Deciding to Move from NS4G to E4GT....opinions

[dammitcubs]

Okay,

I went to best buy the other day, they had one more E4GT left. I purchased it at full price (only because i wanted to test it). If I liked it, i would trade in my phone to get $350 value and pay about 400 for additional buyback on E4GT and the phone. It's still alot, but I guess that's what I get for being so stupid in not waiting a couple more months. I ended up returning it out for the benefit of another customer, who had the same phone on hold but my best buy employee didn't know. So I went through a return process with my credit card and gave it to him. That made me really think about if this decision is really what I want to do.

Currently, I have a NS4G phone (Rooted with GPA17). I am very satisfied with it because it brings me something no other android phones could....BATTERY LIFE!! It's so unbelievable how much I want smack my android friends when they have the biggest flaw ever....if you have to carry 3 battery packs, its a BIG FAIL. NS4G was a phone I was looking at back when I first saw the Nexus S. It was sleek, beautiful. It was also extremely exclusive (how many people have you ran into that had that phone?). But the Nexus S had a big flaw, web browsing and low ram just made the phone slow. And from a person moving from the iphone, i was annoying that things would crash because of low memory and other things. Having the phone rooted does have its upsides and thats why I never complained as much.

Now with the EPIC 4G touch super chun li edition, I'm getting this beefy processor. I hate my camera on my Nexus S (it's crap) and it would be nice to have a decent camera. I'm losing my stock android which I thought was clean and elegant. (im not a big fan of TW. If i wanted a interface that looked like an iphone, i would get...an iphone). The screen is a bit big (4.5 vs 4.3) and I'm worried that as I buy this phone, nexus prime will just come out.

It's a tough decision. and I would like some opinions on what you guys think i should do. I feel like waiting for nexus prime is somewhat pointless. Sprint won't get the phone til may if it ever comes and if I wanted it that bad, i would just move to verizon (which sucks because i wouldn't get unlimited). Do I shell out 400 dollars and get what maybe consider the best phone in the market right now. Or do I stay true to my pure google roots and wait it out?

It doesn't help that the E4GT has a weaker audio DAC then NEXUS S. (wtf samsung). or no NFC so I can't try google waller.

....ugh!!!

 

[SAENZ_SCENE]

Im in the same boat. I want and like the galaxy s2 but i have decided to wait for the next nexus. Whatever the name may be. I may be stupid for passing up on this device but i love the nexus line. Good luck with your decision.

 

[RamboDroid]

I have the E4GT and I had the NS4G before that I had EVO. When I got the NS4G I really missed my 4.3 screen of my EVO, I missed it bad. I loved the weight and how thin it was, but I couldn't get past the 4 inch screen. That's when I sold it and got this E4GT, it is thinner and feels lighter than the NS4G has a screen that's even more amazing then the NS4G. The concern I had with the E4GT is would it be too big. Well, I had an EVO for 2 weeks before getting this and I FEEL like I have a smaller phone in my hand but I still have a nice big screen like what I missed. As far as battery this E4GT gets me through a day on heavy use in a poor reception area and that's all I ask. For example the NS4G would do me 8am to midnight this phone gets me 8am to 10pm. Now that was having a custom kernel on my NS4G and expect to get those 2hrs back when development on this E4GT gets going.

As far as the Nexus prime... Well we know Version is getting it and we know that Version has a tendency to get exclusive deals at least for a time period, that coupled with the fact Sprints last Nexus phone came out just 5mths before this Nexus Prime is rumored to release. So I would bet Sprint doesn't see the Prime till, at earliest, February. Now if you can and will jump ship to Verizon then I say get the Prime. If not I say get the E4GT

About the NFC I don't think NFC is going to really become apart of our daily life until there are more phones enable for it and those phone get on the street so my guess would be not till next summer. Now I say all of that to tell you in all likelihood you are going to by next summer be wanting the Nexus Monster or what ever they call the N3


That's just my $0.22 (inflation)

 

[H_D]

My advice is to keep the Nexus S4G & wait for the next Nexus. It sounds as if you are satisfied & it wouldn't make any financial sense to purchase a E4GT /off contract at this point in the year.

 

[Ricolando]

If you were a premier gold member with a one year upgrade waiting to be used I'd get the E4GT. Sprint's new policy seems to indicate these upgrades will expire at the end of the year and you'll have to wait until the 20 month cycle. If the nexus s 4g was an indicator the prime probably won't be out until next year. That made my decision right there. If you're happy with your nexus keep it and hold out. You're going to get ICS before us which should breathe new life into the phone .

Sent from my Epic 4G Touch

 

[Ricolando]

If you were a premier gold member with a one year upgrade waiting to be used I'd get the E4GT. Sprint's new policy seems to indicate these upgrades will expire at the end of the year and you'll have to wait until the 20 month cycle. If the nexus s 4g was an indicator the prime probably won't be out until next year. That made my decision right there.

Sent from my Epic 4G Touch

 

[dammitcubs]

I have it set up with best buy back program.

Because I bought the phone in may, i get 350 dollars to be used on a new phone. So this phone would cost me $400 after tax and buy back program fee.

Usually, there is a early upgrade offered from Sprint. And best buy has that set at 499. So I can trade in my phone for 350 (280 if after 6 months to 12 months) and use that towards my next phone. So then I pay about 200 for a new phone every year.

If I change to verizon, i can use the 350 to get a free phone on verizon and just pay 200 for ETF on sprint.

I don't have premier, but its I have it set so I can upgrade every year through this method.

 

[Latteart]

I switched the day the SGSII came out and couldn't be happier. SO worth the switch.

 

[Latteart]

I have it set up with best buy back program.

Because I bought the phone in may, i get 350 dollars to be used on a new phone. So this phone would cost me $400 after tax and buy back program fee.

Usually, there is a early upgrade offered from Sprint. And best buy has that set at 499. So I can trade in my phone for 350 (280 if after 6 months to 12 months) and use that towards my next phone. So then I pay about 200 for a new phone every year.

If I change to verizon, i can use the 350 to get a free phone on verizon and just pay 200 for ETF on sprint.

I don't have premier, but its I have it set so I can upgrade every year through this method.

Careful the ETF went up to $350 last month or early this month on sprint.

 

[sndplace]

I agree with YaBoid... Seems you are happy enough with your NS. On the other hand you loose money if you wait to long. 280 compare to 350 so it will cost you more for the Prime and extend you to more than a year for a phone on this turn. As for the Touch well worth the Up grade for me. Battery life is crasy on this thing now so with a rom on it i may not need to charge for like 3 days ... lol
If you have the cash for it and don't want to loose your 350 and maintain your yearly upgrade then go ahead and get it. you won't hate the phone but might miss the pure Android experience. This TW is not bad . all the reviews praise it so you might like it. Good luck and im sure you will be happy with either choice you decide to go with...

 

[dammitcubs]

So I went into the sprint store and spent about 30 minutes with the phone. This is what I got out of it.

The screen was very good, but it didn't wow me because I was coming for a super amoled. It was nice to have such a big screen, I wish the icons on the screen were smaller and thus you have more real estate but thats what you get for having a 800 x 480 screen. I don't know why samsung stretched the screen to 4.5 when 4.3 was perfect. The colors on the phone really popped out, but I noticed some pixelation in which the different color tones were hard to create and you see little blocks of pixels. I noticed this on my Nexus S and returned it for a different nexus s. So this could be very much the phone.

The browsing was really nice, having that screen makes me actually browse the web again on my phone. The last time I did that...was my iphone4. The nexus S 4G is sooooooo choppy during internet scrolling. It drives me insane. You have to wait until the entire webpage is loaded before I can start zooming or scrolling. For the Epic Touch, you don't have to wait, I can zoom in and out just like my iPhone and the scrolling is very smooth. Not to mention, that large screen makes it so easy for you to browse. Loved it.

When i was holding my phone and the epic touch, i noticed it was a touch bigger than I would like. The thin body was nice and I'm jealous of that 8mp camera. The nexus S takes decent photos but you can see oil spots in the shot like those old cell phone cameras. I hate that. The nexus is is better fitted to my hand and my fast when talking because of the contour screen, so I'll have to spend extensive time on the phone to see if this phone meets that.

I tried different launchers (ADW, launcher pro). I loved the gingerbread stock scrolling effect and I wanted that bad, so that worked out well with launcher pro. It was pretty good and no lag. When I tried to put launcher pro on my nexus s, it was SUPER SUPER CHOPPY. So you can see the theme is that anything I throw at the epic touch, it doesn't slow down. I like that because I'm a demanding android user that has widgets on every screen. I like to never open my app drawer and have my widgets control my life.

The sad news was the network radio. It was rather pathetic. My nexus s 4g was pulling about 5 to 6Mps for 4G in that store and the epic touch can only pull 2.5? I tried this test so many times and the result is that my nexus S actually loaded webpages faster then the epic touch. Now I had to wait until completely finished before moving around while the epic touch gave me some freedom but I can tell it was completely in the radio and the radio is ****. I don't get it, is it really that hard to test your product. I work for manufacturing company and that does strict testing, its NOT THAT HARD. You can tell I was seriously disappointed. BUT on the bright side, all phones go through this and all phones eventually get fixed.

So there you have it.

Nexus S pros:

• Pure Google Experience
• TV Tube animation on screen
• App drawer > TW
• Better Radio for data connection
• Contour screen
• better DPI
• Better DAC for audiophiles and yes, i have a grado SR80 and some sony mdr-ex500s
• More custom roms and developer support because its a google phone

Epic 4g touch

• Super fast processor that makes me want to ditch my GF and marry my phone.
• RAM RAM RAM RAM RAM AND MORE RAM
• Expandable memory
• 4.5 inch screen SUPER AMOLED PLUS aka NO PENTILE BULLCRAP
• Big battery
• LED notification (i had to use BLN notifications on NS4G)
• A billion times better web browser then my crappy NS4G (due to processor and ram)
• Cool widgets
• One of the best cameras for a cell phone today. with 1080p video 2MP front screen camera