My impressions with the samsung epic 4g

[drizek]

Interesting... well then I guess I hope it's not noticeable from a normal distance from my face

btw, blue will always burn out faster, red the slowest (blue light has more energy than red light)

You do notice it. I was pretty annoyed by it on the captivate. People here got mad at me for pointing it out, but it is there.

It is a sacrifice you make for the higher quality relative eto hoer displays, and i can see myself getting used to it. It does however make the screen look more pixelated than an lcd with a much lower pixel density.

I think i am so used to holding my 3" pre really close to my face that i held the captivate a littler clsoer than i needed to, but even when i moved it away slightly it was still noticeable.

 

[duallydave]

The screen door effect is visible on most plasma TVs if you look at them close, there was a lot of discussion on this at avsforum when the plasmas were first coming out. Seems like a non-issue to me, I can't see that close without reading glasses anyway, which is one of the reasons for wanting a larger display.

 

[duallydave]

I'm pretty sure that's because it's a Pentile Matrix display.

A penile what?

 

[caliskimmer]

I noticed it as clear as day on the Vibrant, but it didn't bother me a bit. Felt like the old iPhone that I own at the moment except with better colors.

 

[ConceptVBS]

Sometimes when I press the menu or back key for instance it seems as if the phone doesn't register the command. However, after hitting the button dead on the phone had no problems registering the command and it seems as if the issue is with accurately hitting the capacitive buttons.

Trust me. You wouldnt want the capacitive touch buttons on the bottom to be overly sensitive. A slight touch would register the button and send you out of a page long email you were composing just 2 seconds ago. There is a reason why Samsung made the capacitive touch controls slightly less responsive, and this is the reason. The benefit of a more aesthetically pleasing and functioning button outweights the extra thought required to press the button in the right spot.

 

[Cory Streater]

I noticed it as clear as day on the Vibrant, but it didn't bother me a bit. Felt like the old iPhone that I own at the moment except with better colors.

I noticed it too. It's one of those things that might bother you at first, but you quickly adjust.

 

[ConceptVBS]

A penile what?

You have a sick sick mind. Please continue.

 

[drizek]

Pressing back and losing an email is incredibly annoying. The button shouldn't function like this. It is such a blunt instrument.

 

[whippingboy]

Pressing back from any text entry should automatically prompt if you want to save a draft. The blunt instrument is the thoughtless programming. That said- I think the capacitive buttons should be timed to equal the long press on screen in order to cause an action. This would then not result in accidental presses. As far as pentile display- the RGBW version not yet employed in phones has a more uniform spread of pixel arrangement- this may reduce the screen door effect- but you still have matrixed LEDs that form a single pixel rather than a traditional LCD where the colors are overlayed.

In this respect- I have to give it to Apple- Retina really is the best of both worlds- 3.5" is just too dang small for a phone with no keyboard IMHO. Once you have the onscreen keyboard present- it's as if your 2010 iphone 4 is reduced to that of a Palm CENTRO with it's tiny display.

 

[caliskimmer]

Pressing back from any text entry should automatically prompt if you want to save a draft. The blunt instrument is the thoughtless programming. That said- I think the capacitive buttons should be timed to equal the long press on screen in order to cause an action. This would then not result in accidental presses. As far as pentile display- the RGBW version not yet employed in phones has a more uniform spread of pixel arrangement- this may reduce the screen door effect- but you still have matrixed LEDs that form a single pixel rather than a traditional LCD where the colors are overlayed.

In this respect- I have to give it to Apple- Retina really is the best of both worlds- 3.5" is just too dang small for a phone with no keyboard IMHO. Once you have the onscreen keyboard present- it's as if your 2010 iphone 4 is reduced to that of a Palm CENTRO with it's tiny display.

Dang, I was hoping this was an rgbw display, but I guess not. Oh well.

 

[fry8]

As far as the screen goes, the colors look fantastic and it only takes about a couple hours to get used to the screen door effect. As far as the camera goes it is not recessed so it juts out a bit. I don't know if the lens will be scratched and encounter the same problem with evo just yet though. It appears as if the placement of the camera is a bit better than the evos.

Benchmarks: Upon the first linpack test I got like 7.2 and the second one was around 8.008 or something like that. For quadrant I got 969.

 

[maverick96]

As far as the screen goes, the colors look fantastic and it only takes about a couple hours to get used to the screen door effect. As far as the camera goes it is not recessed so it juts out a bit. I don't know if the lens will be scratched and encounter the same problem with evo just yet though. It appears as if the placement of the camera is a bit better than the evos.

Benchmarks: Upon the first linpack test I got like 7.2 and the second one was around 8.008 or something like that. For quadrant I got 969.

I thought it was shown the guys over at XDA proved linpack was worthless????

 

[tndank]

I played with one today for 10-20 minutes. Decent chance I'll get it back to keep overnight.

I'll just say this. After 10 minutes, I was already hating and cursing the buttons at the bottom. They appear to be crap. Getting them to work is sometimes an exercise in patience. Click buttons would have been SO much better and less annoying.

 

[ywenz]

I played with one today for 10-20 minutes. Decent chance I'll get it back to keep overnight.

I'll just say this. After 10 minutes, I was already hating and cursing the buttons at the bottom. They appear to be crap. Getting them to work is sometimes an exercise in patience. Click buttons would have been SO much better and less annoying.

Isn't the bottom part just one big capacitive surface? could samsung potentially increase the active area of each button to make activation less precise and easier to use?

 

[drizek]

Pressing back from any text entry should automatically prompt if you want to save a draft. The blunt instrument is the thoughtless programming. That said- I think the capacitive buttons should be timed to equal the long press on screen in order to cause an action. This would then not result in accidental presses. As far as pentile display- the RGBW version not yet employed in phones has a more uniform spread of pixel arrangement- this may reduce the screen door effect- but you still have matrixed LEDs that form a single pixel rather than a traditional LCD where the colors are overlayed.

In this respect- I have to give it to Apple- Retina really is the best of both worlds- 3.5" is just too dang small for a phone with no keyboard IMHO. Once you have the onscreen keyboard present- it's as if your 2010 iphone 4 is reduced to that of a Palm CENTRO with it's tiny display.

Like I said in another post regarding the display: apple is using an amazing implementation of yesterdays technology, while samsung is beta testing the technology of tomorrow.

OLED is the future, it is absolutely superior, but it still needs some work.

Sent From My Samsung Intercept

 

[sel1965]

I played with one today for 10-20 minutes. Decent chance I'll get it back to keep overnight.

I'll just say this. After 10 minutes, I was already hating and cursing the buttons at the bottom. They appear to be crap. Getting them to work is sometimes an exercise in patience. Click buttons would have been SO much better and less annoying.

If you hit the screen first the buttons come on and then they are very easy to use. Try that the next time you get to play with one.

 

[tndank]

That helps, but they are still fairly unresponsive. Even with the buttons lit, often times it took multiple presses to get them to register.

 

[fry8]

That helps, but they are still fairly unresponsive. Even with the buttons lit, often times it took multiple presses to get them to register.

I changed the setting for the keys at the bottom to stay lit as long as the screen is on, that way I don't have to press the bottom twice (one to turn the keys lit and the other for the command). It makes the phone a lot easier.

 

[taylormah]

I changed the setting for the keys at the bottom to stay lit as long as the screen is on, that way I don't have to press the bottom twice (one to turn the keys lit and the other for the command). It makes the phone a lot easier.

How did you change this setting?

 

[liquidxit2]

Thanks for the review and such. I am wondering how much better the keyboard is to use over the moment. I temporarily transferred to a spare moment I had and it is an OK phone but I cannot stand the keyboard at all.

That's correct. The evo has more screen real estate, while the epic has more of border on the screen.

courtesy of engadget

The bolded is an incorrect statement. Screen size is of no consequence. The resolution is what determines what you can fit on the screen and use, and NOT physical dimensions.

I changed the setting for the keys at the bottom to stay lit as long as the screen is on, that way I don't have to press the bottom twice (one to turn the keys lit and the other for the command). It makes the phone a lot easier.

This will be one of the first things I do when I get mine.