Review: The Samsung Epic 4G Touch
What a difference a year makes.
About thirteen months ago I was reviewing the Galaxy S, in the guise of the Epic 4G on Sprint, and really enjoying it. After years of using Windows Mobile as my daily driver, and my only prior Android experience being a dubious run in with an HTC Hero, the Epic was a refreshing return to premier mobile computing.
Since then, thanks to this blog and a healthy interest in smart phones amongst my friends, I’ve had the pleasure of playing with every major phone release since the Epic dropped.
I purposely waited to write a review on the Epic Touch until after Apple announced their yearly iphone update. In light of that announcement, let’s take a look at Samsung’s new monster.
Throughout this review, we’ll also be hearing from my wife Marie, as she is the actual owner of this phone. Her segments will be in quoted text like the following:
Hi. I’m Marie. I’m what the marketers call a “late-adopter,” I’ve been dragging my feet on updating my Blackberry 8330 for well over a year now. My husband literally had to take my old cell phone and replace it with the Blackberry for me to start using it, so when he suggested I try using the Epic Touch, I was hesitant to say the least…
If you’re keeping up to date on the smartphone landscape, then you probably already know the drill on the Galaxy S II’s (from here on to be noted as E4GT) hardware. The E4GT boasts a 4.52 inch Super AMOLED plus screen. The “plus” referencing a subtle but important update to the sub pixels on the device (more on that later). Under the hood you’ll find the Exynos SOC featuring two Cortex ARM A9 processors clocked at 1.2 GHz, and being fed by 1GB of RAM. The phone includes 16GB of storage space, and an unused Micro SDHC card slot allowing the user to add up to another 32GB of storage if they wish. An improved 8MP shooter is on board, boasting 1080p video recording, and all of this is powered by an 1800mAh battery, as far as I can find, currently the largest battery in a stock Android handset.
The E4GT is one of the thinnest phones on the market. At its thickest, (there’s a slight bulge at the bottom of the handset) it comes within a fraction of a millimeter of the iPhone 4 in thickness. It’s thinner than the keyboard half of the Epic 4G. This is a large, flat, intimidating slab of smart phone.
The E4GT is much thinner than my BB but wider and longer.
Build materials are standard Samsung fare, a collection of plastics to keep the phone light. You won’t get the satisfying heft of an Evo here, but the textures used keep the phone from feeling cheap. The patterned back cover of the phone gives the impression of carbon fiber, and thankfully, isn’t a fingerprint magnet. On a device this large, glossy plastic probably would’ve made holding the phone a more slippery proposition.
I also have to give props to what I call the “Samsung Bulge,” the lump at the bottom of the Epic, Nexus S, and now E4GT. It really does give the phone a more Palm-like “polished stone” feel in the hand. As phones approach mini-tablet sizes, any bit of ergonomic attention is welcome.
This device is designed to make a bold first impression, and the crown jewel is its ludicrous screen. It’s impossible to show the phone off without dropping jaws. People instantly, and strongly, react–often thinking the phone is too large, until they use it for a while. It doesn’t take long to see the value of extra space. It makes navigating easier. It makes typing easier. It makes consuming media easier. Every aspect of computing is easier with extra space, and even with my petite hands, going back to the four inch screen on my OG Epic feels a little claustrophobic. The 3.5 inch-ish screen on an iPhone? Painful.
Interestingly enough, Samsung opted not to increase resolution on the E4GT, it’s still 800×480, just like the original Galaxy S. Normally this would be a big ugly red mark against the GS2, as increasing screen size will often make the same resolution look softer. However, this isn’t the same old Super AMOLED screen we’ve all been using for the last year. This is Super AMOLED PLUS. The major difference is a new sub pixel arrangement. SAMOLED used what is called a “Pen Tile” arrangement which uses fewer sub pixels, and makes the screen a little less expensive to produce. Compared to other screens, the original SAMOLED did a much poorer job of reproducing text and fine photo detail.
SAMOLED+ corrects this by using a more traditional “RGB Stripe” sub pixel arrangement, so even though it’s the same resolution as the smaller screened Epic, text and details on the E4GT look crisper to my eye.
This stands as something of a victory for Samsung, that screen resolution isn’t always the most important metric. Having shown the phone to several iPhone owners, I’ve encountered a fair amount of screen envy. The color saturation on SAMOLED+ is retina burning, and the contrast is ridiculous. Just like the original Epic, blacks on the E4GT are like pools of ink. It’s difficult to see where the screen stops and the bezel of the phone begins. iPhone owners have been told that the Retina Display is the “best,” but having them watch a film on the ET4G is a serious challenge to that previous assertion. This is, by far, my favorite screen on a mobile device currently available. Bar none.
The screen is FANTASTIC and is a large part of why I love this phone. It’s beautiful at face value, but when you compare it to my BlackBerry…well, it’s just sad for my 8330. Scrolling the through the various homepages and apps is easy and fluid and, more importantly, I can see them! I have to admit that I often chose to wait until I got to a computer before trying to scan any webpages with the BlackBerry as my mobile option, because the screen was so small and the resolution wasn’t great. On the E4GT, webpages and apps load easily and smoothly.
A great screen isn’t worth much though if the device can’t perform.
The Exynos SOC is a beast, and I’m not actually going to spend a lot of time describing the phone’s performance. Instead, enjoy this video I shot comparing the E4GT to my original Epic to see how much of an improvement this dual core processor is over the original “Hummingbird” single core of a year ago (ignore the music).
The dual core phone processor revolution has actually come with a happy benefit. Battery life has often improved. As these processors have gotten more powerful, the phone doesn’t have to max out its processor to get work done as often as its single core brethren does. Since the CPU isn’t running at 100% for as long as a single core, it’s able to sip a little less battery along the way.
Navagating within an app is also smooth and simple. The touch screen is really easy to use to scroll on the E4GT. For example, using Google+ and Facebook Apps, I am quickly able to see what people are posting and respond. On weekends, I am in charge of keeping up with a Facebook fan Page that we run and the E4GT made it very simple. On the Blackberry, the Facebook app is hard to navigate through and search with, and frankly, just hard to see. Just to FIND the fan page took what felt like 30 more steps to get there. On the E4GT the visuals on the games are gorgeous and so much fun to play with this screen. I’ve already lost WAY too much time to the various Angry Bird apps.
All day use out of the E4GT on 3G wasn’t difficult, and ending an average day of calls, web browsing, a little gaming, I would often have more juice on the Touch than I would on the OG Epic. Leaving 4G on will throw a wrench into this use, but it’s really easy to toggle the WiMAX radio on and off, so only use it when you need it.
Unfortunately the Epic Touch doesn’t seem to handle data as well as the original Epic. It may have just been the review unit we were given, but no matter 3G, 4G or Wifi, it was slower to pull data over any test I conducted. The benchmarking video posted above shows the two phones on the same wifi network, but the 4G performance was the most disappointing. In Hollywood, where my Epic easily pulls down 8-10Mbps downloads, the E4GT is consistently pulling 6-8Mbps. No matter where I went, the E4GT could only muster about 75% of the data performance of the original Galaxy S. It’s nothing to sneeze at, but a little frustrating considering how much more powerful EVERY other aspect of the phone is. I would certainly classify this as a bug, and hopefully it will be addressed in a future update.
The only issue I have with the phone is the software keyboard. Coming from a BlackBerry which has a hardware keyboard, I find I’m making a lot of mistakes. I struggle with longer emails or texts. The phone comes with Swype, but after trying it out several times, I found I had to go back and fix more mistakes than not. I now use a different keyboard app [SwiftKey X]. Truth be told however, the keyboard issue isn’t a deal-breaker. I still prefer this phone over Juan’s Epic and that comes with a hardware keyboard. Nor would I want to ADD a keyboard to this phone. It’s already pretty wide and to add a keyboard would just make this phone too thick to use as a phone. The software keyboard doesn’t slow me down to a point that I would trade it back in for the Blackberry.
Call quality is about average in this space. This is the first Samsung phone where I’m aware of them making an effort to include a noise reduction microphone to improve call clarity. On a busy street in Studio City, people said I was clearer on the E4GT than the Epic, so that was good enough for me.
The camera is another fantastic improvement. The 8MP shooter produces noticeably higher quality jpegs than the 5MP on the Epic. Not only is there more detail (thanks to the higher res), but more color info is saved in each shot. This means photos will be larger (about 2.5MB-ish per shot versus the Epic @ 1.5MB-ish per shot), but it’s a happy trade off to get better looking shots. Outside of a Nokia (the 12MP shooter on the N8 is still top dog), this is the best camera on a phone I’ve used yet, and even low light sensitivity has been improved. This black and white shot of my dog was shot in almost no light…
When it comes to stills, I do need to take some umbrage with Apple’s recent iPhone announcement, especially their silly bar graph comparing different camera performance times. Firing up the camera on the E4GT takes less than two seconds, and the time to refocus and take another picture is about a second. This is much faster than Apple’s claim that the Galaxy S II takes up to two seconds in between shots. I’ll be curious to see how the 4S ACTUALLY compares in performance when we get one…
1080p video is a welcome improvement, and the final nail in the coffin for Flip-style cameras. There really is no need to carry a separate device anymore. In fact, video shot off the E4GT will probably end up in an interview we shot for an indie film’s special features. The only drawback is the higher res video seems to exhibit more of the shaky cam “jello” rolling shutter effect. The 720p video on the OG Epic is a little less “jittery”, but the E4GT video is genuinely a much better image.
The Epic ships with Android 2.3.4 “Gingerbread. ” This update to the OS brings the advantage of better hardware support for video and gaming, and native access to front facing cameras. In both regards the E4GT absolutely crushes any “Froyo” devices I’ve used. Streaming Netflix on the Epic is kind of a “buffery” experience. It’s buttery smooth on the E4GT. Firing up a Skype call on the E4GT is smooth, but isn’t even officially supported on the Epic (which stutters and rotates the video the wrong way). You can also jump in on video hangouts on Google+, a VERY nice feature for a phone.
Blackberry fans are often business people and they really think of their phone as an extension of their office. So how does the E4GT compare for business use? I have two email addresses that I need to be able to access and respond with throughout the day. It was surprisingly simple with the E4GT. I use gmail and it’s a two-step process to move from one email account to another on this phone. The contact manager is also really simple to use. With the BB I had a hard time syncing my contacts to gmail accounts. The few times I tried, I ended up with odd double entries on both the device and on the gmail account. So I mostly just entered new information into the phone and email accounts separately.
With the E4GT, that wasn’t necessary. The gmail accounts sync automatically. So if I enter an address into my gmail account, it is on my phone almost by the time I finish typing it. Composing an email or text is simple as well. I simply select the contact and the phone asks me how I want to contact them (phone call, email, or text); and then if I select email, it asks which of my two accounts I want to use. Simple. Easy.
The Google Docs App is also a feature for business use. It is fantastic and one I had to use several times in a business environment while testing out this phone. It was a huge time-saver.
Aside from OS improvements, the E4GT also brings a new version of TouchWiz, Samsung’s “skin” for Android. Graphical improvements, beautiful fade and transition effects, and a host of widgets and layout changes make this is a very pretty update to TW. Samsung has also customized the general theme of the phone to keep everything as black as possible. One, it makes colors REALLY stand out, but two, it also improves battery life. Each pixel of the screen makes its own light, so whenever there is black on the screen, those pixels are essentially “off” and not using any power.
I don’t particularly find TW useful anymore, but it does include some fun widgets to play with out of the box. I do find some choices rather frustrating though.
Take the app drawer for instance. When you first fire the device up, the app drawer functions almost identically to how the iPhone sorts apps, sliding per screen horizontally. As you add new apps, they’re stuck on the end of the drawer. You can sort individually (and create folders to better organize), but honestly, I just find it easier to sort apps alphabetically. Especially for those apps I don’t use as often, I hate having to “find” them. Now, you can switch over to an alphabetical grid, but it’s not the default, and when you’re in Alphabetical Grid mode you can’t change the common apps at the bottom of the screen.
It’s running into those little expectations that can make TW a little frustrating to use.
TW does, however, do a pretty decent job of incorporating social media info into your contacts. It’s really easy to fire up a contact and see their recent call history and activity on Facebook. You can also fire up the Social Hub app if you want a “unified inbox” for all your different social networks.
Other interesting pieces of software included?
Allshare is on board to help you stream media with DLNA compatible hardware.
Samsung has helpfully included photo and video editors and both work surprisingly well. The photo editor allows for color correction, and you can even make selections within a picture to fine-tune your post editing. The video editor allows you to add a soundtrack, and make cuts within a file. Since Google hasn’t given us either, both are very welcome additions.
Polaris Office is on board to help you get some work done.
Lastly, Kies Air is a VERY interesting Samsung app. By activating Kies Air, you can log into your phone through another computer’s web browser to view and download items on the phone. Both devices need to be on the same network, and it works surprisingly well.
The standard Sprint fare is also on board (Telenav, Sprint ID, Sprint Zone, etc), but I don’t really use them, so I really can’t comment on their value…
Well I guess we should wrap this piece up.
The Galaxy S II wins.
Done.
But seriously, against any other Android phone out now, this is monster hardware attached to a gorgeous screen, and even the TouchWiz skin doesn’t get stuttery or laggy like other manufacturer skins I’ve used. Even the lack of a hardware keyboard is an easier pill to swallow as the software keyboard has PLENTY of room to spread out, especially in landscape.
Against an iPhone. Well. Obviously there’s the personal preference of iOS vs Android, but bullet point to bullet point, I can’t see a compelling reason to wait for the iPhone 4S to arrive. For the first time in iPhone history, I finished a keynote and there wasn’t anything in the announcement that made me say “Dang, shoot, I REALLY wish THAT iPhone feature was on Android, drat, blergh…”. The 4S has merely caught up to the current features of the E4GT, and it wont have support for Sprint’s WiMAX.
If you’re signing up for a two year contract, especially on Sprint, do you really want to spend two years with a small screen, non-upgradeable storage, and NO 4G? Really?
Overall – this is a great phone and one I am recommending to everyone. My iPhone friends who used to mock me for my BlackBerry have been looking at this phone with envy (that alone should be a sales point). I was attached to my Blackberry’s email client, its hardware keyboard, it’s ease of use, etc. But within a day, the E4GT won me over. This is the phone for me.
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