Sprint epic 4G impressions

F

FRZ

2[H]4U
Joined
Jul 7, 2005
Messages
3,550
Picked up the phone yesterday, and I must say I am in android heaven.

I have been in an android love affair since I was able to kick the blackberry addiction for the original droid back in December. Over the past month I was using the international version of the galaxy s (only one with a front facing camera until now) but I couldn't live with edge data anymore. The epic seemed like it could fit the bill for me so I made the switch yesterday and I must say this phone without a doubt ROCKS

Usually I wouldn't post a thread praising a product like this, but anyone looking for a high end android device should seriously take this phone into consideration. It is simply a powerhouse with it's 1ghz hummingbird processor which make snapdragon feel like a celeron. The screen is in one word gorgeous and as responsive as any android phone to date, I can even say it matches the iPhone 4s, where the iPhone might be a hair more polished, the epic is faster and just as smooth. The phone lacks no features I can think of, it has it all including front facing camera, a camera flash, sixaxis controllability, hardware keyboard (is a huge plus for using the game emulators such as super nes and playstation since you have actual buttons instead of them covering the phones screen), 4g support, and much more. The only drawbacks are the size which is a bit thick compared to other smartphones (I could care less but I'm sure others will) and the lack of android 2.2 (I hate these custom company skins, stock android please) but all in all I still would take this over my old nexus.

Samsung definitely has a winner on their hands with the galaxy s line, and the epic sits as the cream of the galaxy crop. The tmobile g2 also looks like a winner, but without the front facing camera, it's lacking that one killer feature that could really set it apart as a true all around stock android device. If anyone else has the epic I'd love to hear some of your impressions. :)
 
It is simply a powerhouse with it's 1ghz hummingbird processor which make snapdragon feel like a celeron
Click to expand...

I picked up an Epic yesterday to play with and compared it to my Evo. To be honest, both phones have merits and the Epic beats out the Evo in the display department. But in terms of speed and performance, they were both quick and relatively the same.

Good to hear you enjoy the phone. :)
 
aethowyn said:
I picked up an Epic yesterday to play with and compared it to my Evo. To be honest, both phones have merits and the Epic beats out the Evo in the display department. But in terms of speed and performance, they were both quick and relatively the same.

Good to hear you enjoy the phone. :)
Click to expand...

The evo is a fantastic phone, but your comparing froyo on the evo to eclair on the epic. One thing is though the evo has over the epic is both cameras on the evo beat the epic handily but that's the beauty of android, there are more and more options everyday to fit every users need.
 
Whose to say I didn't have Eclair on my Evo? :p

You are right though, I was comparing Froyo on Evo vs Eclair on Epic.
 
I just got my first Samsung phone ever last week, I picked up the Captivate. I must say I was worried leaving HTC, but I can't be happier. I do miss the hardware keyboard but I really like the feel of the captivate in my hand. it's the perfect size.
 
BranNutz said:
I just got my first Samsung phone ever last week, I picked up the Captivate. I must say I was worried leaving HTC, but I can't be happier. I do miss the hardware keyboard but I really like the feel of the captivate in my hand. it's the perfect size.
Click to expand...

How are you liking the SWYPE keyboard though? For me it's so fluid typing on it comes so easy.
 
My brother has the epic and there are a few missing features that the captivate has. For example, on the captivate, you can sort the address book by last name, and the epic doesn't have that option.....
Also on the captivate you can drag the contact name right to call and left to text.
Anyone have a clue?
 
Last edited:
My buddy went in to get an EVO and the sales guy said "Buy the Epic, it has a Hi-Def screen and is a much better phone in every aspect." :rolleyes:

Needless to say I scoffed a bit. Maybe my EVO bias kicked in.
 
Epic is fast, just like all other Galaxy S phones... YOU NEED to get the lag fix though, made Vibrant fly! It was already fast, now it is just...wow! Basically, My quadmark scores went from high 900's to 2400! I was watching an EPIC review and guy ran Quadmark, epic got about 900 as well. That leads me to assume that it's suffering from the same thing Vibrant/Captivate was.
 
The Epic doesn't need the lag fix, because the Epic's system is on NAND, not an internal SD card. This has been mentioned in almost every review out there, there's no lag on it. The Quadrant scores are artificial meaningless benchmarks.

XpediencY, Froyo is coming either late September or early October according to my Samsung rep, and TouchWiz will be updated to 3.0 at that time. All the little features, like the phone book sorting, or swiping to call, or rearranging apps will be included then.
 
entropism said:
The Epic doesn't need the lag fix, because the Epic's system is on NAND, not an internal SD card. This has been mentioned in almost every review out there, there's no lag on it. The Quadrant scores are artificial meaningless benchmarks.

XpediencY, Froyo is coming either late September or early October according to my Samsung rep, and TouchWiz will be updated to 3.0 at that time. All the little features, like the phone book sorting, or swiping to call, or rearranging apps will be included then.
Click to expand...

Oh I see, didn't know that it was different.
 
entropism said:
The Epic doesn't need the lag fix, because the Epic's system is on NAND, not an internal SD card. This has been mentioned in almost every review out there, there's no lag on it. The Quadrant scores are artificial meaningless benchmarks.

XpediencY, Froyo is coming either late September or early October according to my Samsung rep, and TouchWiz will be updated to 3.0 at that time. All the little features, like the phone book sorting, or swiping to call, or rearranging apps will be included then.
Click to expand...

I was wondering why the epic felt snappier then the galaxy s i9000, man who would have thought sprint would end up with two killer devices
 
Also played with the fascinate today... It's decent, but nothing great. To me, the Captivate feels the best of the 4, the Epic has the best features, and the other two just feel like toys.
 
It's a beautiful device, though I am a little biased by coming from a RAZR.

That being said, I'm in the thick of Seattle, get 4G to light up to a full five bars on my apartment building roof, and I still speed test to a measly 1500kbps down. Max. If someone else in Seattle could confirm this I would appreciate (Capital Hill in particular). I can't really connect to 4G at all inside, and I can't see GPS satellites inside either, something about the building I live in I guess. I'm just peeved that even at best the 4g is worse than the 3g (which I actually get good coverage from everywhere, nearly always 3-5 bars) what with the 10 extra a month for 4g and all.
 
Went to go play with one today and while I usually love full keyboards, I found it very unnecessary on this phone and only adding weight and width it didn't need which really would be a deal breaker for me. Then the evo is too big. :/
 
reasons said:
Went to go play with one today and while I usually love full keyboards, I found it very unnecessary on this phone and only adding weight and width it didn't need which really would be a deal breaker for me. Then the evo is too big. :/
Click to expand...

That's how I feel, that's why I love my vibrant, super thin and light. Back when android ran on crappy hardware and had small screen, then yea, full QWERTY keyboard was a nice add. But on a 4" screen, screaming hardware, it really isn't needed anymore.
 
I fully agree with you guys about the size the keyboard adds, but to me the ability to use physical buttons for games such as emulators is a huge plus. I wish samsung hd taken a page from mottorola because the droid 2 is probably the best formfactor for a phone that includes a keyboard
 
I agree about the keyboard. If the Epic didn't have that keyboard I would have it on Sprint right now. As it turns out T-mobile gave me a free Vibrant when my brother bought one on the family plan I've been on since the dawn of time so I stayed with them. The keyboard sure would be nice for emulators but that's about it and the limited amount of time I'd spend playing games isn't worth the unnecessary bulk. Give me an Epic without a keyboard and 16gb of internal memory and I'll drop T-mobile in less time than it took me to type this message.
 
Blown 89 said:
I agree about the keyboard. If the Epic didn't have that keyboard I would have it on Sprint right now. As it turns out T-mobile gave me a free Vibrant when my brother bought one on the family plan I've been on since the dawn of time so I stayed with them. The keyboard sure would be nice for emulators but that's about it and the limited amount of time I'd spend playing games isn't worth the unnecessary bulk. Give me an Epic without a keyboard and 16gb of internal memory and I'll drop T-mobile in less time than it took me to type this message.
Click to expand...

If only Sprint didn't suck here...

lol i love my Vibrant! Tmobile has been great at times, horrible others. On and off, I'd rather switch. Although, it seems as if we have just got an upgrade to our towers! My speeds went up by 1mbps!
 
aFive said:
If only Sprint didn't suck here...

lol i love my Vibrant! Tmobile has been great at times, horrible others. On and off, I'd rather switch. Although, it seems as if we have just got an upgrade to our towers! My speeds went up by 1mbps!
Click to expand...
I love my Vibrant too....it has a few issues but I hear they'll be resolved in September. Sprint isn't that great here either but T-mobile's speeds are so bad I want to throw the phone in a river. I usually hover around 0.3 to 0.5 Mbps down. I've been fortunate enough to get up around 4 Mbps down when I'm around their upgraded towers but they are so few and far between that I have a better chance of winning the lottery than being in range of one of those towers when I need it.

Sprint's plans are what entice me. They're heads and shoulders better than anything else out there.
 
Ok, I can pass 6000kbps down around downtown seattle, but that's about it. That just leaves me more confused though as there it doesn't claim to have a full connection, while in the places where I test 4g to 1500 max it does claim to have a full connection.
 
Blown 89 said:
I love my Vibrant too....it has a few issues but I hear they'll be resolved in September. Sprint isn't that great here either but T-mobile's speeds are so bad I want to throw the phone in a river. I usually hover around 0.3 to 0.5 Mbps down. I've been fortunate enough to get up around 4 Mbps down when I'm around their upgraded towers but they are so few and far between that I have a better chance of winning the lottery than being in range of one of those towers when I need it.

Sprint's plans are what entice me. They're heads and shoulders better than anything else out there.
Click to expand...

I like Tmobile plans more. I used to get about 1.5mbps down at my house. This morning it seemed rather fast, so I ran speedtest and am getting about 4mbps! A lot of the places I go it works good, but then there are places like my gf's house where I barely get 500kbps :(. When i first got My Touch 3g phone, I barely got 400kbps here... they have really improved over the past year or so.
 
Ok, this is a piece of a sprint map of coverage:

http://coverage.sprint.com/action/W...ntiAlias=T&layers=TFFFTFTTTFTFTTFFTTTFFFFTFTF

Blue means 4g coverage. While on the bus traveling the street in the middle (summit) I had 0 4g coverage. None. This is kind of annoying sprint. Also, for serious portions of the route, I was unable to attach to or even see gps satellites. I don't know, maybe the phone is just bad at signals and it isn't sprint's fault. But it does seem to have no issue with 3g wherever I go. In honesty, based on reviews, if this phone had come out on both sprint and tmo, I would have gone tmo. But I like having a keyboard, and if I'm gonna be locked to a phone for 2 years, I also like any extra I can get like a front facing camera.

So yeah, the phone is great, but if you live in Seattle, 4g is not a deciding factor. That much is clear.

EDIT: Unless you're talking about the $10 extra a month they charge you for it. I guess it can help you decide then.
 
Last edited:
entropism said:
The Epic doesn't need the lag fix, because the Epic's system is on NAND, not an internal SD card.
Click to expand...

All Galaxy S models use the fastest NAND portion of their memory for system and app storage. The lag has nothing to do with the slower flash storage but rather the file system that Samsung has chosen. If the Epic doesn't have lag, then it is because Samsung has fixed its software.
 
applebook said:
All Galaxy S models use the fastest NAND portion of their memory for system and app storage. The lag has nothing to do with the slower flash storage but rather the file system that Samsung has chosen. If the Epic doesn't have lag, then it is because Samsung has fixed its software.
Click to expand...

Funny, because the people developing the roots and custom ROMs for the Galaxy S phones disagree with you.

Edit: Especially since the Epic shares the same file system as the Vibrant, i9000 and captivate.
 
Last edited:
PhantmShado said:
Ok, this is a piece of a sprint map of coverage:

http://coverage.sprint.com/action/W...ntiAlias=T&layers=TFFFTFTTTFTFTTFFTTTFFFFTFTF

Blue means 4g coverage. While on the bus traveling the street in the middle (summit) I had 0 4g coverage. None. This is kind of annoying sprint. Also, for serious portions of the route, I was unable to attach to or even see gps satellites. I don't know, maybe the phone is just bad at signals and it isn't sprint's fault. But it does seem to have no issue with 3g wherever I go. In honesty, based on reviews, if this phone had come out on both sprint and tmo, I would have gone tmo. But I like having a keyboard, and if I'm gonna be locked to a phone for 2 years, I also like any extra I can get like a front facing camera.

So yeah, the phone is great, but if you live in Seattle, 4g is not a deciding factor. That much is clear.

EDIT: Unless you're talking about the $10 extra a month they charge you for it. I guess it can help you decide then.
Click to expand...

You know, when I went ahead and tried sprint for a month with evo, I checked their data map and it said I was covered with 3g everywhere. I barely got 309kbps in my area, and I had to pay $10 a month extra...
 
Yeah, I'm at least pulling in 1000-1500kpbs off the 3g everywhere I go (both up and down). It's been fine for surfing and downloading apps, I'm only peeved cause I was promised surfing WHILE making calls. And I don't actually get that. Still, even with the 10 extra it's cheaper for what I'm getting then any other carrier would offer, so I'm fine with it. I really just mean people should not be getting an epic or evo over the other options if they're only doing it for 4g. The phones are still cool enough that it's not a terrible option. But yeah, for 309kbps, I would prob chuck it. If you don't really get data, you shouldn't have a phone made for getting/sending data.
 
entropism said:
Also played with the fascinate today... It's decent, but nothing great...feel like toys.
Click to expand...
Well that sucks. I was hoping for a soft touch like the droids. Was it at least snappy? Also, does anyone know exactly what the deal is with the Galaxy showing 364MB's?
 
well I just bought mine yesterday. I have not run it through it's paces yet so I don't know what DL speeds I am getting here in Fort Wayne IN.

Firstly I was surprised to find out that I was able to upgrade a month earlier than I was told. According to the web site it said I was able to upgrade in October but when I went into the local store they looked it up and told me I could upgrade as of September 1st.

So far I like the phone but I do miss some of the features that I liked with the Palm Pre. I am still getting used to the android interface but the phone is very responsive and the keyboard feels very good to me. I know some people complained about the weight and the bulkiness it adds to the phone, but it is actually less thick than the Pre and it's keys are comfortable if a little stiff feeling. I think this may be because it is brand new and will break in after a few days use.

I already looked up how to root the phone but I am not sure if I should do that yet. I know I will because I like to use my phone as a hotspot but I don't like to pay for the bandwidth that I already pay for. What other things should I root my phone for?
 
PhantmShado said:
Yeah, I'm at least pulling in 1000-1500kpbs off the 3g everywhere I go (both up and down). It's been fine for surfing and downloading apps, I'm only peeved cause I was promised surfing WHILE making calls. And I don't actually get that. Still, even with the 10 extra it's cheaper for what I'm getting then any other carrier would offer, so I'm fine with it. I really just mean people should not be getting an epic or evo over the other options if they're only doing it for 4g. The phones are still cool enough that it's not a terrible option. But yeah, for 309kbps, I would prob chuck it. If you don't really get data, you shouldn't have a phone made for getting/sending data.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure Tmobile is still cheaper, whn I went to sprint, I was paying a little more than I do for Tmobile. Still, way better than att or Verizon. What's irritating is that their map shows great coverage for 3g everywhere in Aurora, all the way Ro Denver and Lakewood. What do they consider great? 300kbps at my house? Less than 100 at my gym? Lol. All acrriers have dead spots, but at least I can see in their maps where they are. I'm pretty happy now, paying $85 on unlimited everything and pulling 4mbps at home on Tmobile. Gonna see what it is at my gym today, it usually is over 1mbps. But since it is pretty close to my house, maybe data there got upgraded as well.
 
Crighton said:
I know some people complained about the weight and the bulkiness it adds to the phone, but it is actually less thick than the Pre and it's keys are comfortable if a little stiff feeling.
Click to expand...
If they think that's heavy, they'd hate the DROID 1/2. It's like carrying around a miniature brick in your pocket. :D

And talk about stiff, I had to fight the 1st DROID for letters.
 
aFive said:
I'm pretty sure Tmobile is still cheaper, whn I went to sprint, I was paying a little more than I do for Tmobile. Still, way better than att or Verizon. What's irritating is that their map shows great coverage for 3g everywhere in Aurora, all the way Ro Denver and Lakewood. What do they consider great? 300kbps at my house? Less than 100 at my gym? Lol. All acrriers have dead spots, but at least I can see in their maps where they are. I'm pretty happy now, paying $85 on unlimited everything and pulling 4mbps at home on Tmobile. Gonna see what it is at my gym today, it usually is over 1mbps. But since it is pretty close to my house, maybe data there got upgraded as well.
Click to expand...
T-mobile might be cheaper but Sprint has many more features. Their TV service is free, unlimited mobile to mobile, better night and weekend times, better upgrade plans, etc, etc. When I compared the two the $10 difference per month in data plans was well worth it.

My problem with Sprint is that I'd be paying the $10 Evo charge for data in our area that's barely faster than edge speeds.
 
Huh, and now I can't get a gps lock regardless of where I am or how many the phone sees, it just won't connect. Grr.
 
The Galaxy has a known problem with finding itself when using GPS. This is supposed to be fixed shortly. So in other words....yes, it's a problem, but it will not be for long.
 
Paradoxex said:
The Galaxy has a known problem with finding itself when using GPS. This is supposed to be fixed shortly. So in other words....yes, it's a problem, but it will not be for long.
Click to expand...

Exactly like the moment when it was released.

I am strongly considering this phone. Every time i pick up and EVO all i can think of is just how big the thing is.
 
I was in a Sprint store today checking out the Epic. I was having an issue pressing the back button on the bottom of the phone. I didn't seem to have any issue with the other 3 buttons. It may have been a bad display phone, I'm not sure. Has anyone else experienced this? Any ideas what I may have been doing wrong?
 
Actually, a google says that phone you played with is not the only one with that issue. My phone has been fine, but it has had me worried. if you like it outside of that sprint will replace it if you have one of the bad ones I imagine.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top