Personally, I can't believe it took us this many years to come up with a phone model named "Epic." I mean, that's like most epic name available for the taking, right? With that said, the Samsung Epic 4G backs up the larger-than-life billing with a feature set bound to endear itself to most power users.
Physically, the smartphone looks sleek, with rounded edges, curved corners and a glossy finish. It's easily the biggest of the Galaxy S line (so far, at least) and will probably be tough to fit in most jeans pockets. Like most hefty phones, though, it feels particularly sturdy, apart from having a great feel in hand.
Display is a 4-inch AMOLED touchscreen, with 480 x 800 resolution. Sharpness, colors and graphics look downright fantastic, made even better by the wide viewing angle. Before we forget, there's a horizontal slide-out keyboard too. Thanks to the phone's size, it's got five full spacious rows of keys, making for extra-convenient typing.
As a phone, the Epic 4G makes for good calls. While it's not epic, audio came through loud and clear, with just a tad of distortion creeping in every now and then. Callers actually reported even better quality than we experienced. Speakerphone was a bit hollow, but had plenty of volume to go and was very usable in crowded environments. Battery is rated at 7.5 hours of talk time. With a phone this multimedia-heavy, though, expect nightly recharges.
Unfortunately, we never got a chance to test out the 4G function. Feedback from other users have been generally positive, though. Performance over 3G is great, with minimal YouTube buffering, even with HQ videos. Streamed videos still didn't look perfect (there was some noticeable degradation), but local 720p videos played beautifully. As you probably guessed, multimedia is a serious strength for the phone, with support for HD content, DivX and Xvid, and DLNA devices. Music playback is similarly outstanding, with onboard 5.1-channel surround support. Internal storage is a paltry 1GB, though, so better load up on those SD cards.
The Epic has all the usual Android smartphone features, including numerous voice capabilities, robust messaging (SMS, MMS, IM, email and Exchange) and the usual suite of Google apps. There's also WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth and Samsung's TouchWiz 3.0 UI.
Camera is 5.0 megapixels and takes exceptional pictures, along with pretty good 720p video. Even indoor shots, with help from the LED flash, were serviceable. It also has a front-facing VGA camera and ships with the Qik video chat app.
Overall, the Samsung Epic 4G is heavy on the features and stands as one of the best multimedia smartphones with Android at the helm. Price is steep, though, at $249.99, although you can get it from Amazon for $50 less.
