The Treo Pro is coming to the U.S. via Sprint on January 25 for $549.99, before rebates. Also expect to see a pink Instinct available in early January. I’m curious to see how many pink Instincts they actually sell. My guess is that we’ll see a few of them among the pink-loving teenage girls who text each other every 10 seconds. Maybe this and a new Android phone will help Sprint come back from the 3 million customers it has lost this year. Probably not.

via Engadget

Over the weekend, Instinct owners discovered they had a new patch awaiting them courtesy of Sprint and Samsung. Anxiously awaiting the patch that will bring keyboard support to Java applications on the Instinct? This isn’t it. It does, however, give the browser a bit of much needed love.

According to the patch notes (available after the jump), this release (BH29 – catchy name, right?) just about finishes off the UI changes that they began rolling out over the last patch or two, while throwing in a few browser “optimizations” for good measure.

For patch notes and more details, head over to MobileCrunch >>

Starting tomorrow, Radio Shack will be selling the Samsung Instinct to new Sprint customers for $99. If you’re an existing Sprint customer looking to upgrade, it’ll cost you the normal price of $129. The sale is going on through Labor Day, so if you’re going to Radio Shack anyway, why not pick up a new Instinct?

What am I saying? Nobody goes to Radio Shack. What I meant to say was if you’re looking to buy a new Instinct, why not drop into Radio Shack for the first time in ten years? Ah, that’s more like it.

Sprint recently launched a clever promotion campaign for their Instinct, calling for users to somehow place the cell phone in home videos and then post them on YouTube (official tagline: “Sell out your family, turn little Suzy into gas money”). First prize: $10,000.

I think this video above is quite a good start, probably because it somehow reminded me of Prodigy’s Smack my bitch up-video. And it’s interactive, meaning you have to click on the annotations to get directed to another YouTube video until the story is brought to an end.

AnnieBinns and her haunting touch haiku:

Fingertips pushing
the hard smooth surface as they
explore the new world.

Annie wins the Samsung Instinct!

Special thanks to the team at Samsung for letting us run this great contest and thanks to all of you for putting up with experiments in new media so we could try a something new and different for this contest. Rest assured future contests won’t require Twittering. Thanks for playing and, as always, thanks for reading.

Congratulations to officiallyrad for his charming haiku:

Black like a Berry
although a little more sleek
must win you this week

To recap: We’ll be giving away a cool Samsung Instinct this week!

The final haiku should focus on touch and must be tweeted to UseYourInstinct. We will close entries for this week at noon on Tuesday, July 29.

If you entered the previous contest and didn’t win, feel free to re-enter. Here are the rules.

To recap: Every week we’ll be giving away a cool Samsung phone culminating in the Samsung Instinct!

We begin our contest this week gunning for the Samsung Ace. The haiku should focus on sight and must be tweeted to UseYourInstinct. We will close entries for this week at noon on Tuesday, July 22.

If you entered the previous contest and didn’t win, feel free to re-enter. Here are the rules.

We have a first winner! Congratulations Kevin C Marvin for his winning entry:

I can almost hear
the sound of packaging tape
as I win your phone

You win the Samsung the M520.

To recap: Every week we’ll be giving away a cool Samsung phone culminating in the Samsung Instinct!

We begin our contest this week gunning for the Samsung Ace. The haiku should focus on sight and must be tweeted to UseYourInstinct. We will close entries for this week at noon on Tuesday, July 22.

If you entered the previous contest and didn’t win, feel free to re-enter.
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In case you didn’t see, Sprint and Samsung are holding a $25,000 contest for Instinct app developers, essentially following Apple’s lead in creating a user-generated app store to help improve the popularity of their already popular device.
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Remember: Every week we’ll be giving away a cool Samsung phone culminating in the Samsung Instinct!

We begin our contest this week gunning for the M520. The haiku should focus on hearing and must be tweeted to UseYourInstinct. We will close entries for this week at noon on Tuesday, July 15.

What is a haiku? Here’s an example. It’s a short poem of three lines consiting of 5 syllables, 7 syllables, and 5 syllables.
For example:

The M520
doesn’t ring. It reminds me
that I’m a big nerd.

Read on for the rules.

Apparently plenty of Best Buy shoppers like Sprint’s Samsung Instinct. In a recent press release, Best Buy said that since its June 19th launch, the Instinct has become “the retailer’s best selling handset in the past two years.” 

Best Buy has also been pushing a service called “Walk Out Working,” which basically entails having your phone set up for you before you leave the store – e-mail, web access, GPS setup, etc. – the program’s apparently been quite well received. It’s available only for new Instinct purchases and will be going until the end of August.

Just got word from Samsung that we’re good to go on our “Use Your Instinct” Haiku contest. Every week we’ll be giving away a cool Samsung phone culminating in the Samsung Instinct!

We begin our contest this week gunning for the M520. The haiku should focus on hearing and must be tweeted to UseYourInstinct. We will close entries for this week at noon on Tuesday, July 15.

What is a haiku? Here’s an example. It’s a short poem of three lines consiting of 5 syllables, 7 syllables, and 5 syllables.
For example:

The M520
doesn’t ring. It reminds me
that I’m a big nerd.

Read on for the rules.
Read More

We received the Instinct a few weeks ago and I’ve been meaning to write up my impressions on it after using it for just about a week straight. I’m happy to report that the Instinct on Sprint is a capable and powerful smartphone and, in a way, is a direct competitor to the iPhone generation 1 (iPhone 3G doesn’t fit into this equation, but I suspect I’d say the same thing when we see it). Sadly, there are many caveats to this opinion and it would behoove Sprint and Samsung to quickly update the phone as soon as possible if they wish to have the blockbuster success that this device, in the end, deserves.

First the good. The Instinct interface is far superior to the iPhone’s simply because of haptic feedback. Much of the good ideas the iPhone uses – slide to unlock being one of the most important – are partially visible here and special care has clearly been taken to ensure that an apples to apples comparison is difficult if not impossible. Nothing in this phone is a direct knock-off and it is all fresh and slightly disconcerting at the same time. Once you work out the kinks, however, it is very strong interface and eminently usable.

We begin by unlocking the phone by holding down a button on the top. This direct physical interaction with the phone also turns it on and off, so care must be taken not to hold the button too long or it will turn off. The sliding metaphor appears quite a bit, however, especially in answering and making calls. For example, when a call comes in you are offered a floating bar. To answer, you slide the bar up to a box marked answer. To ignore, you slide the bar down. Weird, right? Strangely, it works. Another odd UI choice: When you make a call you type in the number and then press the bar that the number shows up in. You wouldn’t know it to look at the screen, but that was their design choice. It works although it does take a moment to figure out what’s going on.

Most importantly, the Instinct has haptic feedback. When you press a button or slide through emails or menus the phone buzzes and creates an interesting form of feedback. Haptics are not a must-have but they’re nice.

Read More

According to Instinct-Samsung forum poster lrosenman, Sprint is getting ready to push out a software update on 6/30/08. No idea what the software update will entail if there is one at all, but we’ve got a couple Instincts floating around the office, so we’ll check on it in a couple days.

I apologize for your disappointment regarding some of the software. We will have a software upgrade available 6/30/08. You can request a software update on your phone on that date. Press the home icon and tap main. Tap settings, then tap general, scroll down and tap update software.