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
Battery Life
The first 4G phone we reviewed, the EVO 4G, didn’t do so well in our battery life tests. I’m sorry to say that the Epic 4G is even worse.
Other than our WiFi web browsing test, I wasn’t able to get more than 4.5 hours out of the Epic 4G. Adding insult to injury, our web browsing battery life test showed worse battery life while operating on a 3G network vs. a 4G network (while stationary). I double and triple checked the numbers, and each time I got better battery life on 4G than I did on 3G.
The Epic 4G has a beefy 1500 mAh battery and thankfully it’s removable, but battery life just isn’t a strong point of this phone. I’m not sure whether it’s Samsung dropping the ball on the software optimization side or if the power management on Hummingbird is just that bad.
Perhaps it’s Sprint related? After all, the EVO 4G had terrible battery life as well.
There are just too many variables to narrow it down. The bottom line? While the Epic 4G performs better than any other Android phone I’ve used, its battery life is among the worst.
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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