Visual voicemail. GPS. Live television. MP3 player. Internet browser. Stereo Bluetooth. Voice controls.

The Samsung Instinct promises much – and generally delivers.The device looks and works pretty much like an iPhone, with some key differences.

The Instinct, which is available exclusively through Sprint Nextel, lacks Wi-Fi, but it loads Web pages pretty quickly over Sprint's data network.

It also comes with full GPS service: nearby points of interest, traffic information, turn-by-turn directions, everything.

The television service is also standard. Some shows air live. Others are available on demand.

Neither the selection nor the picture quality will tempt you to cancel your cable, but the service is good enough to entertain you when you're stuck at the airport.

The Instinct's 2-megapixel camera takes surprisingly good pictures. It also takes choppy-but-watchable video.

For music lovers, however, the Instinct has little but stereo Bluetooth to recommend it.

Users can import songs from PCs via a synching program, but the Instinct comes with just 32 megabytes of internal storage and a 2-gigabyte memory card.

Speaking of synching, PC users can pull contacts from their computer, but there's no way to synch calendars. Worse, there's no way to synch songs, contacts or anything else with a Mac.

It's easy to connect the Instinct to any Web-based e-mail service, including the online version of Outlook. Unfortunately, messages appear only in plain text, and the Instinct cannot open attachments.

The text messaging program shows back-and-forth conversations on one screen, which is excellent, but the Instinct doesn't do IM, which is a pain.

As for Web surfing, the Instinct renders pages faster and better than most smart phones, but it's not nearly as good as the iPhone.

The screen isn't quite big enough, and it's nowhere near as easy to zoom in and out.$129 with two-year Sprint contract (monthly service fees start at $70)

Pros: GPS, visual voicemail, threaded text messages, television service, fast Web browsing

Cons: Skimpy memory, no Mac compatibility, no calendar synching, no IM

Verdict: Business users – and Mac users – should probably avoid the Instinct, but consumers who want a full-featured handset should give it serious consideration, particularly if they're married to Sprint. [an error occurred while processing this directive]