Samsung Epic 4G Review: We Get Hands-On

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The Samsung Epic 4G is the variant of the Samsung Galaxy S Android “superphone” that is destined for Sprint. Of all the various Galaxy S models hitting the United States, the Epic 4G stands out in two ways. First, it has connectivity to Sprint’s 4G WiMAX network, offering theoretical speeds of 40Mbit/s. Second, it’s one of the few Galaxy S models in the whole word to come with the slider keyboard. These two features have made the Epic 4G a winner in the eyes of armchair tech pundits. But how does the phone stand up in the real world? We’ve spent a week with the device and we’ll tell you how it ranks.

You’ll notice two things about the Epic 4G when you first pick one up. First, it’s light, and second, it feels like plastic. It’s got to be one of the lightest smartphones with a slider keyboard that we’ve felt in a long time. It’s lighter than the Droid 2 (who, you’ve got to figure will be it’s keyboard-packing Android rival this summer) and for anybody concerned about the added width of a 4-inch screen should realize that the phone is light and not bulky at all.

It also feels, as mentioned, plastic. This has been a common complaint of all Galaxy S phones across the entire line. Some say they feel cheap – and it’s certainly something they inherited from Samsung’s long history of making low-cost featurephones. If you’re used to the metal feeling of the HTC and Motorola Android phones, or the steel and glass feeling of the iPhone, the Epic 4G will feel like a step down. It’s a shame really, since it’s quite a nice (and expensive) phone.

You can’t mention the Epic 4G without talking about its screen. It’s packing a 4-inch “Super” OLED screen and it goes without saying, it looks great. It doesn’t pack the pixel density of the iPhone 4, but it is definitely a step above the ‘average’ screens like you’ll find on other phones. I couldn’t tell a difference between this and other OLED screens, but since it’s using Samsung’s propitiatory “Super” OLED, I’m sure it’s better.

Many feel that the 4-inch screen hits a “sweet spot” in between the 3.7-inch phones (iPhone, Droid 2, Droid Incredible) and the 4.3-inch phones (EVO 4G, Droid X) and we must agree. The screen is big, but it doesn’t have the girth or bulk of the 4.3-inch screens. However, web browsing is just a little bit more uncomfortable than you’d find with the EVO 4G/Droid X/Dell Streak/iPad.

On the inside, this phone is a hot rod. It’s packing the Samsung Hummingbird processor, which isn’t as popular as the Qualcomm Snapdragon or TI’s higher-end OMAP processors. But, the Hummingbird isn’t a slouch. I strongly suspect that the Samsung Hummingbird is actually what Apple’s A4 processor is (Apple loyalists, send your hatemail to the comments below), and some industry insiders agree with me. But the point remains the same, the Epic 4G is not underpowered. Unfortunately, the phone ships with Android 2.1 so I couldn’t test Flash 10.1 on the phone. With all the talk about Flash 10.1 being too much of a system hog on modern Android phones, I was ready to put the Epic 4G through its paces. Unfortunately, I got the “missing plugin” warnings everywhere.

The keyboard is ok. Yep, just okay. It’s allegedly similar to the various featurephones that Samsung offers, so if you’re a fan of such phones as the Samsung Intensity, I think you’ll find it just up your ally. It’s also better than the Droid 2 (which isn’t saying much). However, users used to BlackBerry devices will find the keyboard awful and almost unusable. Thankfully, the Android keyboard is getting better all the time, and the Epic 4G comes equipped with the wonderful Swype virtual keyboard which makes typing a breeze.

This phone, like almost all Android phones these days is coming with a custom UI made by the manufacturer. Samsung’s is dubbed TouchWiz, and it’s modeled after the (horrible) software that bares the same name on their featurephones. Fortunately, the UI is being powered by a much more powerful processor this time around. It’s basically MOTOBLUR with a different name and offers all the re-sizable widgets and other ‘features’ that all of these do. If you’re used to the stock Android UI, it’ll be a pain to navigate around the third-party user interface.

The camera is average. (check the sample shot below) It’s about the average quality of what you’ll find in a smartphone these days – and if you’re looking to replace a point-and-shoot camera with it, it will be perfectly adequate. It probably won’t replace that Canon SLR, but it’s decent enough. It records video 720p, which is almost becoming a standard feature on phones these days. A nice feature of TouchWiz UI that Samsung as added is that it asks you if you’d like the phone to automatically resize video to be able to be sent via media text message (MMS). Very thoughtful for all the supertexters out there.

A noticeably missing feature was mobile video editing. While we doubt that mobile video editing will catch on, it’s already been shipped on the iPhone 4, Droids X and 2 and will be a big part of the upcoming Nokia N8. We can’t help but feel that Samsung will be hurting if mobile video editing becomes a big hit.

Unfortunately, where we tested the phone (Milwaukee, Wisconsin), we weren’t covered by Sprint’s 4G network. While Sprint and Clearwire are building those towers as fast as they can, and (don’t get us wrong), the 4G connectivity is a major feature of this device – a majority of people in the United States won’t be covered by the 4G WiMAX network.

When testing the phone, we found the voice quality to be clear and crisp. When testing for signal attenuation while holding the phone, we were not able to make the signal quality drop by holding the phone in any particular fashion and call quality was not affected.

In closing, the Samsung Epic 4G is a fantastic, solid phone. It packs the screen size and horsepower to compete with the major smartphone players (Droid X, EVO 4G, iPhone) and it’s a solid Android experience all the way around. We’re a fan of the big screens here at TFTS, so unless you’re absolutely dying for a keyboard, go with the HTC EVO 4G. The OLED screen is nice, but not a deal-maker for us. While the phone does suffer from feeling cheaper than it is, many people coming from featurephones and multimedia phones won’t mind. And users coming from smartphones will likely get over it. Still, we can’t wait to see what the next generation of Samsung Android superphone looks like.