First Impressions

I won't go into all the pros.. I'll just throw out a glaring "con" I personally noticed.. and this is just me.

1. I recently moved from a slider (Samsung moment..older phone) to a Photon (which i bought on Saturday.. and returned today because it kept turning off/draining the battery..weird stuff)
2. Even though I was a slider guy, I found the Photon's touchscreen to be intuitive and easy to use.. fast too.. and worked damn well.
3. Switching to the S2, I cannot text worth a darn on this thing with the built-in keyboard. Switching between numbers/texts/punctuation is terrible (for me).

- I have since installed a 3rd party keyboard.. liking this other one a LOT more.

anyone else have keyboard issues with the S2?
-----------
The S2 is very, very light...especially compared to the Photon. It feels like there's no battery in it at all.. feels like a demo model on display..weird. I will get a case for it because I just don't get the feeling that if i dropped it once, it would survive. Very fast though, slick for sure.

hellaskan said:

The S2 is very, very light...especially compared to the Photon. It feels like there's no battery in it at all.. feels like a demo model on display..weird. I will get a case for it because I just don't get the feeling that if i dropped it once, it would survive. Very fast though, slick for sure.

Click to expand...

That's the only con I cna think of with mine hoenstly... it's just sooo light. Almost cheap light. I had to ask if the battery was in the phone on display because it just felt so light. I'm not used to that at all. Maybe that's good or bad I am not sure yet. I do think a case will help like you said... I kinda wish the phone was made of aluminum or something like that just to give it a little more heft to it... I like that it's so thin though, it's nice upgrade from my HTC hero... !

-Nigel

This may be a question that's been answered somewhere else, but when you say you're trading in your phones, do you mean you bought the previous phone within 30 days and are doing an exchange within the 30 day return window, or are you selling your old phone and buying a new one? I got a Nexus S 4G in May and was thinking of switching to the Epic Touch 4G, and if there's some method I can use to not have to buy the new phone wholly unsubsidized I'd be happy to know it.

tbhausen said:

This is an oversimplification. Certain performance trade-offs are made in order to achieve the low power consumption and high brightness/daylight readability of the PenTile screen. These are well-documented. I, and many others, feel these trade-offs are reasonable in order to achieve the benefits. The comment about shading with the hand drives this home for me. There's never been a need to do that with the Photon.

Click to expand...

Look, I don't need a phone manufacturer using a shitty screen to achieve "low power consumption" or "readability". What does it save? Maybe a one percent difference? No thanks.

I have the Evo and its arguably the worst phone as to battery life. I can get 15 hours a charge using it quite a bit. I can read it fine it daylight as well. I don't need a screen on a high end phone that doesn't look as good as my OG evo. Yes the colors are brighter, whatever. I can see the pixles and it drives me nuts.

Some people in this thread really need to be educated before they complain...

RGBW Pentile, while not for everyone, is certainly not a junk screen. Adding an extra White subpixel makes the phone unbelievably bright - even in direct sunlight. The screen door effect isn't as bad as most people make it out to be, though it can be annoying. Like I said, not for everyone, but certainly not junk.

The Photon does NOT have an LTE radio.

Wireless radios are all best effort transmissions (If you encounter a bunch of packet collisions or the access point cannot support any more connections, you don't get one). You cannot directly compare a handful of results and base their performance on it. So, to the person who compared the EVO to the E4GT, please do not base performance on that - ESPECIALLY with SpeedTest.

If you don't like Swype or the Samsung Keyboard (<-Bleh), Gingerbread keyboard in the market is essentially the stock Gingerbread keyboard similar to the one that is used on the Photon. Try it out.

For battery considerations, if you are trying to be very power conscious, pick dark colors for the E4GT (AMOLED based displays achieve black by turning off the pixels, thus saving power).

My only complaint is that the capacitive buttons do not respond immediately after using one of them. Almost like there is an unnecessary lock in the code after using one of them. Anyone have any suggestions here?

-GP

(Oh one other complain, I want to uninstall more of these apps like Voicemail and some of the other Sprint apps. I like that Sprint lets you uninstall most of the apps, just let me have control over the rest of them now)

2strokenut said:

Look, I don't need a phone manufacturer using a shitty screen to achieve "low power consumption" or "readability". What does it save? Maybe a one percent difference? No thanks.

I have the Evo and its arguably the worst phone as to battery life. I can get 15 hours a charge using it quite a bit. I can read it fine it daylight as well. I don't need a screen on a high end phone that doesn't look as good as my OG evo. Yes the colors are brighter, whatever. I can see the pixles and it drives me nuts.

Click to expand...

I've owned all three screens and I have to say you're nuts. The evo can't be seen in sunlight AT ALL unless you hunch over it and provide plenty of shade. The Photon screen is great in sunlight, leaps and bounds better than the Evo and better than the Touch.

You've obviously never bothered to read up on how the Pentile screen works and how much it does save in power consumption.

As far as which screen looks best it's a matter of personal opinion. The Evo has the worst screen and the Touch the best. Photon had great resolution and was somewhere in the middle.

I'm one of those folks who think the photon has a decent screen (I do not own it; but the store let me take it out side to play with). You seem fairly knowledgeable can you comment on the relative difference between photon and epic when viewed outdoors ?

I know the photon is perfectly visible but what i don't know is if the epic touch can be easily read outdoors or if you have to shade it. I do know the evo3d completely fades in sunlight (different store; they also let me take that one out doors).

thekarens said:

I've owned all three screens and I have to say you're nuts. The evo can't be seen in sunlight AT ALL unless you hunch over it and provide plenty of shade. The Photon screen is great in sunlight, leaps and bounds better than the Evo and better than the Touch.

You've obviously never bothered to read up on how the Pentile screen works and how much it does save in power consumption.

As far as which screen looks best it's a matter of personal opinion. The Evo has the worst screen and the Touch the best. Photon had great resolution and was somewhere in the middle.

Click to expand...

I went to my sprint store today and played with the E4gT for about 30 minutes. The screen is bright as hell, colors really do pop, and very vibrant. I heard some people say touchwiz 4.0 is like fisher price. I kind of agree, I mean, it is fairly easy to use, but in comparision to sense, its not as clean, or as professional looking. with that said, I really like the fact you can scroll through the screens by holding on to the dots, which represent the screens and move right and left as it scrolls through each screen, very cool, a la sense 3.0. The pinch and zoom on the browser was excellent, so smooth, also like the fact you can hold down on the screen and move the phone back and forth as it zooms in and out, also very cool. The camera was very impressive, so sharp and clear, best I have ever seen on a phone. I really like all the options, and the whole interface on the E4gt, very easy to use, and has much more options, and a better interface then my photon. I did notice though the capacitive buttons are not as responsive as the evo 3d, or the photon, someone mentioned earlier, the press has to be exact, or sometimes it takes a couple of tries to get recognized, maybe thats more of a user issue, since I am so used to the photon. everything is huge on this phone, I mean icons, apps, huge! Now I do not have the best eyes sight so maybe that's good for people like me. The phone it self felt pretty good in the hands, love the carbon fiber back, felt good, light, very light, was amazed how light it is. Overall I think it is one of sprints best phones. I made one test call on both speake phone, and with no speaker phone. The speaker phone call sounded pretty good, just have to turn the volume down a bit, or it does sound a bit muffled. The call quality overall was very good. Much better then the evo 3d I had, and close to the photon, very clear. As far as the build, I mean, yeah, it feels plasticky, it does not feel cheap, but compared to the photon and evo 3d, it does a bit. I am kind of on the fence because I have no more upgrades, and do not know if I want to sell my photon and get this phone, or wait to see what else releases. I will say, if I had a full upgrade, I would be using the E4gT right now. Sprint now has 3 excellent super phones!

But if you had neither the photon or epic touch which would you go with ? I guess epic touch since that's what you currently have.

I sort of want the epic depth with the photon width
-
Oh well i'll head over to the store and take another look.

Sycobob said:

@Gaminphreek: great info. I actually thought PenTile was RGBG? Are there different forms of it? Also, regarding the capacitive buttons, do you mean pressing the buttons rapidly in succession? I just poked around and it looks like there's a 200ms or so delay after pressing one before you can press it again. This may be built in to stop people from accidentally double tapping it when they don't want to.

@you2: http://androidforums.com/samsung-epic-4g-touch/414890-first-impressions.html#post3215142

@Androidalltheway: as much as I absolutely love the GS2, unless there's something specific you just must have I don't think it's worth paying the unsub price to get it. Having used the Photon for almost 3 weeks, I think it's an excellent phone. Aside from the profile of the phone, I don't think you gain too much. That's just my personal opinion though. Also, paragraphs please

Click to expand...

Gamingphreek said:

Some people in this thread really need to be educated before they complain...

RGBW Pentile, while not for everyone, is certainly not a junk screen. Adding an extra White subpixel makes the phone unbelievably bright - even in direct sunlight. The screen door effect isn't as bad as most people make it out to be, though it can be annoying. Like I said, not for everyone, but certainly not junk.

The Photon does NOT have an LTE radio.

Wireless radios are all best effort transmissions (If you encounter a bunch of packet collisions or the access point cannot support any more connections, you don't get one). You cannot directly compare a handful of results and base their performance on it. So, to the person who compared the EVO to the E4GT, please do not base performance on that - ESPECIALLY with SpeedTest.

If you don't like Swype or the Samsung Keyboard (<-Bleh), Gingerbread keyboard in the market is essentially the stock Gingerbread keyboard similar to the one that is used on the Photon. Try it out.

For battery considerations, if you are trying to be very power conscious, pick dark colors for the E4GT (AMOLED based displays achieve black by turning off the pixels, thus saving power).

My only complaint is that the capacitive buttons do not respond immediately after using one of them. Almost like there is an unnecessary lock in the code after using one of them. Anyone have any suggestions here?

-GP

(Oh one other complain, I want to uninstall more of these apps like Voicemail and some of the other Sprint apps. I like that Sprint lets you uninstall most of the apps, just let me have control over the rest of them now)

Click to expand...

Clarification: The Photon has a great antenna arrangement so the only thing I'd like is to have a unified wireless chipset with all major wireless tech in it... the BCS500.

As far as I know, there's a rumor going around that the Photon MAY have either a BCS500 or a MDM6600+BCS350 chipset. The former is an everything chip while the latter is GSM, CDMA, and WiMax only.

I don't have the heart to tear my Photon apart and I can't find a detailed-enough teardown anywhere.

I'm on CLOUD 9. That's all I can say.

i immediately slapped LP plus on here and its as smooth as butter. obviously the screen, weight and everything else youve already read. the prime is supposed to 1.5 bump from this 1.2...im thinking it will be on sprint in about 4 months so i decided to pull the trigger instead of waiting. its extremely fast, light, bright and outta sight

Well, if Sam's Club ever gets the Epic Touch in stock, I'll be able to do a direct, long-term comparison between it and the Photon. Sorry, but I just ain't payin' $68 more at the Sprint store just so my son can have it sooner. Hopefully we can get one next week.

I LOVE my Photon, ESPECIALLY the RGBW PenTile screen, the call strength, and speaker volume.

The lightness of the Epic Touch does have an appeal other than just "it's lighter". If you happen to drop it, since it's lighter, it will hit the ground with less of an impact.

The lower-res screen on the Epic has an appeal to my 51-year-old eyes, but I can see the Photon just fine as long as I have my glasses on. I don't think the lower resolution would be viewable without my readers either.

Touch Wiz has some cool features, most of which are just eye-candy, but I like mini-Blur okay. As for the "pinch to see all home screens", I like the Photon's implementation better. Just swipe from bottom to top of the screen and there are all 7 home screens. ...don't need two hands like with pinch to switch.

If I love the Epic, I'll make my wife take my Photon and get myself some AMOLED goodness. ...but I'm not planning on it.

I imagine the blacks of the Epic will be just as black as on the Photon, but should have better detail. The whites, however, will likely have that same greenish cast I've seen on all AMOLED phones.

I'm anxious to get them side-by-side.

[edit] Went to the Sprint store and looked over my son's shoulder while he played with the GSII. That is one gorgeous screen, and the phone is so light.

I've been playing with my E4GT so much I pretty much forgot about the forums lol. I LOVE this phone, I have never experienced anything that comes close! It's amazing!!! I can't think of any Cons so far! I'm flabbergasted! (Haha that's a funny word )

Ok I found a store that would let me take one outside. It was fine; the photon is brighter but the epic was pretty easy to read without shading or similar.

So-Low Da Don said:

I've been playing with my E4GT so much I pretty much forgot about the forums lol. I LOVE this phone, I have never experienced anything that comes close! It's amazing!!! I can't think of any Cons so far! I'm flabbergasted! (Haha that's a funny word )

Click to expand...

I honestly also can't find a flaw with the exception that it feels sooooooo light, and the lock screen is odd. Texting is faster, camera is ridiculous! Internet is freaking awesome, even netflix movies look ridiculously good on this. Phone rocks and i don't regret getting it. I just hope that Samsung, sprint and Google will do a better job of supporting it this time around.

So-Low Da Don said:

I've been playing with my E4GT so much I pretty much forgot about the forums lol. I LOVE this phone, I have never experienced anything that comes close! It's amazing!!! I can't think of any Cons so far! I'm flabbergasted! (Haha that's a funny word )

Click to expand...

Haha, me too. I bought one for my wife as well (both came from EVO 4g's). I was sad to see the Evo's go, but this is a great phone. We are both obsessed, lol. Not a bad thing I can say about it.

I bought mine yesterday and I have to say, I am very satisfied with my ET4G.
This is my first Sprint phone and also my first 4G phone.
I am generally happy with everything.
The only downside I see, not necessarily with this phone, but with Sprint's 4G Coverage, is I haven't been able to connect to 4G yet.

I live in the Dallas area and I have no 4G coverage at home or at work, bummer.
Would be nice if Sprint would cut you a slight discount if 4G was never used.

Also, where I live, I receive almost no signal from any carrier other than AT&T, but there is no way I'm going to dump all my money into AT&T's ridiculous prices. I may look into talking to Sprint and see if I can get one of those Airaves to compensate for bad coverage. We'll see.

I Guess I get what I pay for.
I really hope Sprint becomes a major contender in the years to come, especially after that lightsquared deal.

Damar1979 said:

I honestly also can't find a flaw with the exception that it feels sooooooo light, and the lock screen is odd. Texting is faster, camera is ridiculous! Internet is freaking awesome, even netflix movies look ridiculously good on this. Phone rocks and i don't regret getting it. I just hope that Samsung, sprint and Google will do a better job of supporting it this time around.

Click to expand...

Oh yea the only flaw for me was the lockscreen and I replaced that with GOTO Lockscreen. I learned from the OG Epic was that lightness is a good thing. I've dropped my Epic face flat on the ground many times before and it never had a cracked screen because there's not a lot of weight to put pressure on the screen. With the 2 EVOs I've had they fell face flat and cracked because they were much heavier. I've seen one Epic screen crack but it dropped on its bottom. So lightness is indeed a good thing.

I have not read this thread yet, but where the heck is the option to have all websites to load as DESKTOP websites?

I absolute despise mobile websites.

Anyone?

I can't find it in the browser settings.

Javeline4 said:

I bought mine yesterday and I have to say, I am very satisfied with my ET4G.
This is my first Sprint phone and also my first 4G phone.
I am generally happy with everything.
The only downside I see, not necessarily with this phone, but with Sprint's 4G Coverage, is I haven't been able to connect to 4G yet.

I live in the Dallas area and I have no 4G coverage at home or at work, bummer.
Would be nice if Sprint would cut you a slight discount if 4G was never used.

Also, where I live, I receive almost no signal from any carrier other than AT&T, but there is no way I'm going to dump all my money into AT&T's ridiculous prices. I may look into talking to Sprint and see if I can get one of those Airaves to compensate for bad coverage. We'll see.

I Guess I get what I pay for.
I really hope Sprint becomes a major contender in the years to come, especially after that lightsquared deal.

Click to expand...

They are currently in the process of upgrading their network and their 3g will be superfast once completed. The Wimax is on the way out, so, don't look for anymore cities to be added. They are working on rolling out LTE with lightsquared, that's if the government and them can work something out. The $10 is for all smartphones now for a rich data experience..lol That what they say, but, it's because the smartphones consume more data. I just think they should roll the $10 fee into their price and stop saying it's a $10 add-on.