\nUS CDMA carrier, Sprint PCS released its answer to the iPhone on June 20th. It’s called the Samsung Instinct (SCH-M800) and while it’s no match for the iPhone it’s still a nice device in many respects. With a large (but smaller than the iPhone’s) 3.1 inch touch screen with haptic feedback, no physical keyboard, threaded voicemail and SMS and a full-web browser, the Instinct matches some of the best known features of Apple’s phone and even has a few things the iPhone doesn’t including MMS, stereo headphone support, a video camera and Live TV.<\/p>\n
The Instinct also has some shortcomings compared to the iPhone; no calendar sync, limited email capabilities, no installable native applications. But the harshest criticism of the Instinct both in reviews and user comments seems to be reserved for the Teleca Obigo<\/em> Web browser. It’s not a terrible browser, the screen shot above shows what it can do, but it’s a long way from Safari in terms of speed, rendering quality, ease of use, compatibility with websites and JavaScript support. There are also reports of browser stability issues<\/a>. In a video comparison<\/a> with the iPhone and LG Vu, Noah Kravitz at PhoneDog.com rated the Instinct browser below not only Safari on the iPhone but S60WebKit, Opera Mobile and Mini and even Mobile Internet Explorer.<\/p>\n
Opera Mini forum moderator and QA specialist, ManneS has indicated<\/a> that they are looking at the issues but that they won’t create a special version of Opera Mini just for the Instinct. I can’t blame them, the same generic (and only) version of Opera Mini runs on hundreds of phone models from all manufacturers. The Instinct JVM is what is broken, it’s Qualcomm, Samsung and Sprint’s responsibility to fix it not Opera’s.<\/p>\n
On their developer forum, Sprint has acknowledged the problem and says it will be fixed<\/a> via an OTA firmware update within two months.<\/p>\n
A breakthrough came a few days ago when a web developer who goes by the handle, “shucklak” on both MyOpera and the new Sprint Instinct Forum creted a web app with URL and Google search input fields and an onscreen keyboard. That means you can browse to any URL and do Google searches with Mini 3.1 on the Instinct. Shucklak’s web app is at proceemo.com\/bookmarks<\/a>. The problem of course is how to get to that URL with no way to type it into Opera Mini on the Instinct. Easy, the link has been posted on MyOpera.com which is one of the built in bookmarks in Opera Mini.
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Here’s how to get Opera Mini working on the instinct.<\/p>\n
\nIf you register at proceemo.com\/bookmarks<\/a> you can create a page of personalized bookmarks that you can use in Opera Mini. Of course you can create bookmarks in Opera Mini itself, but using Proceemo lets you set them up on a PC and has the advantage that they will not be lost if you have to hard reset your Instinct and reinstall Opera Mini.<\/p>\n
I don’t have an Instinct so if you do I’d love to hear about your experiences<\/a> with browsing on this phone.<\/p>\n
Instinct image courtesy of Sprint<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US CDMA carrier, Sprint PCS released its answer to the iPhone on June 20th. It’s called the Samsung Instinct (SCH-M800) and while it’s no match for the iPhone it’s still a nice device in many respects. With a large (but smaller than the iPhone’s) 3.1 inch touch screen with haptic feedback, no physical keyboard, threaded voicemail and SMS and a full-web browser, the Instinct matches some of the best known features of Apple’s phone and even has a few things … Continue reading