Anyone try the Epic but come back?

[Iczer]

I currently have an Epic and LOVE the screen and speed. I'm being turned off by the keyboard to be honest. It's pretty easy to move and I find myself almost sliding it out by just hitting the power button. I'm thinking of moving to an Evo. The community seems much developed.

I have a few questions though,

How's the battery life?
Do I need to root to not experience lag, or is it just as fast without rooting?
Anything I should know?

 

[Never!?]

1) Batter life depends on use. You could get 2 days with light use or 1/2 day with heavy use. The 3200 batteries are pretty cheap,a lot of people use them. There are a lot tweaks out there for battery life.

2) You dont need rooting at all. I prefer not to use a root until 4g is in my area and I can root my desktops off of it. Root if you want, or don't, it really doesn't matter.

3) There are still some bugs with the Evo. I rarely get flashing LED notifications when I get texts or calls. Youtube rarely ever buffers fully for me, where as my friends 3g Iphone buffers fully and makes me look like a dick.

Also, there are some issues with screen seperations and light leaks. If you do happen to get one of these issues, sprint is usually really cool about getting you a new one in a timely manner.

 

[t0ast3d]

I think it's just the user above with the led problems.

There hasn't been anything brought up on them.

You Tube usually loads all the way for me too.


My friend got the Epic and I had time this morning to play around with it.

EVO is superior in everything I can tell besides the screen.


Go with the EVO, you won't regret it.

 

[jsward12]

Yep I tried the EPIC for 2 hours. The keyboard is nice, but TW is kindof weird almost nintendo esk. Also, the capacitive buttons are terrible. You almost have to break the glass to make them respond. Overall the EVO is a much better phone, from build to software it really outclasses the EPIC.

 

[mrmojoz]

EVO is superior in everything I can tell besides the screen.


Go with the EVO, you won't regret it.

Everything you can tell? What does that mean? If you are going to say one product is better than another please back up your statements.

 

[aznmode]

I currently have an Epic and LOVE the screen and speed. I'm being turned off by the keyboard to be honest. It's pretty easy to move and I find myself almost sliding it out by just hitting the power button. I'm thinking of moving to an Evo. The community seems much developed.

I have a few questions though,

How's the battery life?
Do I need to root to not experience lag, or is it just as fast without rooting?
Anything I should know?

I totally feel you on the keyboard. I rarely use it and it adds bulk to the device that might not bother some but it does me. I have both so to answer your questions....

Battery life is the same on both for me.

I've rooted and using Baked Snack's 1.7 rom and it makes it as close to the epics speed and smoothness. So far I'm pretty happy.

Not gonna go into to Epic since you already have it, but what you should know is Evo is 2.2 right now and can do flash. You can set youtube to play HQ all the time. Kickstand is pretty handy when watch videos. You may not like the screen but the size is great. Honestly if you didn't have the Epic next to it, you really wouldn't complain about. Due to a larger screen, you may not be able to navigate with 1 hand. Evo right now has more developer community support compared to Epic. Evos dual LED is brighter if you plan to use it as flashlight. You can get cheap batteries and charger from ebay or use Heros, TP2 batteries. You will probably rarely use the HDMI out. It does not do DLNA. Evo seems to get more signal bars MOST (not all) of the time. Evo is heavier but feels more solid cause of it. It will not be as comfortable in your hands. You will not have gorilla glass. You will not have a dedicated camera button. Touch buttons will be too sensitive which might bother you. Front camera is 1.3mp but does not do great in dim areas compared to Epic. If you use QIK your face will not look stretched out on the other persons phone. Back camera is not that great in dim areas but the brighter flash will make up for it. Video recording will not be as smooth as epic. Evo has a louder mic when used in speaker mode and you won't need to put the phone that close to you but because its louder it picks up more background noise. Evo only comes with 8gb sdcard. Some battery covers don't fit flush. And lastly...not having both phones with you to compare for a few days make it more difficult to decide....or maybe that's just me.

Feel free to ask me any more questions.

 

[Cobravision]

The battery is what it is. If you use it a lot, even with tweaks, you're not going to make it a full day with one charge. I have chargers everywhere -- at work, at home, and in my car. So I plug whenever I can. If I know I will have an extended time away from a charger, I carry a spare battery with me and it works out great for me, but YMMV. Because I'm recharging all the time, I hardly need the spare during the day. But once I get home, I'm on the Evo constantly, and the spare battery allows me to power through non-stop. Having a spare battery and charger means you never have to take a break to charge the phone. You can get a battery and charger combo for under $12 shipped from eBay. Note that the Touch Pro 2 and the Hero and the Evo all use the same exact battery when you're shopping around.

As for lag -- define "lag". I think that for some people, the screen transitions when you swipe to the next or pinch and zoom look a bit choppy next an iPhone or even a Hero. It doesn't bother me at all, but it's really important to other people. But the lag you get on Galaxy phones when you go back to the home screen is non-existent in the Evo -- it's a very, very snappy phone, and the capacitance buttons respond quickly, and they never go to sleep on you.

Evo has froyo, so you can watch Flash videos in the browser. One little talked about froyo feature is the ability to set an independent password protected lock screen. So I can set the password protection to go on after 30 minutes of non-use, which means I can lock the screen and unlock it inside of a 30 minute window without having enter my PIN each time. I was reluctant to use a PIN lock code because of the hassle of re-entering the PIN code each time. But I use the PIN code now since it only activates after long periods of inactivity.

Oh, and no GPS issues to speak of on the Evo.

 

[Droidone]

I have a brand new epic right in front of me and I haven't even been tempted to use it. My first one was replaced and they gave me a new one. I am going to sell it and just keep my evo. I like the evo much better but recently found out I have dust in my screen which sucks but I still love my Evo over the Epic.

This poll shows HTC is still reigning king at least on the forums
http://www.androidcentral.com/poll-did-you-ditch-evo-epic

 

[aznmode]

The battery is what it is. If you use it a lot, even with tweaks, you're not going to make it a full day with one charge. I have chargers everywhere -- at work, at home, and in my car. So I plug whenever I can. If I know I will have an extended time away from a charger, I carry a spare battery with me and it works out great for me, but YMMV. Because I'm recharging all the time, I hardly need the spare during the day. But once I get home, I'm on the Evo constantly, and the spare battery allows me to power through non-stop. Having a spare battery and charger means you never have to take a break to charge the phone. You can get a battery and charger combo for under $12 shipped from eBay. Note that the Touch Pro 2 and the Hero and the Evo all use the same exact battery when you're shopping around.

As for lag -- define "lag". I think that for some people, the screen transitions when you swipe to the next or pinch and zoom look a bit choppy next an iPhone or even a Hero. It doesn't bother me at all, but it's really important to other people. But the lag you get on Galaxy phones when you go back to the home screen is non-existent in the Evo -- it's a very, very snappy phone, and the capacitance buttons respond quickly, and they never go to sleep on you.

Evo has froyo, so you can watch Flash videos in the browser. One little talked about froyo feature is the ability to set an independent password protected lock screen. So I can set the password protection to go on after 30 minutes of non-use, which means I can lock the screen and unlock it inside of a 30 minute window without having enter my PIN each time. I was reluctant to use a PIN lock code because of the hassle of re-entering the PIN code each time. But I use the PIN code now since it only activates after long periods of inactivity.

Oh, and no GPS issues to speak of on the Evo.

Just to comment on the capacitive buttons, in the Sound and Display settings, then Keyboard timout. Whatever you set here will also set the capacitive backlight timeout. There's also a setting to set it to time out the same as the screen time out.

Also GPS does take longer to lock but it eventually locks for me and its off by maybe 5 feet.

 

[t0ast3d]

Everything you can tell? What does that mean? If you are going to say one product is better than another please back up your statements.

IT'S BETTER!!!!

How is that?

lol

 

[Cobravision]

Just to comment on the capacitive buttons, in the Sound and Display settings, then Keyboard timout. Whatever you set here will also set the capacitive backlight timeout. There's also a setting to set it to time out the same as the screen time out.

Also GPS does take longer to lock but it eventually locks for me and its off by maybe 5 feet.

But the buttons eventually time out. The Evo buttons, even if they're unlit, respond immediately. The Galaxy buttons need a tap to wake up and then another tap to get going. But that's not even the big problem, which is button insensitivity, which is very common amongst the Galaxy phones. It can range for have to tap multiple times to physically pressing the button to get it to respond (although that's probably frustration thing -- there's no way pressing harder will make a capacitive screen respond faster).

GPS is borked on the Galaxy phones. Probably a hardware problem since a) it's been three months and still no fix and b) Samsung said they are going to "optimize" it rather than "fix" it.

 

[aznmode]

But the buttons eventually time out. The Evo buttons, even if they're unlit, respond immediately. The Galaxy buttons need a tap to wake up and then another tap to get going. But that's not even the big problem, which is button insensitivity, which is very common amongst the Galaxy phones. It can range for have to tap multiple times to physically pressing the button to get it to respond (although that's probably frustration thing -- there's no way pressing harder will make a capacitive screen respond faster).

GPS is borked on the Galaxy phones. Probably a hardware problem since a) it's been three months and still no fix and b) Samsung said they are going to "optimize" it rather than "fix" it.

If you set the time keyboard timeout to timeout with your screen then it would act normal. If the screen was off you would have to turn on the screen first which should turn on the buttons. I have them both to time out the same time so the only way to get the capacitive button to turn off is when on call. Below is a video of the capacitive buttons off and still function with 1 tap. The other video is of my GPS. This was actually the fastest Ive seen it. It normally takes like 30 seconds.

Edit: it looks like my video skipped when I pressed the home button. oops. Recorded with my Evo. lol.
YouTube - Samsung epic capacitive buttons still work even when not lit

YouTube - Gps works on my Samsung epic

 

[FraGztr]

This might be off topic, but watching the YouTube that above poster posted, my evo will stop frequently. Likes it's buffering but it'll stop to buffer. Does all evo behave the same? Oh and I can't seem to use or post to the quick reply box using stock browser

 

[Never!?]

I have that issue alot, along with a bunch of other people too.

I feel like a dick when I try and race my friend who has a Iphone 3g, he always always beats me with his archaic phone.

 

[aznmode]

I have that issue alot, along with a bunch of other people too.

I feel like a dick when I try and race my friend who has a Iphone 3g, he always always beats me with his archaic phone.

Anytime I try to compete with an iphone I test to make sure everything work on my Evo first lol. But rarely do I even try to show off cause something will fail.

 

[Never!?]

Which is sad, considering his phone is 2+ years old and can buffer simple youtube videos without a breeze, whereas our loads 7 seconds, buffers for a minute, loads 7 seconds etc.

 

[novox77]

Just to comment on the capacitive buttons, in the Sound and Display settings, then Keyboard timout. Whatever you set here will also set the capacitive backlight timeout. There's also a setting to set it to time out the same as the screen time out.

Great to hear that there's a way to fix this. I think Samsung was going for the design factor of not having any visible buttons when you weren't using the phone. Unfortunately, the default setting places form over function, which is always the wrong decision in my book.

 

[marctronixx]

we already have an epic vs evo thread. there is an epic forum. if you want to compare the two read the epic forum and come to your own conclusions as to which phone works best for you. they are great devices. lets not start up with evo vs. ___ threads again...