Review: Samsung Epic 4G
Calling
The calling experience on the Samsung Epic 4G is nearly identical to other Android phones. Samsung has tweaked the interface design just slightly so the dialpad and in-call buttons look different, but function no better or worse than my other Android handsets. I found the dialpad lagged a bit to the touch, which is surprising because lag is a foreign concept on this speedy phone. But I did not miss any numbers, they just popped up a bit slower.
When you receive a call, the Epic 4G gives you a cool screen where you can drag your caller's contact photo to buttons that let you answer the call, ignore it or ignore and send a text. Once you've placed a call, you can use onscreen buttons to activate the speaker phone, mute the call or send the audio to a Bluetooth device. You can also add a third call for a conference. When you end a call, you get an immediate option to follow up with return call or a text message.
Contacts
Samsung has made some changes to the basic Android contact list with social networking in mind. The efforts are not quite successful. The main contact list is divided into Contacts, Groups and Activities. The latter provides the same information and capabilities as the Feeds and Updates widget that Samsung offers for social networking, basically a long list of status updates with reply options.
Individual contact cards have plenty of space for personal info like e-mail, phone numbers and postal addresses, among numerous other fields. Cards also have tabs for Activities and Media. I assume these should be populated with information from my social networks, but these tabs were blank for all of my contacts. The phone was supposed to synchronize my Facebook and Twitter friends, but they did not show up in my contact lists. This is especially odd, since the Activities tab on my global Address Book was filled with updates, but none of these folks were added to my contact list. Also, none of my existing contacts were linked properly to their Facebook profiles, which meant I was missing a ton of contact photos.
Hands-On with Samsung's Galaxy S Phones for the US
Samsung Epic 4G (Galaxy S)
