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Thinking of switching from Instinct to iPhone, just a few Q's...

V

vakej

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 13, 2006
47
0
Hello:

I have the samsung instinct, and I'm thinking of switching over to the iphone. I just have a few questions...

On one charge the instinct gets me through the day. I check email periodically, and speak for 15 minutes tops (mostly use my office phone). Once home, I plug it in to re-charge (at the point, 50% of battery is drained). Will the iphone provide better battery performance, or not?

With the bleak market conditions do you foresee the iphone price dropping (I know very hard to predict)?

Anyone familiar enough with the instinct, and made the switch to the iphone? Interested in your thoughts...


Thanks,

VJ
 
vakej said:
On one charge the instinct gets me through the day. I check email periodically, and speak for 15 minutes tops (mostly use my office phone). Once home, I plug it in to re-charge (at the point, 50% of battery is drained). Will the iphone provide better battery performance, or not?
Click to expand...

If you really literally use it only that much, and you're not spending a lot of time in service dead zones (the battery drains more quickly on any cell phone when it's searching continually for coverage), it should do better than that. With that kind of usage profile, you could probably generally get two days out of the iPhone.

One concern with the iPhone is that you may frequently find yourself using it a lot more, though. ;) The things that really eat up at the battery are games (the worst) and web browsing.
 
Battery life is not an issue.

I don't know anyone with an Instinct, and never seen one in person. Going from Instinct to iPhone should be a no-brainer upgrade.

Price dropping is highly unlikely, but the refurbished phones are available if you are looking for less expensive alternative.
 
I have the iphone, my brother has the instinct, needless to say, he wants my phone bad. Enough said.
 
Checking out sport scores, MacRumors and email a few times a day, I usually have to charge the phone by early evening. It can probably last one full day, but no more then that.
 
it all depends on the usage... I can usually get just about 2 days out of my iPhone... I have e-mail fetched at 15mins, check some websites, talk 10-30 mins, and check the weather/sports scores...

The carrier I was with previously carried the Instinct and my big dilema was either stay with my carrier and get a instinct at a subsidized price or pay cancellation fees and get the iPhone... I soon realized that it's unfair to compare the two devices to each other... the iPhone is the real deal when it comes to a touchscreen devices... I happily paid the cancellation fees and went to a carrier that had the iPhone... I am 100% positive I made the right choice...
 
I think you will have to charge the iPhone much more often but not because the battery sucks. You will have to charge a lot because there is so much to do and play around with on the iPhone that its hard to put it down. I had a blackberry before the iPhone and I would only charge it at night but I keep my iPhone charging on my laptop at work all day long and have a car charger too. I would probably have to charge it 2 or 3 times Per Day if I didnt always keep it plugged in. I always keep WiFi on, bluetooth on and 3G on and have push email turned on. I also stream music on it through pandora all day long since we arent allowed to stream on our laptops at work. The advantage of the iPhone is that you can charge it through AC plug in the wall or through the USB in your computer so its very easy to keep it charged. I highly recommend switching from the instinct to the iPhone but you also have to realize the iPhone is far from perfect too.
 
I recently switched from the Instinct to iphone myself. The direct answer to your question on battery life... yes, the iphone will easily get you through the day as you described. I tend to do more web browsing and texting than you listed and I get through my work day with plenty of power left by the time I get home and recharge. One thing to note, with the download options and apps being far more abundant on Iphone, you may find yourself draining your battery a lot quicker than normal if you are going crazy in the itunes/app store. I didn't have this problem on the instinct since there wansn't anything to download. I do find myself using my Ipone a lot more than I did the instinct just becuase of the breadth of fucntions.

As an aside, I wasn't unhappy with the instinct at all, liked many of it's features and still feel that the instinct has a couple of things over the iphone (turn by turn nav, group texting, bluetooth connectivity, live search). However, I have been a mac user forever and the Instinct has zero support for the mac and I ended up not using the main features that drew me to a multimedia phone due to lack of mac sync support. Having said this, the iphone is such an overall superior product. And the ability to sync to my mac has really opened up my useage of the iphone as a multimedia device. If you have a mac computer, its a must. I do not regreat switching at all (well worth the $200 ETA).
 
boleiro said:
As an aside, I wasn't unhappy with the instinct at all, liked many of it's features and still feel that the instinct has a couple of things over the iphone (turn by turn nav, group texting, bluetooth connectivity, live search)
Click to expand...

What does Instinct have better for group texting, bluetooth connectivity and live search? Please elaborate, I am curious.
 
vakej said:
Will the iphone provide better battery performance, or not?

With the bleak market conditions do you foresee the iphone price dropping (I know very hard to predict)?
Click to expand...

Probably around the same performance, but you'll probably use the iPhone more, because its sooo much more capable, so you'll probably have less battery left by the end of the day.

No, Apple will not drop the price, but might bring in a higher capacity model at the current price points.

May I ask... have you considered waiting for the Palm Pre to come out? Not that I don't want another iPhone owner out there just asking. Enjoy your new iPhone when you get it.
 
Luke1robb said:
May I ask... have you considered waiting for the Palm Pre to come out? Not that I don't want another iPhone owner out there just asking. Enjoy your new iPhone when you get it.
Click to expand...

Little early to be recommending that mythical creature called Pre.
 
CocoaPuffs said:
Little early to be recommending that mythical creature called Pre.
Click to expand...

The Pre? Old news homie. Pre Nano is what I'm waiting for.

It's gonna be smaller, have a longer battery life, my mom will want one (for some reason), it'll do everything the Pre does (expect some arbitrary function that I myself specifically don't use, regardless if it's a staple of the product) and it'll be cheaper with a cheaper monthly bill.
 
mkrishnan said:
If you really literally use it only that much, and you're not spending a lot of time in service dead zones (the battery drains more quickly on any cell phone when it's searching continually for coverage), it should do better than that. With that kind of usage profile, you could probably generally get two days out of the iPhone.
Click to expand...

I can definately confirm this battery life. I maybe make 1-5 calls a week on my iPhone and get two days battery life, sometimes more.

I leave everything on, email, 3G, push email, contacts and calendar as well as location services, it still lasts at least two days.

I mostly use it for the iPod and to listen to live radio via the app IHeartRadio.
 
Yawl must have a different iphone than I do because mine is darn near dead after an 8 hour work day and thats with no phone calls at all. I listen to Pandora mostly and do a minimal web browsing. I had to bring an extra charger to work so I can have battery after work in case I dont go straight home.:confused::confused:
 
Private Dirt said:
Yawl must have a different iphone than I do because mine is darn near dead after an 8 hour work day and thats with no phone calls at all. I listen to Pandora mostly and do a minimal web browsing. I had to bring an extra charger to work so I can have battery after work in case I dont go straight home.:confused::confused:
Click to expand...

Your battery could be defective or not calibrated
 
Private Dirt said:
Yawl must have a different iphone than I do because mine is darn near dead after an 8 hour work day and thats with no phone calls at all. I listen to Pandora mostly and do a minimal web browsing. I had to bring an extra charger to work so I can have battery after work in case I dont go straight home.:confused::confused:
Click to expand...

It's likely your iPhone or the area you live in and the signal. I have two iPhones, a white 16gb and a black 8gb. I switch my sim between them depending on what I have on them and I get two days battery usage on both.

The white one was purchased new last July and the black one purchased new on December 23.
 
It probably wont last long, you'll get addicted, use it constantly.

Before you know it you'll have to carry around an extra charger like I do :(





Switch, you'll love it.
 
Private Dirt said:
I got my phone last friday. Calibrated?? whats that?
Click to expand...

Run your battery all the way until it dies. Then plug it in and let 'er charge non-stop till full.

What I then did, was, while the phone was still plugged in, turn it off and on again after it read as full - this isn't essential, but my battery level not full on the reboot so I think it helped calibrate it.
 
OP, I didn't read through all the posts, but here's my take.

I can't speak on the 3G, but the original iPhone has ample battery life. Initially you'll wear it out because it's a new toy and you'll be using it so much. But once I got to normal use, it seems to easily last 2 full days. If you play games or video a bunch, that will dwindle, but I don't usually have any issues. However, I do have chargers about everywhere I'm known to be (docks and cables at home, cable in car, audio dock at work). Better safe than sorry.

As far as price, acting CEO Tim Cook said Apple was happy with the $199 price point. But I would wager that when the 32GB update hits, the 16GB phone will drop to $199, the 32GB will be $299 and the 8GB will go bye-bye. I want a 32GB iPhone, but I'm not willing to pay $400. I can handle $300.

I have personally decided to wait until the next major update, which from all things I read should be in the summer. The updates will likely be a 32GB model, better battery life, and maybe a better camera. Aside from that, there isn't much wrong with the hardware. I have seen rumors about new, dual-core processors, but I don't think that will hit iPhone 3.0.
 
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