Samsung Epic 4G Review: The Fastest Android Phone
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 6, 2010 5:28 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Samsung
- Epic 4G
- Gadgets
- Mobile
GPS Issues
Every smartphone has its sets of issues. The iPhone 4 has its antenna problem, the Palm Pre has performance issues, the BlackBerry Torch needs a bit more oomph in the software department, and every Android phone has its own set of strengths/weaknesses. The Epic 4G is no different. In addition to the absolutely horrible battery life, the Epic has a pretty serious GPS issue.
The GPS antenna is not very sensitive and usually has trouble locking onto GPS satellites. This manifests itself in two ways: the phone will take an inordinate amount of time to determine your actual location, and/or it won’t pinpoint your location very accurately.
Sometimes the Epic 4G will lock on perfectly and quickly, but usually it takes several minutes longer than the Nexus One to figure out where you are. Occasionally I even got a ‘location not available’ error while using Google Maps.
Accuracy is also a problem. I don’t think I ever saw horizontal error drop below 30m on the Epic 4G compared to ~3m on the Neuxs One and ~5m on the iPhone 4.
Google Nexus One, 4m error (left) vs. Samsung Epic 4G 30m error (right)
The Epic 4G would usually tell me that my physical location was somewhere down the street while the Nexus One would pin me down at my house. In fact, I got more accurate location tracking when I was connected to a WiFi network.
It’s unclear whether this is purely a software problem or a fundamental antenna design issue ala the iPhone 4. One thing is for sure, if you plan on using GPS location a lot you should avoid the Epic 4G.
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Chaitanya - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
GPS receiver on almost all Samsung phones is bad. Its no surprise that Epic 4G is an epic fail when it came to GPS performance.medi01 - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
The Apple fanboism in anandtech's articles is getting more and more annoying... :("The move to Super AMOLED is key. With Super AMOLED the Epic 4G improves outdoor usability significantly."
To bad we can't see it on the pictures you've made.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
I believe this shot illustrates the huge improvement over standard AMOLED displays:http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/gadgets/Samsun...
Glare/reflections have been reduced significantly.
Take care,
Anand
pervisanathema - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
noticed this on page 2:"The back cover snaps off with relative ease revealing the 1500mAh battery, a microSD card slow."
I'm sure you mean slot instead of slow. :)
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
Thanks for the correction :)Take care,
Anand
DoubleVanos - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
Battery life seems fine on my AT&T Captivate to be honest. It can easily go on for a full day with a lot of usage. It must be a Sprint thing I guess.MaxMax - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
WTF !I don't know why always Sprint and Verizon gets the best Android phones comparing to T-Mobile and AT&T !!
This one have flash LED while the other galaxy s doesn't !!
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
Haha yep, fixed! Thank you!vision33r - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
There's a very good reason RIM and Apple have lower clocked CPUs, Apple's A4 processor is running only at 60% of it's full clock speed.Battery life.
Remember smartphones are still phones and talk time is more important than mhz.
Most Blackberrys still run under 500MHZ and they do email, web browsing, and light apps just fine.
Why would Android need 1.2GHZ just to run apps? What apps need 1.2GHZ?
That's just not efficient design for mobile apps.
bplewis24 - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
I guess I'm one of the lucky ones. I must own the only Android phone that is just as fast as my girlfriend's iPhone3GS or my colleagues iPhone4 with no more in the way of choppy animations and stuttering than they have.Brandon