Thursday, April 3, 2008

A Phone With TV, Radio, Music, G.P.S. and Camcorder

The Apple iPhone may have raised the ante for smartphone design last year, but the competition is not just sitting around. Although it has a similar slablike form and touch screen function, the new Samsung Instinct has a few special features of its own, as well as a monogamous marriage with Sprint as its wireless carrier.

If you don’t actually have any calls to make, the phone offers plenty of multimedia options to pass the time, like e-mail, Sprint TV for live and on-demand video, the Sprint Music Store for wireless song downloads and Sprint Radio with 150 streaming channels. The Instinct has a G.P.S. function that gives you directions on screen or by voice, as well as a built-in camcorder and 2-megapixel camera with a 2x zoom.

Pricing is not yet final, but the phone will be available in June; details are available at www.nowisgood.com.

As for high-speed surfing, the Instinct can use Sprint’s EV-DO mobile broadband network for zippier download speeds than the iPhone can muster on AT&T’s Edge network.

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