I got a new Samsung Instinct phone from Sprint about a month ago and am very pleased with it. Waaaay better than the UpStage (had that for a week, sucked, returned it)
Two upfront suggestions: I would recommend using Window's Media Player to transfer music (don't like the Sprint Music application and got error messages), as well as a Zagg Invisible Shield to protect it.
Texting is nice on the Instinct as you can use a stylus, type with the QWERTY keyboard holding it horizontally, or have the keyboard vertical and the keyboard arranged alphabetically. I tend to be able to text better on the Instinct that I was able to on the Iphone as I have nails and the screen recognizes them. On the Iphone my nails would act as a hindrance, as their screen responds to skin.
The phone comes with a 2G memory card, so that is a nice bonus, as I would have probably had to buy added memory in the beginning if that card didn't come with. It was a nice little treat.
The phone has visual voicemail, which is super-convenient, ongoing texting it has your texts back and forth with your contacts listed in an IM-like format, nice web applications like Sports, where I have the Cubs saved as one of my teams and I can easily click on them and see all of the games. Past games are available too, as they are listed in chronological order, so all I have to do is scroll and select to get the scoreboard. The Weather application lets you save cities and have their weather available to you. They give you a day-by-day forecast and there is option to look at a radar too.
One things that I like the most about the phone is the navigation tool that it comes with. It is a TeleNav application and works great! This is such as relief, as previously when I was traveling for business and got lost in some new city I would have to call my sister and ask her if she was by a computer and if she could navigate me to where I needed to go. It is a very nice tool to have and works great (recently used 4x while in Rochester, MN.)
Oh, and all of this is not to mention that the basic phone functions work great, as I have great reception, voice clarity, battery life, and the speakerphone actually sounds good, too.
