Ouch. Seems Samsung and Sprint tried to bring an Instinct to an iPhone fight. At least that’s how venerable Wall Street Journal columnist and “D” All Things Digital tech yoda Walt Mossberg made it sound in his iClonic “review” (to be fair, the still unreleased iPhone 3G gets more attention — and love — than the unfortunately release-timed Instinct).
How does Mossberg sum up his feelings, some several paragraphs and umpteen iPhone mentions, references, and comparisons down?
If you’re a devoted Sprint customer, or want to avoid AT&T, the Instinct is an OK choice. But it’s no iPhone.
Watch the video accompanying video after the break!
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Posted on Saturday, May 17, 2008 by Rene Ritchie
Tags: BlackBerry, blackberry 9000, blackberry bold, iTunes, rim, samsung instinct, sprint, this-week-in-smartphone-schadenfreude, thurrott, Treo, treo 800w, windows mobile
File Under:This Week in Shadenfreude
Not evil twin to Phone Different Week in Review, not an invasion by Fake Steve, This Week in Smart Phone Schadenfreude brings you all the feel-better news you need about the smartphone world outside Apple’s current media dominator. (Who knew there was such a world? We were just as surprised! Inelegant, interface challenged, keyboardy, crashy, single-touchy place — best not to linger…). Join us as we mock review the big news from last week at our sister sites. Everybody loves sibling rivalry!
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Either Gizmodo is pulling a CES-TV-Blackout caliber gag, or Sprint has done lost their iCloning minds:
Starting May 9th, Sprint will begin a massive, $100 million marketing campaign aimed straight at the iPhone’s nether regions. Stacking its 3G Instinct against the iPhone, Sprint hopes to show that EVDO and GPS make their product way better than anything coming out of Cupertino.
Wha-wha-wha-what?!
What will $100 million buy the Samsung Instinct? Ads. Ads that compare them spec-for-spec with last year’s iPhone…
Daring Fireball’s John Gruber sums it up well:
[I]t boggles the mind that Sprint is hanging a $100 million dollar advertising campaign on two features — GPS and EVDO networking — that the iPhone is widely-rumored to be picking up in its next-generation hardware. Worse, side-by-side, even in commercials commissioned by Sprint, the Instinct looks like crap next to an iPhone — the screen is way smaller and way less bright.
What’s clear is that Sprint is run by MBA-trained executives who see everything as a general “business” problem. In their minds, the same things apply to selling phones as toothpaste. How about this idea: Take $100 million and use it to design a better phone?
What do you think?
