Samsung Epic 4G user reviews (Sprint)

Pros I love everything about this phone.

Cons Nothing, so far!

Summary I was on 4 waiting lists for an EVO since June. As a pretty happy Palm Pre user for over a year, I was really looking forward to moving UP to EVO. Then I got word of the EPIC and it's real keyboard! I reserved one for the launch yesterday. Last night my friend and I went straight to the Sprint store after work. They actually had 2 EVOs in stock so we could do some serious comparing. When I handled the EPIC and It's keyboard, my choice was made for me. Really the only thing I could see that the EVO had over the EPIC was an 8 megapixel camera vs 5. No biggie for me! The phone is incredible and does so much, so fast. Here in L.A. we don't have G4 yet but I'm told it's coming by the end of the year... I can wait. G3 is pretty darn fast anyway. There are so many apps (hundreds of free ones), that I'm in shopping heaven. It hasn't even been 24 hours, I've lost sleep playing with it & hope my boss doesn't get wind of how much play time I'm having here at work!! The only thing I'm missing so far from my Palm Pre is the ability to have several applications open & minimized. That was so incredibly handy... but I'll get over it. Bottom line, my friend (who also bought one last night) were like 2 kids in a candy store. Every time we were shown something new we giggled with delight & excitement. When we used the video chat to talk on the phone to each other Sprint could have shot a commercial right there!!! If you're considering an android that does everything...GET THIS PHONE!!

Pros slide-out keyboard & excellent screen color. yes, that's it, there are NO other kudos for this product.

Cons I got this phone on release date and returned it 1.5 weeks later for the htc evo. Everything about this phone's operation is terrible. In contrast, the evo does everything very well.

Summary Here are some examples of the epic vs. the evo... When using Sprint Nav on the epic and a phone call comes in, you are exited from nav and have to go back in and restart your route when the call is finished. The evo remains in nav during the duration of the call and simply returns you to the nav page when the call is over, muting the driving directions while on the phone. When using bluetooth headset, the epic doesn't hear voice commands from the headset, but the evo works perfectly. And it doesn't matter what model headset you had, because I test 4 different models on both phones. I could go on and on with an entire page of complaints, but you should get the idea. The epic was a real chore to use, but the evo just worked without having to think about it.

Pros Android combined the Samsung Snapwiz overlay had finally caught up to and lapped WebOS. So far the hardware is very solid. Great feel in the hand and when holding it to your ear the mic is actually in front of your mouth. I mean, I mean.

Cons Keys are a bit to big for me, I'm adjusting though... and I have actually been using the android keyboard a bit on this phone!! The friggin volume button, really people why...

Summary By far the best of all smartphones IMHO. 4G, beautiful display, real keyboard. I do feel a bit guilty still supporting google, they are big brother in case you haven't noticed, they control the information, the CIA ain't got jack on goog... and well still better than giving a penny to steve jobs.

I can create and edit, office docs, pdf's. I just discovered in the contacts if you click a the media tab you can see their facebook pics, vids, tweets, status w/o opening fb.

The quick launch rocks...uh webos anyone. Pinch zoom finally. Combined email finally, true forwading with option to edit fwd attachments. I can reply to an exchange email using my google, yahoo account by clicking a dropdown "from account".

Audio/video a+ for a phone.
SD card access w/o removing battery (16 gig card included)
I used to be a sprint hater but even with the 10$ extra I still save 30 / month vs. Vzw and no problems with service even in canada and mexico

Bottom line - best phone since the pre, glad I passed on the evo
This entire review done from my epic

Pros Amazing screen, zippy processor, decent camera, HD video

Cons Got absolutely horrible reception! Micro USB port is horrible (charger constantly fell out), after a month of use, the keyboard slider was getting sloppy, battery takes 5-6 hours to charge completely, notification light doesn't always work properly.

Summary So after a year of having my HTC Hero, I felt the need to upgrade to the latest and greatest phone in Sprint's line up...the Samsung Epic 4G, right?? Wrong! Yes, the screen is amazing, the camera takes great pictures, the Swipe texting is something I really miss, but there were just far too many cons that outweighed the pros on this phone. First and foremost was cell reception. I have never owned a phone before that got as inconsistent a cell signal as this thing. Whereas my HTC Hero would get 5 out of 6 bars at my house, I would get 1-2 bars on the Epic. If I was anywhere away from a line of sight of a cell tower, you might as well forget about making phone calls, texts, etc. I explained this problem to Sprint, did a hard reset and continued to have problems with this. The roaming setting is horrible as well. At a place where my Hero would enter roaming, it would "lock" on to that, and stay in roaming. The Epic? All I got was a pretty blue circle with a line going through it, meaning "Sorry buddy, I'm out of service" Oh, and if I only had one bar of service, it wouldn't allow me to send texts, phone calls etc. I had to have 2 bars or above for this, and one bar or no service was an every day occurance for me. Even on my Hero, if I have one bar, I can still send texts, make phone calls just fine. This is a huge issue on this phone, at least for me, and I have a feeling Samsung has no plans on fixing this.

The GPS isssue that many people are having was seen on my device as well. Sometimes it would work, other times it wouldn't, but when it did work, it was shotty. I'd be driving down a main highway, with a clear line of sight to the sky, and it would show me driving through a field 100 or so yards away. If you need to rely on this device to get you around, I suggest a different phone.

I also had issues with the notification light. One thing I have to have on any phone is a notification light for texts etc, as I like to keep my phone on my desk at work, and see when I have a new text etc, without the phone beeping or vibrating. Well the Epic does this ok, but it will only blink 6 times, and will not blink again until you press a button etc. I dont see why the light couldnt just continue to blink. Its just an LED, can't be using that much battery. It's a small issue, but an annoyance.

The slider part of this phone was one issue I was worrying about as well. I've never had a slider phone before, and was worried about how this would hold up over the course of a year at least. Well, luckily I returned the phone after 29 days, but after that much use, with occasional texting on the physical keyboard (used Swype the majority of the time and I miss it :( ) the slider mechanism was starting to feel a little sloppy.

The micro USB port is also a very poorly designed feature in my mind. Number one: why the hell would you put the charging port on top of the phone?! I've had many times when trying to talk on this thing while it was charging, and the cable simple falls out. Number two: the connection should have been something more snug. The mini USB works great on my Hero, and I dont see why manufacturers are moving away from that to the micro USB. I can't tell you how many times the charger has simply fell out from moving the phone around a bit.

But after all of my complaints, I will say:
-The screen is amazing
-The physical keyboard is nice (disregarding the slider issue)
-The camera takes decent pics and videos
-It has a flash and notification light
-Battery does all right for the size and power of this phone
-Swype was great

But all of these features are useless with out service. For the time being, I'll just hold onto my Hero and my upgrade until something more reliable comes out. There are some serious flaws with the Epic, and I'm not relying on Samsung or Sprint to fix this phone at all. Had the same issue with the Instinct, and they promised updates, fixes etc, and nothing ever came. Seriously considering Verizon.