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
Camera
The Epic 4G has a pair of cameras: a 5MP flash assisted camera on the back of the device and a front facing VGA camera on the front. Samsung’s camera app is a nicely trimmed down version of what we’ve seen on many Android phones. You still get the ability to adjust things like white balance, metering mode and exposure compensation, but you can also hide all of that so all you see is a viewfinder and a capture button.
The Camera app, detailed mode
The Camera app, simple mode
The app launches in an average amount of time. I recorded 3.03 seconds to get from the icon to being able to line up my first shot. There’s a measurable lag between when you take a shot and when it’s actually captured, which can result in blurred photos if your subject is only stationary for a short period of time.
The Camera app repurposes the physical buttons on the Epic 4G. You can lock the camera app by hitting the power/lock button, doing so will render all other buttons on the phone inactive (e.g. home/back keys won’t work, useful if you’re recording video that you don’t want interrupted). The volume rocker serves as zoom in/out buttons as well.
You have two options to actually trigger the camera: you can use the button the screen, or the physical trigger on the camera itself. Both work well.
Picture quality out of the rear facing camera is great for web-sized images, but at full resolution you see the shortcomings of the sensor/software combo. Brian has most of the comparable smartphones so all I was able to do is showcase the Epic 4G vs. the Nexus One and iPhone 4.
White balance isn’t too bad. The Epic 4G tends towards more reddish tones than blue/green but it’s at least more predictable than the iPhone 4. The biggest issue really is image sharpness. At web resolutions it’s fine, but blown up to full size you see how soft the picture really is. You lose a lot of detail.
Apple iPhone 4 - Click to Enlarge
Samsung Epic 4G - Click to Enlarge
Google Nexus One - Click to Enlarge
I’d say that most modern smartphone cameras are fine for sharing pictures on Facebook but if you want to be able to pick out details you’ll need to look for another phone or carry a point and shoot with you.
The Epic, like many Android phones, has issues dealing with light shining through trees. You get an overblown halo effect, rather than an accurate depiction of the scene.
The rear camera is capable of recording 720p video and it can record video with the flash on, a feature that’s surprisingly absent from a number of flash enabled smartphones. Video quality here is reasonably good. The softness problem is less of an issue at 720p it seems.
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medi01 - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
Java's JIT could create code that is faster than C/C++. Because unlike C++ compiler, it also has runtime info about executables, it could know for sure, which of the if branches is more likely to be true, for instance.The only part of Java that was much slower than C++ was (and I think still is) sin/cos related functions. Since Sun had to guarantee "runs anywhere" with the exactly the same results, instead of using CPU's features they "manually" calculate it.
Voo - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
Well java WAS slow - around ten years ago, but people have already made up their mind, it's hard to get new ideas into some heads. Though the lack of a JIT in dalvik hampered performance, but that's hardly something where you can blame the language for..Ah, just like all those people who still believe that manual memory managment is inherently faster than GC..
medi01 - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
Java is not inherently slower than C++, but it does need more memory.The problem with Androids up to 2.2 was Dalvik VM that had no JIT.
designerfx - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
what a brilliant troll, or accidental. I'm not sure, but plenty of debunked this.What really brings down the entire samsung line of phones is that the GPS is horrible. I have one myself, and have the same issue on the vibrant as on the epic. Samsung really screwed the GPS up bigtime.
lwatcdr - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
Well when faced with such a brilliant technical argument like "but Java sucks. Big time" what can one say.http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/01/16/space.mar...
Is an article from back in 2004 about how those idiots at NASA used Java to control the Spirit rover on Mars.
If only they had you available to show them how to do right.
Man I get sick of this crap. I heard the same thing way back when. People complaining when programmers used high level languages to write programs instead of assembly.
The thing is that it was all silliness just as it is now.
What really counts isn't the language but the programmer using it.
Android's speed issues tend to because by.
1. Not using the GPU for the UI
2. Using multitasking from the start.
IOS has only just now gotten official multitasking and even that is limited.
But really just drop the
Iksy - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
Umm... to be clear, this is just the user interface used on Earth, which is something Java does well. The rovers themseves are controlled using VxWorks RTOS. VxWorks itself is written in C or C++ I believe.Ethaniel - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
Well, it's not the kind of technical argument everyone would like, but it gets to the point. Anand reviewed like half a dozen of Android phones, all with the same problem. So, or the companies are making exactly the same mistake with each and every model they launch, or Java is to blame. And no, I'm not trolling because I do want to Android to succeed. A troll is based on hate, and it usually doesn't check back the thread he/she started. And you haven't seen a single insult in this thread, right? ;)ktwebb - Monday, September 6, 2010 - link
Sounds like an IPhone Fanboy that is trying his best to be subjective. Samsung actually did not get it right performance wise. They use an antiquated and slow file system. For a pleasurable UI experience on Android, the N1 is still king, especially on 2.2. The only way the samsung galaxy variants fly is with root access and ext2, 3 or 4 fixes. there are GPS fixes as well however where Samsung let down actually is in the UI with Touchwiz and their ridiculous homage to Apple. No wonder this twit liked it. Android people IMMEDIATELY change the launcher. Anyway, the Hardware on the Galaxy S is excellent. Samsung did their best to eff it up and only with tweaks and root level access is it a really strong phone. Google and Androids main problem is OS sprawl and fragmentation. They get that cleaned up and the IPhone 4 is a distant second mobile OS. Right now, with the clear advantages Android phones have, specifically customization and an open source community among others, it's essentially a wash. It's about what you prefer and are comfortable with. I'm an Android guy because I like to make my phone do what I want it to, not what Jobs wants my phone to be.StealthX32 - Monday, September 6, 2010 - link
ktwebb, I don't think Anand reviewed it w/ the ext2 FS hack/fix (whatever you want to call it). The UI speed is fine from the factory; it's much better than the EVO 4G (even with Froyo) and on par w/ the N1, just not as good as it *could* be once you root it and fix the filesystem.ktwebb - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
N1 Froyo is faster than stock Galaxy S Variants. And yeah, he didn't review with hacks and I certainly understand why he wouldn't. Shouldn't need them. But that is a Samsung issue, not Android. Samsung has the potential for a very good handset with the Galaxy S. They are trying their best to eff it up though. I haven't played with the EVO but had android phones since the G1 inception. The N1 was the best UI experience after Froyo was pushed. And far better than any IPHone I've used, although my experience with 4 is limited.