just using the back arrow key. The camera worked very well, as did the video, and browser. I could of used a little more screen landscape for the browser though as the side menus took up some valuable space. Texting seemed easy as did the IM chat, the screen automatically goes into landscape position for certain apps as opposed to having to tilt the phone to go in that direction (there is no accelerometer involved here).

I see this phone fitting in with the younger crowed very easily as you don’t need to be a computer person to use or navigate it. It is a cell phone with a great touch screen and navigation systems. Their demo graphic is bang on I believe for anyone between 14 to 30 something this phone does the job well. It is not an iPhone killer, but what is, but I also believe the iPhone to be for a different breed of user than this Samsung. The Instinct will fill the middle market I think very well from a Cost point ($149.00 3 year plan) as well as socially with Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and its ease of use, and also the Samsung brand name.

I liked this phone …enough to recommend it to people who I believe are looking for more than just a cell phone, but not looking to go to the iPhone, or a Blackberry.

Oh I also found the Instinct slightly easier to type on than the iPhone, at least for these pudgy fingers. Here are the Instincts Features in case you missed them:

• Dual mode, dual band digital phone (1.9GHz & 800MHz)
• Operates on both the Bell core network and the Bell high speed mobile network
• Integrated digital music player (MP3) and access to Bell’s Full track Music downloads
• External memory card slot allows you to store and carry additional pictures, videos and music up to 8GB
• Quick access to popular content including Facebook, News, Sports and Weather highlights
• GPS turn-by-turn navigation
• Windows Live™ Messenger and Windows Live™ Hotmail
• HTML Mobile Browser™
• SMS/Text messaging capable* with full qwerty keyboard
• 2.0 megapixel camera, with 4x digital zoom
• Video camera
• Picture/Video messaging capable*
• Mass storage tool to transfer MP3s, pictures and videos to and from your PC
• Backup Manager support
• Bluetooth 2.0 enabled.