What's next for Epic users, and when?

[uscpsycho]

I assume most of us who have Epics bought this phone for the physical keyboard.

Are any new Android phones on the horizon for Sprint that will have a physical keyboard? The GPS issues after the GB update and the severely restricted internal memory have my itching for a new phone. But I really want a physical keyboard. How long am I going to have to wait?

 

[josearmz10789]

My upgrade isn't due until 2013 hopefully the Samsung Galaxy S III is out and Sprint releases a good phone with slideout keyboard just like the Epic, but as of now I'm happy with it.

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[carraser891]

I honestly think the Epic 4G was the last "high end" phone to have a physical keyboard. Any you see in the future will be low ebd or mid range

 

[uscpsycho]

I honestly think the Epic 4G was the last "high end" phone to have a physical keyboard. Any you see in the future will be low ebd or mid range

This is my fear.

Honestly, it is the lack of a keyboard that originally kept me away from the iPhone. But the Epic has soured me on Android use, ESPECIALLY the Gingerbread update which rendered my GPS useless. If there's not a suitable replacement with a keyboard I may go to the darkside.

 

[TechnoGeezer]

I assume most of us who have Epics bought this phone for the physical keyboard.

Are any new Android phones on the horizon for Sprint that will have a physical keyboard? The GPS issues after the GB update and the severely restricted internal memory have my itching for a new phone. But I really want a physical keyboard. How long am I going to have to wait?

I agree. Love the KB but the phone needs more internal RAM or flexibility to use SD as system memory. Phone makers seem to be focused on (1) thin (2) big screen (3) bells & whistles phones (3D cameras, etc) but not the core features I need and use most: phone, calendar, contacts, email, web, GPS. I need these to work reliably all the time. To me, this is the challenge that Android faces. Adding more sexy features comes at the expense of reliabilty in the core functions. It's sort of the difference between a toy and a tool. I need a tool.

 

[Jaggrey]

I'm starting to itch for an upgrade also, but there's nothing that's appealing to me right now. That and I don't have an upgrade until September this year. I also prefer a physical keyboard, but since getting SwiftKey I'm ready to try touchscreen only again.

 

[damillatime]

You guys have to root and install the Cyanogen7 mod. It's like getting a new phone!

 

[cheburashka]

i love my epic i may consider a note ...or something quad core, but at this time its an unnecessary expense.

 

[Zeinzu]

Move over to the new official cm7 with wimax. With 85 apps installed I still have over 400mb internal storage free, gps works fine, and the keyboard doesn't skip. Performance and battery are phenominal. You won't be worried about a new phone for awhile.

Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk

 

[TechnoGeezer]

Move over to the new official cm7 with wimax. With 85 apps installed I still have over 400mb internal storage free, gps works fine, and the keyboard doesn't skip. Performance and battery are phenominal. You won't be worried about a new phone for awhile.

Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk

I thought I read that 4G doessn't work in CM7. Did I get that wrong? If that works I'll be rooting to CM7 this weekend!

 

[Zeinzu]

I thought I read that 4G doessn't work in CM7. Did I get that wrong? If that works I'll be rooting to CM7 this weekend!

Devs just recently got the Epic official cm and a build with 4g working and fully functional. There's a thread for it on xda, cm official site, sdx, and samsungepicforums.

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[TechnoGeezer]

I spent last night (hrs & hrs) reading the entire CM7 CR0 thread on xda forums. It sounds exciting & very tempting but USB redirect is not incorp'd into the build & devs don't seem interested in doing it. It's a feature I use so I have to weigh functional GPS (BIG +) vs music & voice Nav by USB to car stereo. Wish I could have both. There are some other bugs in CM7 but it sounds like huge progress & it's early in the game.

 

[uscpsycho]

I spent last night (hrs & hrs) reading the entire CM7 CR0 thread on xda forums. It sounds exciting & very tempting but USB redirect is not incorp'd into the build & devs don't seem interested in doing it. It's a feature I use so I have to weigh functional GPS (BIG +) vs music & voice Nav by USB to car stereo. Wish I could have both. There are some other bugs in CM7 but it sounds like huge progress & it's early in the game.

What exactly is USB redirect? Sounds like audio out to another device?

I'm sure I'm not alone in saying I'd appreciate it if you could share some of the pros & cons (especially the cons) of CM7 so that the rest of us don't have to replicate your hours & hours of reading I've always been hesitant to root but Sprint & Samsung have teamed up to cripple my phone so badly that I'm open minded to the idea.

 

[elmo]

I upgraded my Epic to the Epic 4G Touch last week. The big screen, faster performance, and more storage is why I wanted to upgrade. But the bigger size and no physical keyboard was also why I was hesitant to upgrade to the E4GT.

Well, it turns out those two reasons are actually positives. Yes there is no physical kb, but because of the big screen size, using the virtual kb is really easy. I find myself actually making fewer corrections now than when I used the physical kb on the Epic. And the E4GT is so thin, it fits in my pocket easier than the Epic ever did.

Looking forward to getting ICS in a few months!

 

[uscpsycho]

If you haven't heard, Samsung Nexus is on its way to Sprint. Keyboard or not, that may be the nail in the Epic coffin for me. That phone is the first time I've ever considered going without a physical keyboard and this dates all the way back to the Palm Treo days.

 

[werkx]

I do like the slider keyboard and I'm excited to hear our Epic 4G is finally officially CM supported. I have a feeling that sliders on high-end smartphones are going away, so time to adjust.

The rumor is that Sprint is going to announce their first LTE device, looks to be the Galaxy Nexus, next week at CES. But I've also heard rumor of the Galaxy Note coming to Sprint. If the Note is also LTE enable, I'll have a very tough time deciding which.

In addition, if Sprint doesn't release these until June, then I'm hoping the hardware for the Nexus will be improved otherwise the Nexus will fall on my list of options.

Anyway, if I get annoyed or bored with my Epic, then I'll flash CM to hold me over.

 

[uscpsycho]

Hardware shmardware.

The hardware on these phones is good enough if the software is solid. Look at how happy people with the Epic are who installed CM7 and it's only CR0.

If you didn't know, the beauty of the Nexus is software support is from Google. That means very limited bloatware and Nexus owners are the first to get updates. No sitting around hoping, wondering if/when you'll get the latest update. I'll take that kind of support over the latest greatest hardware any day. As someone said earlier, just make the damn thing work! Besides, the Nexus' hardware is pretty solid and rumored to be LTE.

For those of us who can't live without a keyboard, maybe someone will make one of those bluetooth slider keyboards that attach to the Nexus, like the ones they have for iPhone. I doubt it though because no single Android model is nearly as popular as the iPhone so there is limited sales potential on the Android side.

 

[Zeinzu]

The gs2 alone beat out the Iphone sales for this year. Why do you think Apple kept taking them to court all across the globe? Lol.

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[TechnoGeezer]

What exactly is USB redirect? Sounds like audio out to another device?

I'm sure I'm not alone in saying I'd appreciate it if you could share some of the pros & cons (especially the cons) of CM7 so that the rest of us don't have to replicate your hours & hours of reading I've always been hesitant to root but Sprint & Samsung have teamed up to cripple my phone so badly that I'm open minded to the idea.

Just got a chance to log in. USB sound redirect is used in the Samsung (& maybe others) car dock to send the audio output to car stereo. It's kind of mickey mouse in a way because the dock coonector for charging through USB blocks the phone jack port so the redirect sends audio through USB to a phone jack on the back of the dock. Some have devised physical hacks to access the phone's audio jack but iKve always used redirect (it works on stock GB).

Regarding CM7, it is the first release and different folks are finding bugs as they use & test it. I can't recall most of them, some tethering issues (I don't use), but some reported noise on calls :n the other end, some text issues; things you might not accept in a high-end device OS. Personally, I bought this phone to serve me, not to spend endless hours trying to figure out how to get the features I was told it had to work. Sorry for the ranting novel, but I get frustrated when development is focused on 3D camers and I can't search my contacts by business name or set my Google calendar to the default. Simple stuff that should work just doesn't. And then an OS upgrade screws up other functions that I need.

 

[josearmz10789]

I like how verizon is coming out with mid to high end phones like the Samsung Stratosphere yes its similar to the Epic which I would never consider entry level but more like high end. They even have the razr with physical keyboard on the way. I wish sprint would consider getting more phones with physical keyboards at least some with dual core processor 1 gig ram and around 4 inches in screen size. I would settle for that and im willing to sacrifize the 4+ inches of screen for a keyboard but wouldnt settle for nothing less than 4 inches.