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
The Keyboards
“Wait, this is Swype?”
I read about Swype in Brian’s Droid X review, but Motorola shipped the keyboard disabled by default so I figured it’d be one of those things with a steep enough learning curve to dissuade the impatient. When I first started using the keyboard on the Epic 4G I fell in love. It was by far my favorite Android keyboard. It wasn’t until I finished typing a word and noticed a little info button blinking in the lower left corner of the keyboard that I realized I was using Swype.
Samsung ships the Epic 4G with Swype installed and enabled by default, and I totally get why. The keyboard layout is simply perfect for Android. You get a very simple keyboard with a layout that makes sense, I have absolutely no complaints about it. The keys are both big and well spaced enough on the 4” touchscreen to make typing quickly a non-issue. There’s no And if you want an alternate input form that requires fewer taps, there’s always Swype input.
The virtual keyboard rocks but what Swype lets you do is input characters an alternative way: by tracing a line over the letters of the word you’re trying to type. For example, if I wanted to Swype out the world “them” I’d place my finger over the letter ‘t’ on the keyboard, then draw a line down to h, diagonally up to e, and back down and to the right over to m. When I lift my finger there’d be a slight pause, and Swype would insert the word “them”. There are tricks to do more complicated things: make a little circle around a letter you need to enter twice, or extend a line up above the keyboard to create a capital letter. If Swype is unsure of what you’re typing it’ll give you a list of options to choose from, and manually typing in words adds them to the dictionary.
Swyping "hello"
I personally prefer the traditional typing method of text input but I can see how, with practice, you could be just as fast with Swype.
While Swyping you have to pay more attention to spelling. The iOS style of text input is pretty much tap and forget, if you misspell or mistype something the OS autocorrects. But with Swype, you actually need to know how to spell the words you’re trying to type and know where all of the keys are on the keyboard. I didn’t feel my mental CPU utilization hit 100% as Brian described in his first encounter, but I felt like I was in a constant spelling/key location bee. It just takes some getting used to but I actually liked Swyping when I didn’t feel like typing with two hands.
The downside to using Swype as a normal virtual keyboard is the optional autocorrection (you have to enable it under Swype settings). Instead of getting suggestions inline, you get a distracting popup. Thankfully you can easily switch back to the default Android keyboard just by holding down on any text input box and changing the input method.
The physical keyboard is a nice addition, I definitely appreciate it being there although most of the time I used the virtual keyboard. I’d probably prefer the other Galaxy S variants that lack the physical keyboard, but if you need tactile feedback the Epic 4G’s hybrid model works.
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dk99 - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
Why is it so easy to see the pixels on the epic's screen? It seems annoying.Look at the first picture on the display page on Anand's article.
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/gadgets/Samsun...
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
The camera/lighting plus running the screen at full brightness exaggerates pixel pitch a bit but remember this device has the same resolution as the Nexus One but with a larger screen.Take care,
Anand
dk99 - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
I had a chance to check out an Epic 4g at the local sprint store and compared it to the Evo screen. The pixels were more easily seen on the Epic and it did bother me, but I guess it may not bother others as much.Here is a picture from another review site demonstrating the pixels:
http://www.mobilecrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/201...
Anand, Thank you for a great website.
Aigoo - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
Pentile RGBGhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PenTile_matrix_family
:(
pvdw - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
You mention the problem with jerkiness on Android phones, but I find my Desire is wonderfully smooth. It's almost exactly the same hardware as the Incredible, but with better build quality, and I've found no SMS scrolling problems.My Desire is unbranded, so there's no junk from operators like Sprint, etc. installed. Maybe this makes a difference?
And I manage to easily get a days worth of business use out of it - remote access, phone calls, web, etc. 30 hrs on lighter use.
I sure would love to have a better gpu, like the Galaxy S, and, more importantly, a screen that I can see in daylight without squinting.
joncat - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
I wouldn't say that the SGX 540 is a waste of hardware today. While there are nowhere near the amount of 3d games that IOS has, there are several high quality titles that run great on the galaxy s. Need for Speed Shift and the Sims 3 HD by EA, NOVA, Sandstorm, Assasin's Creed, Hero of Sparta, Asphalt5, to name a few by Gameloft all run great at native resolution, which can't be said for phones like the EVO and Incredible that run on the Snapdragon SOC.Mumrik - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
I absolutely love that we're back to using Quake 3 as a GPU performance benchmark.It stuck around for a long ass time in the first place and now it's back :-D
Mumrik - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
Anand, is there a reason you don't test standby battery life?It's a pretty essential number...
Even if it prevents you from getting the review up fast, you could always just post the review and add the data later after averaging out 2-3 tests.
SomeAudioGuy - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
Ok, so I've had an Epic 4G for about three weeks now. Battery life is completely on par for any other smartphone in this segment.I did switch my background to a darker one (the tent with star trails), but other than that I've done very little to mod the device. I don't even use ATK or juicedefender, and I use the built in auto backlight setting to manage brightness. I did not use any 4G today.
I pulled the phone off my charger at 7am, it's 4pm now. I streamed two hours of Pandora, made one 30 minute phone call and three 5 minute phone calls. Took three pictures and uploaded them to twitpic, have been using Tuiteur, facebook, and checking email on 4 different gmail accounts (with background sync enabled). Spent five minutes yelping a spot for lunch. Played about 15 minutes worth of games (GalCon Flight Control, and Simple Dice), helped debug a wireless router (which required about 20 minutes of wi-fi use), and just spent the last 5 minutes looking up geocaches in my area.
My battery is at 35%.
I would term my use as "moderate".
There's absolutely nothing wrong with the battery life on the Epic 4G. Nothing at all for a phone this powerful and with a screen this large.
GPS is a pain, but I find if I turn off GPS throughout the day, and turn it back on before I start an app that requires GPS, i get locks fast enough, and I'm usually down to about 3 meters accurate.
Maybe it's just the signal in Anand's area, but I've gotten better battery life with both EVO and Epic, and even though we TECHNICALLY don't get 4G in LA, when you find pockets of 4G access we're currently getting 4+Mbps down.
Lastly if you're going to review a keyboard slider phone, maybe give the phone to someone who isn't quite so lit on iPhones, and likes to use a hardware keyboard? Just a thought? Exactly TWO sentences are spent on what is quite possibly one of the best keyboards on the market today. No small feat considering this is NOT an HTC phone. No mention of the dedicated number row (who really likes pushing a function key)? No comparison to any other hardware keyboards? Really? Nothing?
Dane74 - Wednesday, September 8, 2010 - link
not ot call BS, on your GPS findings butt eh are out of wahck with all the testing using testing applicaitons. There are several serious problems with Epics GPS. And actually a number of them show up becasue of switching the GPS off. Go to XDA, or androidforums and you will see discussions.'
Your 3 meters accurate is Epic fooling you since it has already been shown the Epic is cooking those numbers..
Look at the pictures published by anantech, or others. Pictures of side by side comparisons showing nubmer of satellites used by the Epic show the serious problem.