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
Easily Influenced
As the manufacturer for both the NAND that goes into Apple devices and the SoC that Apple uses in the iPhone/iPad, Samsung works closer with Apple than most other smartphone vendors. I was once given a characterization of Samsung that I will never forget: this is a company that’s trying to learn as much as it can from Apple for use in its own smartphone endeavors.
There’s no better example than the Galaxy S. Unlike other vendors who have been Cupertino inspired, Samsung’s learnings are put to use almost exclusively in software. Physically, the Galaxy S is quite dissimilar from the industrial design used in Apple’s iOS products.
Samsung sent me the Epic 4G, a variant of the Galaxy S for use on Sprint’s network (with WiMAX support as implied by the 4G moniker). The Epic 4G has an amazingly contrasty 4” 800 x 480 Super AMOLED display. The capacitive touchscreen is backed up by a physical keyboard that slides out in landscape mode.
I’d say that Samsung did everything to be the most unlike Apple in the design of the Epic 4G. Along the top you have a microUSB port, but Samsung included a sliding cover to keep the pocket lint out. This adds complexity to the look of the device, but is nicely protective if you’re a bit OCD about getting lint in the crevices of your phone. The sheer location of the microUSB port is unusual as well. Most Android phones we’ve looked at have their power/sync connector at the bottom of the phone, not the top.
The power/lock button also shifts positions compared to what we’re used to. It’s on the right side, near the top on the Epic 4G.
On the lower part of the right side of the phone there’s a shutter release button for the camera. There’s a volume rocker on the left side of the phone. All of the buttons on the Epic 4G have a rubbery texture to them with the exception of the shutter release button which has a metal insert surrounded by rubber.
The screen slides up to reveal a landscape keyboard on the Epic 4G. The sliding mechanism is easy enough to operate with one hand and reasonably smooth. It’s not the most confidence inspiring but not terrible either.
The physical keyboard itself is a nice addition for those who must absolutely have it. Samsung even duplicates the four Android keys on the keyboard itself (home, back, menu, and search) so you can exclusively use the physical keyboard for navigating the OS if you’d like. There is no scroll ball or equivalent on the Epic 4G, but the physical keyboard does have four arrow keys you can use in its stead.
The keys on the physical keyboard are fairly wide and reasonably spaced (it is a landscape keyboard after all). The keys are missing some curved definition that would make it easier to touch type on them but overall it’s not a bad keyboard. Again, not the best I’ve encountered but not terrible at all.
Since this is a slider phone, build quality isn’t the easiest to guarantee. The two halves of the phone independently feel well made, but the joining of the two isn’t super secure. The “oreo effect” as Brian likes to call it is very present on the Epic 4G. You can twist the top and bottom halves of the phone and get them to separate by a couple of degrees. It’s not terrible but if having a loose feeling phone bothers you then you may want to look elsewhere.
The four standard Android keys are also present in capacitive touch form along the bottom edge of the Epic 4G. Unlike most other Android phones, the capacitive buttons aren’t visibly outlined on the phone. You can only see them if they’re backlit, which has a timer associated with it that’s by default separate from the screen timer. What this means is that the row of Android buttons will actually disappear before the screen goes blank if you don’t touch the phone. Thankfully Samsung provides a setting to sync these two so both the screen and buttons go blank at the same time, but it’s just not enabled by default.
The Epic 4G is a good fit in my hand, but with a physical keyboard it is a thicker phone than most I’m used to. If you’re coming from a standard cellphone or feature phone, the Epic 4G is going to feel huge - if you’re coming from another Android/iOS device, it won’t be too bad.
From left to right: Google Nexus One, Samsung Epic 4G, iPhone 4
The phone is a mixture of materials, with the front being glossy plastic, then a chrome strip around the middle and a matte black back cover.
The back cover snaps off with relative ease revealing the 1500mAh battery, a microSD card slot and what looks like four external antenna connectors. I’m not really sure what the exposed connectors are for, perhaps to help during hardware testing/debug. Not having to take the battery out to get to the microSD card is a nice addition as well. The phone comes with a 16GB card as well as a microSD to SD card adapter for use in standard card readers.
Finally on the back we have a lens for the 5MP camera sensor and a single LED flash.
| Physical Comparison | |||||||||
| Apple iPhone 4 | Apple iPhone 3GS | Samsung Epic 4G | HTC EVO 4G | Motorola Droid X | |||||
| Height | 115.2 mm (4.5") | 115 mm (4.5") | 124 mm (4.9") | 121.9 mm (4.8") | 127.5 mm (5.02") | ||||
| Width | 58.6 mm (2.31") | 62.1 mm (2.44") | 63.5 mm (2.5") | 66.0 mm (2.6") | 66.5 mm (2.62") | ||||
| Depth | 9.3 mm ( 0.37") | 12.3 mm (0.48") | 15.2 mm (0.6") | 12.7 mm (0.5") | 9.9 mm (0.39") | ||||
| Weight | 137 g (4.8 oz) | 133 g (4.7 oz) | (5.47 oz) | 170 g (6.0 oz) | 155 g (5.47 oz) | ||||
| CPU | Apple A4 @ ~800MHz | Apple/Samsung A3 @ 600MHz | Samsung Hummingbird @ 1GHz | Qualcomm Scorpion @ 1GHz | TI OMAP 3630 @ 1GHz | ||||
| GPU | PowerVR SGX 535 | PowerVR SGX 535 | PowerVR SGX 540 | Adreno 200 | PowerVR SGX 530 | ||||
| RAM | 512MB LPDDR1 (?) | 256MB LPDDR1 | 512 MB LPDDR1 | 512MB LPDDR1 | 512MB LPDDR1 | ||||
| NAND | 16GB or 32GB integrated | 16 or 32GB integrated | 1 GB integrated, 16 GB microSD preinstalled | 1 GB integrated, 8 GB microSD preinstalled | 8 GB integrated, preinstalled 16 GB microSD | ||||
| Camera | 5MP with LED Flash + Front Facing Camera | 3MP with autofocus | 5 MP with LED Flash and autofocus | 8MP with dual LED Flash + Front Facing Camera | 8MP with dual LED Flash | ||||
| Screen | 3.5" 640 x 960 LED backlit LCD | 3.5" 320 x 480 | 4.0" 480 x 800 | 4.3" 480 x 800 | 4.3" 480 x 854 | ||||
| Battery | Integrated 5.254Whr | Integrated 4.51Whr | Removable 5.55Whr | Removable 5.5Whr | Removable 5.698 Whr | ||||
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SomeAudioGuy - Monday, September 20, 2010 - link
Hey Dane74,Here's the deal. I've had the phone for three weeks BEFORE it was officially released (I also write for a tech blog). You can look at pictures of SOMEONE else using metric apps, and trying to tally measurements in lab-like conditions, or you can use the phone.
You know what, lets look at Anand's pic. Next to the Nexus 1, it's off by 30m, but has found one additional satellite over the N1. It's only locked to 3 satellites, but is reading better signals from the other satellites it hasn't locked. SO this is probably not a hardware issue (if we're to base EVERYTHING on one pic published by a reviewer that doesn't seem to like this phone that much).
I GeoCache A LOT. Using the GPS in the phone to geocache in really challenging environments to get good satellite line of sight (like the canyons in LA), I'm still within 5 meters. This is comparing the on screen data to map and compass.
Samsung might have issues, but it isn't "Fooling" me. They haven't written any malicious software, they aren't trying to hurt you, they aren't trying to trick you, they aren't evil-ly twiddling their fingers laughing "Muah-ha-ha" style at their customers while petting white cats. They've admitted they have some software issues, and are working on a patch.
My locks do take longer than my EVO, but are CONSIDERABLY faster than my Fascinate (Yes. I have all of these phones.) If the EVO is more accurate, I can't tell when I'm outside or doing turn by turn navigation. Truthfully, for all of the advantages that the Epic offers over any other phone, if it's only accurate to 4 meters and the iphone is accurate to 2 meters, the iphone can STILL shove it. I'm driving/walking/riding a bike NOT engaging in surgical missile strikes...
As to whether or not turning GPS on and off creates problems, I can't say. I haven't had any of these issues. My issues usually stem from not having good line of sight (like when I'm downtown).
Jeff7181 - Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - link
Very helpful review... I almost bought one of these. I was hoping with the AMOLED the battery life would be better than the Evo 4G since it actually turns off black pixels from what I hear. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to help. Looks like I'll be keeping my Curve a while longer.michael.gulde - Wednesday, September 8, 2010 - link
Didn't see much about ports on this article does it have a hdmi port?MrMaestro - Wednesday, September 8, 2010 - link
The i9000 (international version), which I assume is the same as the Epic, has a micro-USB port. Samsung has developed a micro-USB to HDMI cable but apparently they took the Galaxy S off its compatibility list on their website, so, I think the answer is essentially no. Still, the cable isn't out yet so we'll see.DigitlDrug - Thursday, September 9, 2010 - link
Hi Anand,Thanks for another great review. I'm curious re. the supposed GPS software fix Samsung is cooking up.
Supposedly the Epic was supposed to ship with this "fix" or had at least been validated.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/18/samsung-says-gp...
If you are able to dig up any additional info (maybe prod the engadget boys to see if they're testing methods are as exacting as yours, and what soft. ver they have) can you please update the article or drop in a news blurb?
(I'll admit this is a big one for me, GPS is the one sticking point as I realy heavily on it.)
Thanks,
- J.
fookxixi - Friday, September 10, 2010 - link
The 30m/98.4feet GPS accuracy is a well-known bug. It won't go larger nor smaller. But from my google maps, the accuracy is definitely much better than 30m, probably ~5m. My friends' Epic don't have GPS problem either. You can not rely on the accuracy shown on some test apps.Dane74 - Monday, October 18, 2010 - link
The Epic has such widely GPS problems it is an entire section on Epic GPS issues in the Wikipedia article on it. If you are new to smart-phones, the GPS seems ok, If you know how good GPS has been on smart-phones for the past couple of years, you realize how bad Epic's is. And the picture shows the really low signal, that is the root of the problem on all the Epics.You are new to smart-phones, that is why you think the poor GPS on Epic is ok.
ELT0R0 - Saturday, September 11, 2010 - link
I've had my Epic basically since launch day, and I've noticed (and found others at xda and androidforums) that the phone has issues with both the standard 3g data and general reception.First thing is that for some reason the phone is constantly "without a signal", meaning that for some reason it is constantly searching for a cell signal (GSM?), even in areas with great reception. This can be 'fixed' by toggling airplane mode right after initial boot, and it might even alleviate some of the battery issues since the phone is no longer searching for a signal.
Second big issue is that the 3g upload data seems to be capped at 150 kbps. I have yet to see/hear/read any Epic capable of uploading faster than that on 3g. Even with full bars in the dead of night where I've been able to hit 1700 kbps download, I still get stuck at 145 kbps upload. I know for sure that my Pre before hand could easily hit 400-500 kbps under similar conditions.
Even in the review it looks as if Anand was also hitting the 3g upload wall, but it wasn't as apparent as it appeared to just be a reception issue since the area normally only gets 500 kbps U/D and the down speed at the time of testing only hit 300 kbps.
Anand, is there any way you can test these further?
Hrel - Sunday, September 12, 2010 - link
It's too bad you didn't include the DroidX in the comparison pictures. Hopefully you will when you get the Verizon version.quickbunnie - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link
"I will say that I no longer have the problem where 4G performance is worse than Sprint’s 3G in my area. I usually get around 0.5/0.5Mbps on 3G, so there’s a noticeable performance increase when WiMAX is enabled."Are you sure you are getting 0.5Mbps up on 3g?
There have been no posters with speed tests that get more than about ~150kbps up on any Epic 4G phone, even when side-by-side tests of an Evo will get 700+ kbps.
http://androidforums.com/samsung-epic-4g/166945-lo...