iPhone vs. Instinct
Not your animal instinct, but the new Samsung Instinct, offered by Sprint. We will have some embedded video on Thursday hopefully, but until then, hit this link to go to Kansas City’s video site to see a side-by-side comparison of Apple and Sprint’s “find my location” features. The video is one of five that will be launched before the Instinct is launched, and will compare the two phones among their internet surfing speeds, capturing video, streaming TV, and downloading music.
The $100 million advertising campaign kicks off on Thursday on those hip, new video websites. TV ads are so passé. You would think that kind of change could have bought some better quality, even the YouTube iPhone commercials look better than this. It will be interesting to see if this $100 million budget is killed before by the rumored new features of the 3G iPhone, allegedly coming out in June, also. If it has GPS, 3G, and other great features (renting movies from the phone, anyone?), this could be a wasted advertising campaign. The Instinct will supposedly have live streaming TV as well, and I don’t think Uncle Steve will be throwing that in to his “One more thing…” part of the keynote.
The Instinct site starts with “Finally, an amazing touch-screen phone with the network to back it up.” So, from that it looks like Sprint is saying that the iPhone still rocks, but the network (AT&T) stinks. I don’t think many people will disagree with that statement. I know that I would buy an iPhone in a second if I could have it on a different network.
The other thing that gets me about this campaign is that it was probably created in Overland Park, KS, at Sprint Headquarters. That means that the coverage for Sprint in that area, where nearly everyone is on Sprint, is exceptional. The screenshot below shows AT&T’s coverage for Sprint Headquarters.
AT&T’s coverage viewer claims that they have “good” reception in this area which means
GOOD: The areas shown in the medium orange should be sufficient for on-street or in-the-open coverage, most in-vehicle coverage and possibly some in-building coverage. This AT&T owned network provides GSM, GPRS, and EDGE service.
Even with 3G, it would be hard for AT&T to have better times if they have “possibly some in-building coverage.” I wonder if Sprint thought about that and intentionally set it up for them to do better, or if the Sprint network really is that much better than the AT&T network. Both carriers don’t work at all in my basement. Anyone had any experience with both that would like to vouch for either one?
#1 Galley says:My Sprint phone got great reception at work. My iPhone is lucky to get one bar, unless I’m sitting next to a window. I gotta walk 300 feet to the nearest window. GSM vs. CDMA, I guess.
#2 Podophile says:My last Sprint phone rarely got any reception in my apartment (just outside of San Francisco). I basically couldn’t use it when I was at home. It was a work-issued phone, so i was stuck with it. My AT&T iPhone consistently gets 4 bars.
GSM vs. CDMA, I guess.
#3 Egidio says:I can hardly to see this fight…
I’m a Treo 700p user who loves the things I can do with that phone, including the ability to use it as a modem in areas I can’t get WI-FI for my MacBook Air. Like the author of the article, I’d buy an iPhone in a minute if it were in a different network that would give me better reception and EVDO (such as Sprint does).
#4 plm says:I have an iPhone on AT&T and a Sony TZ laptop on Sprint. I recently visited the Medford Oregon area and both services coverage was pretty much what they advertised on their coverage maps. Sprint was slug slow (try 56K!) and AT&T had full-speed Edge. It was faster to check my email and access the web on my iPhone than on the laptop. In Oregon, AT&T seems to have more medium-to-high speed coverage than most other providers.
#5 Troy says:Actually, I worked on the Sprint campus, and coverage for the network was very spotty. Surprisingly, there are a number of dead spots in and around the Sprint campus.
#6 Technorat says:These were shot in San Francisco, where service is exactly the same on both phones. You can see that if you watch the GPS video.
I think this is pretty ballsie of Sprint. But they have a leg to stand on. The new Instinct is awesome - and while it does compare against a year-old iPhone, I think I get the message that when it is ready for an upgrade, I’d rather spend $200 for a fast network, true GPS, Live TV, the option to download music from anywhere, etc. I don’t think I’ll spend $699 to get the same phone I already have with 3G…
#7 Rissa says:It all depends on the kind of phone that you want. Most people just wanna be able to say ‘Oh! I have an iPhone!’ But if you don’t care about popularity then the instinct would probably be better for you, although it has a video camera and live TV, does that make it better than the iPhone? I don’t think so-apple is amazing and they are just going to come out with something better than any phone in the world. But the instict seems to be smaller…