Over the past few weeks I’ve been trying out the Sprint Instinct touch screen phone to see how I liked it.  I wrote my initial review here and posted some tips and tricks on using the device here.  The poor browsing experience on the Instinct finally led me to take it back to the store yesterday so I’m back to using my PPC-6700 until Sprint releases the HTC Touch Diamond (or Pro) later this year. 

Although I’ll admit that I have to reboot my Windows mobile phone every other day or so, it was really hard giving up all of the flexibility.  The Instinct had a great touch screen, many excellent features (especially the GPS capabilities and visual voice mail), but the lack of EVDO Rev A speed (even though it’s supposedly built-in…although I never got it) and poor browser just weren’t worth it.  My browsing experience is much faster on my EVDO enabled PPC-6700 even though it’s 2 years old. 

Last night I installed a Midlet Manager on my PPC-6700 and have Opera 4.1 mini going and it’s amazing how much faster it is than what I was getting on the Instinct.  I also installed the latest version of SPB Software’s Mobile Shell and Pocket Plus which have some nice UI enhancements built-in.  I doubt I’ll be switching from a Windows Mobile phone in the future unless something really, really cool gets released.  Once you’ve been accustomed to all of the power available on Windows Mobile it’s really hard to leave it.  I’m kind of bummed that the Instinct didn’t work out for me since I tried really hard to work with it.  I’m hoping the HTC Diamond ends up being as cool as it looks.

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