Epic 4G Touch Getting Started: Tips, Tricks, FAQ's & Tutorials

[milominderbinde]

[Read Me First] Epic Touch 4G Tips, Reviews, Thoughts & Issues

Welcome!

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See Also
• Epic 4G Touch Getting Started: Tips, Tricks, FAQ's & Tutorials - Great resources for getting the most out of your Epic 4G Touch
• 25 Reasons to Consider the Epic 4G Touch
• Connect a Bluetooth Mouse/Keyboard
• 30+ Hours Battery Life
• The Expanded Clipboard is Epic!
• Customize the Lock Screen
• The Magic of App Folders
• Increase Your Data Speeds
• Change "Pure" Android Without Rooting
• Official Samsung page
• Samsung Tips & Tricks: Epic 4G Touch
• How to Upgrade Your Sprint Phone Every Year
• Are you getting your 10-28% Sprint EVP Discount?
• Airave: Get Great Reception in Your Home
• User's Guide
• System dump, ringtones, wallpapers
• Test Mode: Go to the Phone app. Dial *#0*# to test cameras, pixels, etc. Service codes. Easter Egg.
• Getting Started - Shows 500 other features, tips, and tricks.
• Phone Comparison
• 10 Reasons Why iPhone 5 will be Beaten by Samsung Galaxy S2
• Galaxy S II benchmarked, makes other phones cry in shame
• PhoneArena: S II vs. LG 3D & Sensation - S II vs. Photon & EVO 3D

 

[milominderbinde]

Placeholder

 

[milominderbinde]

How to Connect a Bluetooth Mouse/Keyboard to the Epic 4G Touch

← See the mouse arrow on the lower right on this screenshot?

The Epic 4G Touch has several great undocumented features. One is that you can connect many models of Bluetooth mice or keyboards and other Bluetooth devices. This is especially nice if you are playing back a 1080p recording or movie or doing a presentation. Here's how.

1. Go to your Bluetooth settings: Home > Menu > Settings > Wireless and network > Bluetooth settings.
2. Turn on your Bluetooth mouse or keyboard and tap the Pair (or Connect) button on it.
3. On the phone check Visible ON then tap Search for devices.
4. When asked to confirm the device, Tap OK. Have fun!

Thanks to RamboDroid for these Mouse Tricks!
• Left click is Select
• Right click is Back
• Click the wheel for Menu

You can also connect a Bluetooth enabled laptop as shown in this example to allow you to play music from your Epic 4G on your laptop using Bluetooth. The Kies Air feature can also use a PC-Epic 4G Touch Bluetooth connection to sync contacts, music, photos, and more.

 

[milominderbinde]

30+ Hours Battery Life on the Epic 4G Touch-How Long Can You Go?

← This screenshot shows an Epic 4G Touch after 30+ hours on battery. The Battery Left Widget shows 9+ hours to go.

That's 40 hours...if you know the tricks.

Battery and Display
To last so long, the Galaxy S II starts with a big battery plus the SAMOLED Plus display needs no backlight. An LCD display has backlights that are always drawing power and making black look dark gray. Black takes almost no power in a SAMOLED display.

Power Management Tools
The Galaxy S II also has great power management features. Turn all Power saving mode settings on. Tap: Home > Menu > Power saving mode. Make sure that WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, Sync, and Brightness power management are turned on (checked) as in this screenshot. To automatically find WiFi hotspots you can use, Tap Home > Menu > Settings > Wireless and network > WiFi Settings Network notification ON.

Power Management Basics
Do this simple test. Check your Battery level: tap Home > Menu > Settings > About phone > Status for Battery level % (or get the Battery Status app to have the % in the status bar). Press Power to turn off the display and take it off any charger. Check again in an hour. If the Battery level has gone bown by more than 1%, something is taking your power. There are a number of basic steps you can take to help manage power that may also speed up your phone.

Reboot Your Phone
• If battery life has dropped or your phone is running slow, try a reboot: Long-press Power > Tap Power Off. Turn back on.
• Daily reboots can help keep rogue apps from taking battery life.

Batteries and Chargers
• 100% may not really be 100%. Charge to 100%. Remove from charger. Plug back in. The charge light may go back on!
• USB charging is slow because the current is cut in half. Use good wall chargers. • Get a good car charger or car kit.
• Consider an Extended Battery. External batteries are another option (Monoprice, Free Power Widgets • Quick Settings or Curvefish widgets: • Brightness Level • WiFi • Bluetooth • GPS • Data

Display

Install Battery Status (free, Upgraded $1) to see the real Battery % in Your Status Bar.
• Use a dark non-Live wallpaper.: Tap Home > Wallpaper > Wallpapers. Live Wallpaper is always on. (How to add wallpaper)
• Try a dark blue, green, red, black or other dark wallpaper for high contrast to allow a lower brightness setting.
• Set Brightness to Automatic or low: Tap Home > Settings > Display > Brightness
• Set Screen timeout to 1 minute or less: Tap Home > Settings > Display > Screen Timeout
• Turn animations off: Tap Home > Settings > Display > Animation > No animation
• The free Curvefish Brightness Level lets you instantly tap a preset brightness or set any brightness you like.
• Widgets may be stealing your power. Remove one you don't use: Long-press the widget and drag down to the trash.
• Certain Streaming Music, Email, News, and Social Networking widgets are especially bad.

Apps
Streaming music, movies, games, navigation, Maps, chat, social media, live wallpaper, and widgets reduce your battery life.
• Update your apps. Upgrades often fix power issues: Tap Market > Menu > My Apps > Update all
• Facebook: Sync with Facebook less often: Tap Facebook > Back >Menu > Settings > Refresh interval > 4 hours
• Email: If you use regular email, reduce syncing: Tap Email > Menu > Settings > Email check frequency > 1 hour or longer.
• Email: Don't hoard emails. Delete old message to make Email load faster and save power.
• Texts: Don't hoard text messages: Tap Messaging > Menu > Settings > Text message limit to 100 messages per conversation.
• Network TrafficStats Lite (free, $2 no ads) will what apps are using the Internet and taking your power.

Browser
Turn off Flash to make pages load faster and use less power. Often flash content is ads. Tap something if you want to see it.
• Set plug-ins like Adobe Flash to On demand: Tap Browser > Menu > Settings > Enable plug-ins > On demand.


Turn off the motor
Haptic feedback (vibration) powers a motor in the phone to make it shake.
• Turn off key vibration: Tap Home > Settings > Sound > Vibrate Feedback OFF
• Turn off keyboard vibration: Tap Home > Settings > Language & keyboard > {keyboard settings}

Clear your memory
If your have too little RAM available your phone struggles to keep swapping. Keep at least 80 MB of Available Space.
• Check your Available Space: Tap Menu > Settings > Storage and check the Device memory Available space.
• Move apps to the SD card: Tap the App then tap Move to SD card (unless it's a widget you use)
• Apps 2 SD and Advanced SD Card Manager let you move a list of apps to or from your microSD.

Find the Battery Sucker
If your battery doesn't last long even when the phone is not is use with 4G, Bluetooth, and GPS off, no Life Wallpaper, and a reboot, let's find out why:
1. Turn off Background data and Auto-sync: Tap Home > Menu > Accounts and sync > Auto-sync OFF, Background data OFF
2. Turn Airplane mode On: Tap Home > Menu > Wireless and network > Airplane mode ON.
3. Note the Battery Status % or tap Home > Menu > Settings > About phone > Status for Battery level %.
4. Turn the display off. Unplug from charger.

5. In 20 minutes, check the battery level again (step 3 above).
• If the battery level dropped over 1%, you have a bad app or widget.
→→ Have you added any widgets? Try removing them for now: Long-press the widget and drag it down to the trash.
→→ Tap Home > Menu > Applications > Running Services. Tap one you installed. Stop it. Test again until you find the bad app.
• If your Battery % dropped less than 1% in 20 minutes, check for poor signal strength:
→→ Turn Airplane mode Off: Tap Home > Menu > Wireless and network > Airplane mode OFF. Turn the display off.

6. In another 20 minutes, check the battery level again.
• If the battery level dropped over 1%, it may be due to Roaming or poor signal (1-3 bars):
→→ Try Roaming off: Tap Home > Menu > Wireless and network > Roaming > Roaming mode > Sprint only.
→→ Tell your carrier (Sprint: ask for a free Airave for your Home). In your car, consider the Wilson Sleek (Extending Battery Life.

 

[DaveInFL]

Re: 30+ Hours Battery Life on the Epic 4G Touch-How Long Can You

I'm getting about 10-11 hours from my battery. For some reason I am getting 89% of my usage on the Android OS, and I don't know why, but this could be what is causing my battery to drain quicker.

 

[xt04]

Re: 30+ Hours Battery Life on the Epic 4G Touch-How Long Can You

I got about 27 hours off my last charge. Wouldnt believe it if I didnt see it with my own eyes. Even under heavier use, I've gotten a 20 hour charge recently as well. Really impressed with this as opposed to my old Photon where I maxed at around 13.

 

[nkd]

Re: 30+ Hours Battery Life on the Epic 4G Touch-How Long Can You

That is not 30 hours of use, that is how long the phone has been on since last connected to charger, no way any one gets actual use our of the phone for 30 hours.

I have never ran out of battery but I usually get around 3 and half hours of display on time with 20-25% remaining or so. So it is still the best battery life I have gotten out of any phone.

 

[DAS]

Re: 30+ Hours Battery Life on the Epic 4G Touch-How Long Can You

Right now, in the two days I have owned this phone I have noticed a remarkable improvement in battery life.

Samsung's use of a Super Amoled Plus screen is a good explanation for why the battery life has improved so much. Today I listened, and watched, the entire Nascar race using the Nascar app with no fear of battery depletion. I could never had done that using my evo 4g.

The only setting I turn off when not in use is the GPS. Because I rely on push notication for my 7 email accounts I need to keep sync active. By the way, I also use the hotspot feature to tether my Tab 10.1 so I am most happy with the battery life I'm getting.

 

[DaveInFL]

Re: 30+ Hours Battery Life on the Epic 4G Touch-How Long Can You

I don't know what's wrong with my phone then and why I am only getting about 10-11 hours!
I'm not doing anything fantastic with the phone. A few calls, some emails, texting, the occasional game. Not what I would call heavy usage.

 

[youngjediboy]

Re: 30+ Hours Battery Life on the Epic 4G Touch-How Long Can You

Do any of you use 4G at all? I've only tried turning it on a few times, but the connection never seems to be stable so I just leave it off. I noticed when I had it on though that the battery does seem to drain much much faster!

 

[cacherpaderp]

Re: 30+ Hours Battery Life on the Epic 4G Touch-How Long Can You

I get about 20-24 hours battery life with Bluetooth on all the time and most of my battery is being used by the calls rather than screen on time.

 

[Eric Kane]

Re: 30+ Hours Battery Life on the Epic 4G Touch-How Long Can You

I'm on my fourth charge so far and I started my day at 8 am at full charge. I used Bluetooth for 15 minutes on the way to work. I don't have wifi at work so I ran 3G all day from 9-5 with Facebook being checked, texting quite frequently, email and weather syncing, and using twitter occassionally. I used Bluetooth on the way home and spent an hour and a half on the phone after that. From 6:30 on, I've run 4G the whole time (I live in Baltimore and get excellent 4G connections and speeds) with an hour of YouTube watching ontop of browsing/Facebook/texting with a live wallpaper running the whole time I had 4G on. I'm trying to kill this battery basically and I'm not succeeding. I'm typing on this right now and my stats on the display being on is 2 hours and 40 minutes. I'm still at 35% and Ive had the phone running for almost 14 hours.

Needless to say, this phone is the best phone period. The battery is amazing.

 

[youngjediboy]

Re: 30+ Hours Battery Life on the Epic 4G Touch-How Long Can You

If it's like other phones, having a weak signal will still drain the battery pretty fast, which was the case with me. I was at one of my jobs where the signal kept dropping and within 4 hours my battery drained probably about 40%!

 

[Statusnone]

Re: 30+ Hours Battery Life on the Epic 4G Touch-How Long Can You

If it's like other phones, having a weak signal will still drain the battery pretty fast, which was the case with me. I was at one of my jobs where the signal kept dropping and within 4 hours my battery drained probably about 40%!

This. I was at work for a solid 9 hours today. According to the battery monitor I was without a signal 60% of the time!!!! Insane amount of battery drain with no usage. I'm going to take milominderbinder's battery advice and try and throw the phone into airplane mode when the phone is in my pocket tomorrow and see how it does.

 

[dguidry12]

Re: 30+ Hours Battery Life on the Epic 4G Touch-How Long Can You

That is not 30 hours of use, that is how long the phone has been on since last connected to charger, no way any one gets actual use our of the phone for 30 hours.

I have never ran out of battery but I usually get around 3 and half hours of display on time with 20-25% remaining or so. So it is still the best battery life I have gotten out of any phone.

Thanks for pointing this out..I don't know why people fabricate their battery usage. In fact the battery numbers are all screwed up with this phone.. Try plugging it in and it doesn't reset the timer at the top.

 

[SixOne9]

Re: 30+ Hours Battery Life on the Epic 4G Touch-How Long Can You

I'm currently on 25 hours right now with a battery level of 32%. This is on normal usage (normal for me at least) on 3g/wifi. I just discovered google music, which is awesome btw, and used that for about 2 hours. I also have the brightness set at 50% and the screen mode is at standard.

I'm blown away with the battery life on this phone.

 

[sndplace]

Re: 30+ Hours Battery Life on the Epic 4G Touch-How Long Can You

Thanks for pointing this out..I don't know why people fabricate their battery usage. In fact the battery numbers are all screwed up with this phone.. Try plugging it in and it doesn't reset the timer at the top.

I have charged mine a few times i did notice it didnt change. Even after a battery pull, It should for a battery pull right? Im charging it now , I think it resets when it hits the full charge mode or else I would have like 3 days on 1 charge lol . I charged my phone Friday nite i would say fully charged was around 10 PM. i didn't charge it again till Saturday nite and ended with 10% battery left 35%stand by 45%light to 20%moderate use. Best guesstimate.

 

[xt04]

Re: 30+ Hours Battery Life on the Epic 4G Touch-How Long Can You

Thanks for pointing this out..I don't know why people fabricate their battery usage. In fact the battery numbers are all screwed up with this phone.. Try plugging it in and it doesn't reset the timer at the top.

A quick plug and unplug doesnt reset the timer, but I've found letting it charge for some time always does. I dont think the OP is lying, again I've had my phone stay on for 26 hours on a single charge. Its not impossible, just depends on your usage pattern.

All the reviews for the original Galaxy S II had battery life somewhere around a day-day and a half. This phone has a bigger battery than that device, so its not really far fetched at all.

 

[DaveInFL]

Re: 30+ Hours Battery Life on the Epic 4G Touch-How Long Can You

This. I was at work for a solid 9 hours today. According to the battery monitor I was without a signal 60% of the time!!!! Insane amount of battery drain with no usage. I'm going to take milominderbinder's battery advice and try and throw the phone into airplane mode when the phone is in my pocket tomorrow and see how it does.

What indicates that you are without a signal for 60% of the time?

 

[Statusnone]

Re: 30+ Hours Battery Life on the Epic 4G Touch-How Long Can You

What indicates that you are without a signal for 60% of the time?

When looking at "Cell Standby" on the battery usage monitor. If you don't see this time without a signal, then you haven't lost signal. I didn't see it either until I was on the road.