Gadgetory

hey what is going on everybody I'm Noah from TechnoBuffalo comm and this is the Samsung Epic 4G Touch comma galaxy s2 an Android smartphone for Sprint that honestly might just be the best Android phone you can currently buy at least in the United States why do I say that let's find out all right so I've had about a week now with the Epic 4G Touch the first galaxy s2 phone to hit a US carrier galaxy s2 introduced way back at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this past February and some of the phones have been available in other parts of the world for a little while now this is the first u.s. variant to come we will see AT&T mobile versions very soon we hope the AT&T one we thought would be out already but it's not yet and then the the rumor is that Verizon will not be getting a Galaxy s2 because instead the galaxy has to phone because instead they will be getting a Galaxy Nexus or Nexus Prime depending on which rumors you believe but in any rate the first galaxy s2 phone to hit the states and as we talked about in the unboxing video also I should mention those of you who like to read there's a full written review over on TechnoBuffalo comm as well but what Sprint and Samsung did is they stretch this thing out it's a four point five two inch display they also added an LED notification light at the top there which was blinking a second ago which is a handy there goes a really handy feature that I for one so one of those things that I don't really appreciate until I have it and then use the phone like this or you know blackberries or what-have-you other phones that have that notification light it's like wow that's so handy because I don't have to turn my phone on to check to see if I have new email or new messages or whatever I can just glance at it see if the lights blinking of the way it's not blinking to go back to my business anyway those are kind of the two key most noticeable differentiators this device against the rest of the galaxy s line and then of course the size and so here's the here's the last device that I checked out for Sprint also a samsung made Android phone it's the conquer 4G three and a half inch display the Epic 4G Touch 4.5 2 inch display you know what before I got this thing I thought you know this is a nice size I'm not it could be a little bit bigger but I'm not yet on that huge screen bandwagon I don't know they just for you know more than four inches just seems too big four inches even might seem too big then I got this thing and I used it for a while and partially it's because you know I haven't had time with all of the latest high-end Android phones recently because John gets some of them might get some of them I get some of them and you know I get to see him at trade shows that kind of thing but don't necessarily use them for a long time and part of it is because this phone is so thin and so lightweight it's a little bit thicker than the original Galaxy S 2 but still thinner than 10 millimeters and it's incredibly lightweight and carrying it around in my pocket for a week it doesn't feel any different than a different phone doesn't feel any different really than having you know an iPhone 4 in my pocket or the other phones I've been using lately because it's just it's thin and it's lightweight and once it's in the pocket once I get used to it as long as it fits in there and I don't wear skinny hipster jeans cuz I'm not skinny or a hipster once it gets in there you don't really notice it it's just a phone so that being said this thing is blazing fast Sprint's Network aside which is a big consideration we'll talk about that in a second this phone just flies through things the dual-core 1.5 gigahertz processor Samsung net processor is fast the dual core Samsung processor the screen is responsive 4.5 2 inch 800 by 480 it's WVGA resolution we do sort of wish it was it was a a qHD display because frankly qHD and this thing would look even better but as it is it really looks nice Super AMOLED plus display it's very vivid very rich will look real quickly at here's some video that I shot find this video in the gallery you can see the TouchWiz user interface I don't find it all that obtrusive I know Android purists likely you know are gonna root the phone and put something else on it which is cool me I don't really find out all that obtrusive there's some bloatware on here honestly it's more sprint stuff than Samsung stuff that gets in the way but I think the UI looks pretty nice but here we'll look at the look at the gallery here and here's some video I shot this 1080p video I shot outdoors and you might have seen this already it's posted to YouTube it's 1080p sample this is the intro I shot outdoors and then there's some stuff I shot at the TechCrunch reader meetup which is indoors and bad lighting and I'm not talking about the camera just talking about the display the display very vivid the colors pop rich you get that depth of field you know as best as you can on a screen the size that's a 2d screen and really it's just it's fantastic I would put this up there you know honestly probably just below the iPhone 4 Retina display which yeah and the Droid Bionic qHD the little bit of time I spent with it also up there as well because you're lacking that super dense pixels per inch and again that's where a qHD on here might have done a little bit better but it's still it's a fantastic display suffers a little bit in direct sunlight otherwise really really good as I said the processor flies along Sprint's Network you know where I am it's less than impressive when pitted next to the 4G offerings from Verizon and t-mobile but where you are it might work better calls have been solid the Wi-Fi has been solid getting back for a second to the Samsung TouchWiz interface you know you've got your Android widgets on here you've obviously got some of that sprint sprint add-ons that I left on there as well and then you've got some of the Samsung widgets and then some of the UI elements if we go in here click and hold add to home so I want to add a widget and I've got this little scrollable thing at the bottom so some differences from stock stock Android I think it's kind of user friendly you know I sort of dig it I know some people won't it is what it is again I don't think it's that obtrusive it's definitely less obtrusive than older versions of TouchWiz swearing's cut or Samsung rather is cut-down they've eliminated you know several of their hubs and some of the other things so a little bit easier to use and a little bit less offensive to the Android purists out there I'm sure or I would hope if we go to messaging here we'll take a look I actually the phone comes pre-installed with swipe and I'm not the biggest fan of swipe or the Samsung default keyboard frankly because I tend to I still touch typing out with my thumbs as opposed to using swipe so I went ahead and installed Swift key at the advice of a couple folks that I know who recommended it and so far I've been liking a swift key pretty well and the screen you again it's big enough to really afford a lot of room for somebody like me who's used to the thumb typing I really like the blackberry bold because you know it has the physical keyboard I've turned haptic feedback off just cuz you know I don't really like the haptic feedback all that much and also on this phone as with many Samsung phones the haptic feedback really makes you realize how plasticky and all of this thing is so the lightweight awesome the plasticky hollow feeling not the best when haptic feedback saan and you get the haptic feedback it honestly kind of feels like they're just spring in there going Boing Boing Boing which is not the feeling that I at least want out of my top-of-the-line bleeding-edge smartphone that being said haptic feedback off works pretty well and I'm really liking I'm really liking SwiftKey myself even though I cannot type and talk at the same time turn it into the wide way and the wide way here in horizontal orientation you just got a ton of room for typing again you can argue that if the screen was higher resolution you could make even more use you know with more pixels in a 4.5 2 inch display you could do even more that being said it is what it is and at least for somebody like me for typing you know this is great and this is where I can really see the benefit feel the benefit of one of these larger displays otherwise the camera the still camera works very very well I think it's an 8 megapixel camera with autofocus LED flash you've got a 2 megapixel front facing camera for a facing camera you know not much to write home about but it works well for video chatting self-portraits that kind of thing the main camera one thing that's really nice about it even though there's no physical Hardware camera button which is kind of a drag physical hardware there's no camera Hardware button which is kind of a drag one thing that's nice is there's a virtual two stage camera button so press hold focus release in the shoe which is kind of cool because you know it's kind of like you can do a little bit more of that thing that photographers do with you know focusing you could do you know I'm not going to be able to do it cuz I'm a terrible photographer but Mike Pearlman I'm sure could do it I could focus here on but I could focus say on animal and then bring it back over here I don't know that's not related to it but you can do some of that kind of stuff from my perspective as a total hack photographer as a point-and-shoot camera really works well impressed with the quality of photos especially in natural lighting conditions you know the flash isn't gonna do a ton for you but it's a camera phone where you gonna do as for the camcorder itself you can check out it posted to YouTube and also on the site that sample video I shot the intro of the video shot outdoors and good lighting conditions you know pretty good for 1080p its camcorder I mean it's camera phone 1080p not standalone camcorder 1080p so yeah it's a full 1080p resolution not as awesome as a good camcorder in not so good lighting conditions the other part of the video I shot at the TechCrunch reader meetup you get some blurring you know you get that low-light suffer suffering of image quality and I have the the flash on you can leave the flash on continually when you're shooting there's a digital zoom which is controllable with the rapper switch and there's the lock switch which I didn't mean to hit but I was going to show you that you can leave the light on during videoing and that's what I did when I was filming the part inside where I was actually filming a Samsung prototype Windows 8 tablet and you know the light was necessary for getting the image but it probably didn't help things but at any rate they actually it's interesting they actually shipped the phone with 720p as the default instead of 1080p because the image quality's a little bit better but very good for still pictures and definitely you know definitely above average for video for a camcorder but the 7h weet 720p quality a little bit better than 1080p I was trying to say 720p and 1080p at the same time and I said 7/8 tweet I don't even want to know what that means otherwise what else can I tell you battery life has been fine although I found that trying to use four G's SAP the battery particularly night that I was in downtown San Francisco and reception in general just not good and the phone kept trying to find a signal and latching on to signal then turning off and that was kind of a drag call quality has been very good the phone's got this you know kind of plasticy heavily feel on the back there it's still got this chin on the bottom which you know I don't know if that's there for economics or just has to be there to fit some of the innards inside sorta too bad that's there but it doesn't really get too much in the way overall it's a solid solid smartphone it's a solid solid Android phone I I you know really liked it I've had some qualms like I said with Sprint's performance but the performance of the device itself has been terrific if you don't like TouchWiz and I think this is the least offensive version of TouchWiz yet or looking at another way the best version of TouchWiz yet but if you don't like it you can route it and what else can I tell you one ninety nine ninety nine officially on contract already has been discounted around the web I would put this up here up there with you know this device the HTC Sensation for t-mobile I also like quite a bit the mytouch 4G slide I like quite a bit because it has a good keyboard on it but with the screen this big maybe you don't need a keyboard that being said the other variants of the galaxy 2's coming soon to a US carrier near you Alysha on Verizon in which case you're probably gonna get the Nexus Prime or Galaxy Nexus or whatever it's called so overall a big thumbs up for the device the biggest pros about it superfast processor really rich vivid display and to have a phone with the display this big but it's still this thin and lightweight is awesome cons I would say Sprint's network performance has been a con at least for me out here in the San Francisco area I would also say the plastic e feeling of the phone you know is a con it's sort of a matter of user preference but to me a little bit of a con and yeah you know not that TouchWiz if you're an Android purist and you prefer stock Android that would be a con as well but overall my buying advice if you want to go get an Android phone right now arguably this is the best one out there in America I say arguably otherwise if you can wait wait a couple of weeks because you know tis the season for all these phones to be coming out between now and you know Halloween probably so you will have some more choices in the near future there you go let's get these other guys out of the way and focus the Sprint Samsung Epic 4G Touch Galaxy S 2 available now thanks to the folks at Sprint for lending us this one much more on this phone including a written review if for some reason you've gotten through this whole video review and you want to know more about what I think of this phone or more importantly you can go over to the review and post your own comments if you've used this phone we'd love to know what you think over on TechnoBuffalo comm so next time my name is Noah thanks for watching Oh bye