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The Samsung Instinct, which is being deemed the most viable iPhone knock-off at the moment, is coming out first, and now as of today, we are hearing it will also be cheaper. Sprint (NYSE: S) announced that the phone will be available June 20, and cost $129.99 with a two-year contract after a $100 mail-in rebate. The monthly contract ranges between $70 a month for 450 voice minutes and unlimited data to Sprint’s Simply Everything Plan, which costs $99 for features such as GPS navigation, email, web surfing, Sprint Music Premier and Sprint TV Premier. Contrast that to the iPhone, which will come out three weeks later on July 11 and cost $199, depending you your carrier. Its monthly fee starts at $70 a month for unlimited data and the smallest voice plan.
So, what is a customer to do?
I just received a demo Samsung Instinct in the mail yesterday… More after the jump…
Watch here for a more in-depth review as I continue to use the Samsung Instinct.
The sleek, substantial-feeling device looks like an iPhone, but it doesn’t particularly mock one in every way. I haven’t had a chance to use it much, but on the drive to a BBQ last night, I quickly entered my destination’s address, and the navigation functionality quickly found my current location, and started to give me spoken turn-by-turn directions. Because I wasn’t the one driving, I was also able to mess around with it, touching the screen to activate traffic conditions, or get written directions, rather than hear them spoken. All-in-all the device is something you can just pick up and start using without reading directions.
The easy to understand price plan, which includes a lot of top-notch and typically expensive features is nice, but Apple’s (NSDQ: AAPL) iPhone will have the benefit of an entire developer ecosystem being excited about the device. If you are someone who is enticed by new flashy games, and applications, then likely the iPhone is for you. At the end of the day, the Samsung Instinct has been developed on a closed and proprietary operating system that will be susceptible to the same hoops as other feature phones — every new application that comes out for the phone will have to be developed for it and approved by Sprint. With the iPhone, apps can be developed on an SDK that’s made fairly available to developers, and then they only have to meet the standards of Apple — not AT&T (NYSE: T) or other carriers.
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