Samsung Instinct HD: Best Cell Phone Video Ever
When we first heard the Instinct HD was going to be $250 we thought Sprint had gone a little nuts. But now that we’ve seen the kind of video this non-smart phone can capture we’ll just come out and say it: The footage blows us away. Is its $250 good? You be the judge.
The Intinct HD’s The 5MP camera can record in QVGA, VGA and 720p HD, so we took the Instinct HD outside to check out the quality. The resulting video is below and is easily some of the best cell phone video we’ve ever seen.
We had to compress the video down to 480 x 360 for the embedded video. Check out the same video in HD on YouTube and note the difference. It’s worth noting that the video looked much better when we played it on an HD screen. Compressing it for the web takes away some of the quality, so unless you plan to make a DVD, the HD may not do you much good.

The zoom function degrades the image quite a bit, but for cell camera video this is very impressive. We were shocked at the Instinct HD’s $249 price tag just yesterday, but seeing this video is making us reconsider whether the device is worth it even though it’s not technically a smart phone.
Other than the video quality, our first impressions are fairly positive. The phone has a nice feel to it — solid but not bulky — with comfortably rounded edges. The touchscreen provides a nice bit of haptic feedback and is pretty responsive, though overall speed wasn’t blazing when we switched between menus and played some demo games. We still need to check out the Twitter and Facebook apps, but the Opera browser is decent (though not as good as the Palm Pre or HTC Hero ($541.60)).
We’ll have a full review up soon as well as some comparison video between the Instinct and other pocket HD camcorders. In the meantime, do you think the HD video makes the phone worth the price?
Our Related Content
- Samsung Instinct HD (Sprint): Full Review
- Sanity Check: Samsung Instinct HD Costs $249?!
- Best Cell Phones of 2008
From Other Sites
- Sprint Instinct HD by Samsung Review (SlashGear)
- Samsung Instinct HD hitting Sprint September 27th (SlashGear)
- Sprint Samsung Instinct HD gets spotted in wild (SlashGear)
Related Deals
- Dell Off Lease Coupon Code: 25% off Any Item (No Minimum) at Dell Off Lease Refurbished Computers
- Western Digital Passport 500GB Portable External Hard Drive $79.99 Free Shipping at Staples
- Acer Aspire AS5732Z-4280 Intel Dual-Core T4400 2.2GHz 15.6in Laptop (3GB/320GB/Win 7) $399.99 at OfficeMax
- $40 PRICE DROP - Dell Inspiron Laptops w/ New Core i3-330M Dual-Core Processors at $549 at Dell Home
- Western Digital Elements 640GB Portable External Hard Drive $89.99 Free Shipping at Dell Small Business
| Powered by: |
3 Responses to “Samsung Instinct HD: Best Cell Phone Video Ever”
Leave a Reply
Featured Sponsors |
|||
|
|
|
|
|



September 25th, 2009 by K. T. Bradford
September 27th, 2009 at 2:44 am
The video does not look good to me, far from 720p.
September 27th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Two words:
OVER-RATED.
Low quality video, and no additional smart-phone features for a bloated price. No Thanks.
November 28th, 2009 at 2:54 am
Agreed, as an owner, I can confirm, without doubt, that the Instinct HD takes the most beautiful videos ever seen on a cell phone in today’s market, unless comparing to cell phones in other countries, or camcorders, which aren’t cell phones, Nothing compares.
179.99 at Best Buy, the memories created with the HD are simply priceless.