When Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) releases its own Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone competitor this month, all eyes will be on deck to see if this new phone can save the Titanic that is Sprint from sinking. The wireless carrier has been in terrible shape for over a year now, losing millions of customers and just struggling to maintain its customers. Although an Apple iPhone -- by its nature -- invites copycats from all over the globe, this new handset from Sprint looks like the most serious effort yet. The wrinkle is this: Sprint will require a calling and data plan of at least $69.99 per month to activate and use the new Samsung Instinct phone. There are so many data features that Sprint decided to tack on quite a hefty minimum monthly bill. Hey, AT&T, Inc. (NYSE: T) is doing this with the iPhone, right? This may be the start of a new trend: minimum monthly plans (high minimums) for all these new whiz-bang phones soon to be released. Will customers bite, or will they choose phones with similar capabilities but without the large minimum monthly charge? We'll soon see.
Sprint believes the target customer for the new Samsung Instinct phone may have concerns about being "nickel and dimed" to death on all the charges needed to make the phone work with all its functionality intact. So, the carrier decided to have a flat-rate price and get rid of those concerns. Fair enough -- but don't automatically force the customer to a $70 plan. In Sprint's defense, that larger minimum hasn't swayed iPhone customers from buying gobs of that device with AT&T. But again, this is no iPhone -- it just looks like one. It appears to be packed with many more features than the iPhone, but just as thousands of competitors before it have shown, Apple is Apple -- nobody else is. Can it save Sprint? Hardly.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-02-2008 @ 12:16PM
Constable Odo said...
The Instinct does kinda work like the iPhone and is shaped like the iPhone. However it runs WinMo and not OS X so that's where any similarity ends. It doesn't sync to the iTunes Media Store nor will it have access to the integrated App Store. In other words, it's just a handset that stands by itself like all the other iPhone wanabees. The Instinct might be packed with more features than the current iPhone, but will not have more hardware features than the 3G iPhone.
The Instinct has little present and no future, maybe like Sprint itself.
6-02-2008 @ 1:09PM
michelle said...
They should not make you change your plan to use this phone. Sprint needs to change that.
http://samsunginstinctstore.com
6-02-2008 @ 5:14PM
drhz said...
$70 is what the average 20 something pays already with text and data. The text generation will still get this phone. But I wish there were just a data requirement for those who don't text. However do the math. Most people who would want a phone like this does text ,and so this phone will sell. $70 gets you all the texts, pics, tv, radio, email, web, and 450 daytime mins. with 7:00 nights, and GPS.I think most will get Sprint's Simply Everthing for only $99. That sounds high to generation OLD, but 'sweet' to generation Z.
6-02-2008 @ 5:24PM
drhz said...
3G iPhone will not have Sprint TV, Radio, Sprint Music Store, Sprint Navigation, or have access to Sprint's large and cheap mobile broadband network. Don't get me wrong, I like iPhone but its missing one thing; Sprint.
6-02-2008 @ 11:52PM
Me said...
@Constable Odo
You're seriously misinformed, the Instinct does not run WinMo, it uses a proprietary OS co-developed by Sprint and Samsung. The UI was designed by an independent 3rd party company. Also, the iphone is NOT running the full Darwin OS X, Apple admitted the iphone is running an optimized version of OS X. You probably don't know that OS X is 5 years old do you?
Instinct will also have a native GPS chip, MMS, live video camera stream capabilities, voice activation/commands, wireless sync, etc.
6-03-2008 @ 1:09AM
Rick said...
Constable Odo,
The Samsung instinct does not and has never ran under Windows Mobile. It runs it's own proprietary OS that will be fully open to developers, unlike the iPhone.
7-06-2008 @ 10:52AM
Kim said...
I've had sprint for 7 yrs now. I haven't had any major problems with them. When I have disputed a bill they have credited the charge off and then given me a 15% discount on my overall bill. The only problem I have is sometimes the person that answers my phone doesn't speak English clearly. I just have to ask for someone else and then I get transferred to someone in the good ole USA. They do have call centers still in the USA. Like all of the phone companies they are outsourcing to India. I wanted to go with Verizon but they wanted an outrageous deposit for some reason and sprint didn't require any and I've always paid my bills. I will be getting the new phone for my daughter who just graduated from college because "text message" is her middle name.