Flawed web browser in Epic?

[whippingboy]

One of the reasons I was interested in the Evo is that the pinch / zoom also wrapped the text REGARDLESS of how much you zoomed in. This is a BIG plus so you don't have to scroll the screen side to side as you read if you want big text. iphone does not scale text past 2x zoom- nor does pre which really shocked me as many older phones had no problem doing this.

Now everyone SAYS the android browser is no different from phone to phone- but look at any video of the galaxy and what do you see? No word wrapping past 2x zoom.

I've returned the Evo and will get the Epic regardless, but this is a HUGE flaw that will greatly tarnish the browsing experience on the phone- WHY they use tweaked browsers exclusive by manufacturer is quite beyond me.

Not having Adobe flash lite in the Epic is another fail. We already know Adobe Flash 10 has been delayed countless times- we really want to WAIT for froyo on Epic before we have flash in the browser? Did HTC lock up some sort of exclusive on Flash lite for the browser? Very frustrating.

Epic=Better processor, worse browser- neither Evo or Epic are optimal if I was sprint, I'd send Samsung back to fix these glaring omissions before greenlighting the phone.

 

[Andrew Ruffolo]

Yeah, thats a HTC Sense specific feature, its not going to be on the Galaxy.
Also, I don't know what you'd be doing with Flash lite, but it isn't much. I could get Shockwave to load some things, but not all. Don't expect video to work on with Flash lite. Hulu definitely doesn't work. The US Government shut down tvshack.net as well, so I'm stuck with waiting for Froyo and Adobe Flash 10.1 to come out before I can think about watching shows.

 

[drizek]

I saw the text reflow thing in a DROID X review. why isn't it on the Epic?

Anyway, with an 800px display, is it that big of a deal? The Pre doesn't do it and I have only rarely seen sites where the text was too small, even on that tiny display.

 

[taylormah]

I saw in one youtube video that text reflow does work in original Galaxy S. I cant find the link for the video now, but I did see it...

 

[whippingboy]

Ever get an HTML email and you can't zoom enough to read it easily? HTC text reflow fixes that. This should be mandatory on all HTML phones. I laughed when the iphone 4 DIDN'T do multitouch reformat- but to see Samsung is going down the same flawed path is very frustrating.

YouTube - Samsung Galaxy S Vs HTC Droid Incredible Video Review Part 2

Go to approx 7:10 in the video and see how multitouch zoom does NOT work on Galaxy vs. HTC Incredible. Keep watching and see how not just ads- but links to reviews on Engadget is NOT SHOWN due to lack of Flash- yet HTC views it fine. (Mind you- it's interesting to see approx 7:05 how much FASTER the web page loads on galaxy vs. incredible despite both being set to wifi!)

I could care less about HULU- there are plenty of other sites that use flash embedded video or effects that play great on HTC phones that Samsung will have to wait until froyo.

Now that HTC has said froyo by CHRISTMAS- who knows how long SAMSUNG will have to wait- this is a big issue IMHO.

I could care less about 5MP vs. 8MP cameras and who shoots better video- I want the best webbrowsing/texting experience with no lag or crashes of the os. I was hoping the Hummingbird processor would guarantee this- but now Samsung skimped on the web browser and we'll be waiting possibly 6 months for a 1/2 decent web experience and still pitiful text zooming.

 

[drizek]

There clearly is text reflow there.

I like the way it appears to work better than the HTC way. If seems to reflow text in line with the rest of hte page setup when you double tap to zoom, possibly scaling it up to a preset minimum font size. But then when you multitouch in, it keeps everything the same. This makes a lot of sense, since you don't want the text to be moving all over the place if you are trying to zoom in to hit a link or something.

 

[taylormah]

I could care less about HULU- there are plenty of other sites that use flash embedded video or effects that play great on HTC phones that Samsung will have to wait until froyo.

I saw this video on youtube that claims Galaxy S phone browser has flash although disabled by default. and this video is of Evo vs Galaxy S, and if you go to 7:22, you will see flash ads on Galaxy S. I hope Epic gets it too. Great news for flash lovers!!!

 

[Andrew Ruffolo]

Yup, that would definitely look like a version of Flash lite is on there.

 

[Joeybear23]

When zooming in on a web page, I really wouldn't want it to reformat and change text size... it's like reloading the page again, and you have to guess where elements of the page are after seeing the full-size format of the page.
With normal zoom, I can scroll from side to side and all the elements of the page are where you saw them from initial load.

 

[Eazail70x7]

"The Galaxy S browser supports three zoom methods – dedicated buttons, double tap and multitouch pinch-zooming.

The browser supports text reflow – a moment after adjusting the zoom level, columns of text adjust to fit the screen width. Without text reflow you will either have to zoom out until the text fits (but then it’s too small to read comfortably) or scroll sideways to read each line."

Samsung I9000 Galaxy S review: From outer space - GSMArena.com

 

[taylormah]

As I saw on a youtube video, double tapping zooms and re-flows the text but pinch zooming does not. I dont know what will the behavior be using dedicated buttons, but I havent seen such buttons in any video so far.

 

[Eazail70x7]

Good news! I just played with the droid x yesterday. When i used the browser i did pinch to zoom but it did not auto fit the text. But once i double checked it did! So the browsrer really isn't flawed. Its only slightly different.

On HTC, it automatically fits the text to the pinched zoom level while on the other browsers, you only need to double tap after pinch zooming for it to auto fit at that pinched zoom level. No side to side scrolling needed to read like from the iphone.

 

[karnovaran]

I've always used double-tap to zoom and reflow the text on my Nexus One. I've always found pinch-to-zoom worthless since it requires two hands.

 

[drewsg]

One of the reasons why I like Dolphin HD so much

 

[Eazail70x7]

I've always used double-tap to zoom and reflow the text on my Nexus One. I've always found pinch-to-zoom worthless since it requires two hands.

Not sure you understood what I was saying (maybe you do and I'm confused lol)

Pinch to zoom still auto formats the text exactly like Dolphin browser does. (except you manually reflow it by double tapping). Very simple.

 

[caliskimmer]

Wait, couldn't one just download Dolphin Browser HD? I mean, I used that one way more than the default one on the Evo.

 

[Andrew Ruffolo]

Of course you can, its an app.

 

[caliskimmer]

Of course you can, its an app.

Oh, okay. Perfect then! I'm now satisfied in terms of web browsing experience.

 

[karnovaran]

Not sure you understood what I was saying (maybe you do and I'm confused lol)

Pinch to zoom still auto formats the text exactly like Dolphin browser does. (except you manually reflow it by double tapping). Very simple.

I understood. I was just voicing my opinion that double-tap to zoom is more efficient than pinch-to-zoom anyway.

 

[drizek]

a little off topic, but I started thinking about it when I added Dolphin to my AppBrain list:

Does having a lot of apps slow down the phone? I currently have 200 on my list.