Quick review of the Epic 4g Touch September 18, 2011

Reviewer:  ED 

- Updated 10/19/11 -

This is by far the best phone I have ever used. My previous phone is a EVO 4g so luckily i got renewed after a year.

This is my own personal review based on experiences with my EVO 4g, my friends's ip4 and this Epic 4g touch.

By far, Epic 4g touch wins by a mile.

Initial impressions:
1. Its light as hell!!!!! it feels like you're holding a toy or a dummy phone (this may be good or bad depending on the user, it's really good for me)
2. The size is good enough for me but then again it depends on how big your hands are.
3. The colors are very very VERY vibrant, it really stands out from all angles.
4. It is silky smooth, SILKY SMOOTH. the OS has no lag at all, i tried a pinch to zoom test for the ip4 and epic 4g touch and surprisingly, the epic 4g is so much better.
5. Video camera is on par if not better with Ip4.
6. Touchwiz has a lot of nice functions and the widgets are very nice.
7. Battery life is not too bad, i can go a day without having to recharge.
8. Probably one of my top compliments of the phone, the kies air app is well thought out and wonderfully done. It helps a lot with deleting and transferring stuff to your phone.
9. The screen is not a fingerprint magnet.
10. It is so thin, i'm afraid to hold it in my hand cause it feels like i'm going to drop it (also due to its lightweight)
11. No need to really do any customization cause the widgets work well and they look very nice.
12. Touchwiz provides a power widget which is very useful: It goes according to this: wifi- bluetooth-gps-brightness-settings-sync-screentime out-tips (toggle off and on)
13. They have a widget for "active applications", this is like a task killer app that you would find in the market. Very easy to use, helps exit all apps if needed, also shows you all your download apps so you can uninstall them if you wish.
14. When you're charging the phone, once it its 100%, it will give out a beep letting you it's done.
15. When you're calling and you unlock your phone, the notification bar turns neon green (which i think is pretty cool)
16. Sprint will be the only carrier with an notification led on the front.
17. Battery life update: From 1% to 100% charge, it takes about 2 hours, 45 minutes. Last night, I charged it to 99%. I watched a 5 minute youtube video then went to sleep. Work up, went to work at 9am to 2pm. Mobile was on with my IMO (messaging program) the entire time. Surfed the web, checked email and returned a few text (This is also with live wallpaper on). By the time it was 7PM, the battery had hit 1%. Total hours on battery life was about 20 hours. So yes, the battery to me is very good but each to their own.

Now for the cons:
1. the touch buttons are not as sensitive as the EVO 4g touch. You would have to hit it directly with little error margin to get it right.
2. The charging cable is very short.
3. I'm not sure if the camera on the back is touching the surface when its laid on its back.
4. No dedicated flashlight app however this can be downloaded from the market.
5. The power button is located on the right side, the volume rocker is on the left side. Sometimes i hit the rocker volume while trying to hit the power button however i just need more practice.
6. When charging and placed on a flat surface , the touch sensor lags, this only happens when its charging.
7. The touch sensitive buttons have white led light and you can control the duration however the options are given to you at a max of 6 seconds or "always on", they could have given us the option of letting us create our own duration.
8. No dedicated battery app however you can download it in the market.
9. Dock icons can't be replaced (maybe it can and i just don't know it?) UPDATE: it can be replaced except the apps icon.
10. Not sure if this is a con for me yet but when you want to make a call, you would have to swipe . So there is 2 ways of calling: (1) you hit the call button, hit the log button, click the contact, then click on call. (clicking on the contact is what im more use to) and (2) you hit the call button, hit the log button and you swipe right on the contact to call.
11. Kies Air can only transfer 100mb or less to your phone.
-Coming from Evo 4g, i'm use to having the home button on the far left where as the epic 4g touch is located on the 2nd button.
13. Speakers are located on the bottom back which makes it weak if the phone is flat on the surface.

Again, most of the things listed above is from my own personal experience and maybe some may feel the same way.

Here are some tips i found:
1. You can take a screen shot of your phone, just hold the power + home button at the same time and let go.
2. When listening to the stock music player or if somebody is calling, you can flip the phone so the front screen is on the bottom to mute.
3. You can uninstall most of the sprint store apps.
4. to save battery, i usually turn off auto sync.
5. when you're at the call log, you can swipe left to message the person, or swipe right to call the person.
6. You can create folders
7. If you use stock browser, you can switch windows by pinching in. fingers should start from.the top and bottom. You heard.it here first. Enjoy.
8. When somebody is calling you, you have 3 options (1) Pick up (2) decline (3) swipe up and a menu will pop up with text messages to send to the person such as "I am driving". All you hvae to do is click send. Very useful and handy!
9. You can only transfer 100mb maximum on kies air.
10. You tube and music still plays with the screen off.
11. May want to get class 6 for.microsd, I was told it would lag a bit accessing files. Such as opening gallery.
12. Sometimes I hit the EN (swype keyboard) on accident and it turns to ES english to spanish). To turn this off hold on the EN key and uncheck ES.

Overall, i would recommend this phone to everybody I know. This is the best phone out in the market today and yes i know, nexus prime and ip5 is coming out but honestly, this phone is so good that i would say it would be on par with them and it's not because of spec but also because of design. It looks physically sexy. I honestly would say this can be an "iDroid" Haha, the reason i say this is because its taken the smoothness of the iOS and the customization of the android system and merged it together to become one. THIS PHONE is what all phones should be, the only reason not to get this phone is the size if it's not good enough for you otherwise, this phone should make a lot of people happy.

Update (1)
As far as GPS and wifi signal goes, I haven't had any loss signals YET. Also, the slight lag with the lock screen seems to be related to the microsd card installed. Once i've taken the card out, the lag decreases.

Update (2)
I have figured what the problem is when there is lag while charging. It has to do with the charger itself, the usb connector is fine. I have a car charger and noticed when i was charging, there was no lag at all. So i went home and tried charging it with the OEM charger that was in the box, there was lag, the touch was not registering correctly. I decided to switch the charger to another one (i'm using the power charger from my HP Touchpad) and I'm not experiencing any lag at all. I hope this helps, ya heard it here first! 10/4/11

Update (3 more tips
1. Seen this one with iphone and i never got time to play around with the camera on s2 however there is a panorama option which is quite awesome!
2. With the stock email client, if you pinch in, it will sort all your emails by the date.

Absolutely blown away by this phone! September 23, 2011

Reviewer:  Michael B. Magnet "Tech enthusiast/pharmacist dynamo"  (Greensboro, NC USA) -

I got this phone the day it was released via overnight shipping and have been using it ever since (about a week now)- I have been utterly impressed with the device! I switched from a rather dated and rooted original Motorola Droid on Verizon and I couldn't be happier.

Pros:

-The Super AMOLED (Active matrix organic light emitting diode), which is the newest kind of display technology, absolutely blows any other display away in terms of contrast and color saturation. The 4.5'' diagonal screen on this beast is an absolute pleasure to look at, and it's more efficient than an LCD to boot! I've read a lot of reviews whining about the marginally lower resolution on this screen compared to qHD screens; what a joke, this screen makes every other device around it look washed out and dated... dead serious- you'll completely forget about resolution the moment you power it up- and it has far superior response times!

-Processor- underneath the gorgeous screen lies a beast of a processor, a dual core 1.2ghz Samsung Exynos CPU that really packs a punch. As everyone has said, it seems that nothing currently available can slow this thing down. Coupled with the CPU is a discrete Mali 400 GPU (video card for you non-geeks), which affords this phone the ability to have the smoothest, most buttery user-interface experience I've seen on any phone to date. You'll be extremely pleased how effortlessly the phone shifts between any task you're doing to the next one, without any hiccups.... the phone has literally not stuttered once for me in the almost entire week I've been using it. Widgets also run great and contrary to what some users have said, I've not had one crash yet and the phone executes them with ease.

-Cameras- With an 8mp rear camera and 2mp front camera, as well as the ability to capture 1080p video, this phone is very impressive in terms of image capturing ability. Of course, it's not gong to replace your high end Nikon or Canon, but you'll be asking yourself if the photos/videos you shoot were really taken with a smart phone- it's that good!

-Call/speaker quality- Calls on this phone sound top notch and I honestly can't notice a difference between it and my girlfriend's Droid Bionic in terms of calling. Admittedly, at higher volumes the external speaker on the Epic Touch 4G sounds a bit tinny compared to the Bionic, but who cares when you have such a sleek, light, and sexy device- it makes the Bionic feel clunky by comparison.

-Case size/feel- I'm tired of hearing about people whining about how this phone "feels cheap". What does that even mean? Samsung has obviously gone out of their way to use high end composite materials to make this phone as thin and light as possible, and to me it feels like the future- other heavier phones feel clunky and dated by comparison. Unless you're a bumbling idiot that routinely drops 600 dollar devices on the concrete, ignore this immaterial critique and try out the feel for yourself.... the airy, sexy lightweight feel of the phone fits perfectly with its blazing speed and gorgeous display- it's like you're using something out of Star Trek.

Battery Life- This phone has fantastic battery life and as far as I know comes packed with the largest battery of any phone currently available (1800 mAh). It easily makes it through a day of normal use even with GPS turned on, although 4G connectivity does make the battery drain considerably faster. To their credit, Samsung has engineered the phone such that the 4G network will go into "sleep" mode displaying a "Zzz" icon in the 4G status area when you aren't sending/receiving data to help conserve battery life.

Space- with 16gb of onboard memory plus support for up to a 32gb microSD card, you'll have plenty of space to carry around basically whatever you want on your phone (most people with older phones already have a compatible microSD card they can just pop in to it as well)

4G connectivity- When you can get signal, this feature is great. Sure, the coverage isn't nearly as good as Verizon's LTE network and the speed isn't quite as fast, but it's still a huge step up from 3G and for a power user like me, the ability to have unlimited data on Sprint is a huge win. I live in the Piedmont Triad area of North Carolina and get great 4G coverage overall near Greensboro and Winston Salem as well as Kernersville, and websites/apps load/download almost instantly on the Wimax network. I've been really pleased and impressed with the coverage overall and the price of the plan is awesome at 79 bucks a month.

Cons:

-The large size of the phone may be a con for some people, but I absolutely love it and think it's a perfect size (I'm 6'4 with larger hands, however)
-The Touchwiz interface is so-so.... I'm a pharmacy manager with a busy schedule and get slightly annoyed at the Calendar widget it comes with as it doesn't break out tasks that well for me
-The Sprint Network- overall, I'm very pleased with the network (I was a bit scared about coverage coming from Verizon) at the price point and the fact that I have unlimited everything with the phone. If you're looking for the absolute best coverage, however, stay with Verizon- but you'll get killed if you eat up a lot of data or send a lot of texts. In my opinion, if you live near one of the 4G covered cities, Sprint is hands down the way to go for heavy data users.

-The update frequency of the OS is yet to be seen, but this has been an issue with Samsung in the past- hoping they'll get it right this time around!

In summary, this is an EXCELLENT device that I would recommend to anyone, unless you have absolutely tiny hands and are confused by the 4 button interface of Android (ha ha... I love the classic complaints about Android). I honestly feel like the iPhone 5 will be lucky if it can even attain an on-par status with the amazing user experience the Epic Touch 4G delivers.

I love it! September 20, 2011

Reviewer:  JC 

Got this phone on the 16th. Here are a few things that I like and dislike:

likes:
1. speed
2. screen
3. build (feels like a toy? are you kidding me?) this phone is so light in weight but don't confuse that as a poor build quality. If you want a phone built like a tank and weighs like one by all means choose a different phone. finish and fit are beautifully done!
4. camera (8m + LED flash). The pictures are sharp and focused. I like using retro camera and little photo. Even the front camera is awesome.
5. Gingerbread is cool and stable (no force close so far)
6. Google integration. Flawless
7. GOOD and corporate email integration. Flawless
8. GPS and Google Map. works perfectly.
9. audio (had to adjust the EQ to make it right)I'm rockin'
10. wifi (works great)
11. print Screen!!!! yes!! (home+power) finally!
12. cold boot time... fast (this is handy when you change out the battery and power back up fast)
13. SD card expansion up to 16G (I have 8Gb in mine.. no delays)
14. changeable battery.. awesome.

dislikes:
1. slippery surface (I need to get a case so that I can grip this thing without slipping out of my hand)
2. size (I have a pretty big hands (6' tall) but I sometimes need to use both hands.. perhaps due to the slipperiness of the phone) but my wife has small hands but she is not complaining... so try it out. The benefit of the size is the screen but... I'd rather have a little smaller phone than a little bigger screen. (but that's me)
3. power button on the size opposite of the volume rocker is annoying if you are trying to power on with your left hand. try it out.
4. a little delay in "wake up time"... once again... a little annoying.
5. compare to iphone 4 the touch screen is a little choppier, but does not diminish the user experience.

Summary:
This phone works like it should and more. This is definitely a fun and exciting phone. My dislikes are mostly user experience and can be subjective. But... that's what I've noticed so far with this phone. I highly recommend this phone.

Fantastic upgrade from EVO 4G! September 18, 2011

Reviewer:  T-Peezy!  (Michigan) -

The EVO 4G was and still is a fantastic phone. I have had no problems at all with the EVO. I previously purchased the EVO 3D then I caught wind of all the talk about the Galaxy SII coming to the USA so I returned it and waited. It was a very hard wait because I was ready for an upgrade but I am so glad I did!

This phone is awesome. I have never owned a Samsung phone and therefore have never had the apparently horrible experience of TouchWhiz past but the interface is great on TouchWhiz 4! You can't go wrong with the huge screen, beautiful Super Amoled Plus display and the crazy fast Exynos 1.2 Dual core processor. I can't list all of the pros of this phone but one HUGE thing for me is that the phone has 16 gigs of internal storage and an SD slot. I keep all of my pictures and videos on the phone drive and my music on the SD card. I LOVE the fact that I have instant thumbnails for my videos and pictures as soon as I click on the Gallery app. Excellent cell, WiFi, and 4G reception too!

I would highly recommend this phone!

FIrst Android Phone, "Lovin' it" September 17, 2011

Reviewer:  Anthony Tran 

Some people are getting this phone mixed up with the Epic 4G. This is the Epic 4g Touch. FYI So please remove your reviews!

Ontopic, This is my first android device, and i am loving it.

The battery life is stellar. 3G on and Off throughout the day, 4g if needed, but i am able to last a full day. Tip: Make sure you have gps off in the settings, cause it drains your battery a lot!

I love the customizeable widgets and touchwiz 4.0 is interesting.

The screen on this baby is amazing. Bright and clear. The screen size is perfect. Fits right in my hand.

The camera is fantastic. Picture quality is amazing along with the other camera features added along.

And lastly, its Very very light and thing. First time i held this device at the sprint store, I was amazed that this is a phone.

I dont know what else to say, but its simply amazing! Get it!

Purchase At Your Own Risk! October 19, 2011

Reviewer:  Andrew G  (New Jersey, USA) -

EDIT: As of 1/5/2012 I am now highly recommending this device, providing certain conditions are met, as described in my update below. If you would like to review the issues history, read on; if not, jump down to the 1/15 update

On paper - this phone is amazing. And in many ways it is. The screen is brilliant (and surprisingly manageable given its large size). The CPU is fast. The AMOLED technology delivers an incredibly vivid image, AND (theoretically) saves battery power, because 'black' pixels are un-lit, and thus require no power.

BUT HERE's THE RUB

Follow my analogy - Let's say you bought a BMW 6-series for $85K or so; beautiful design and engineering, specifications to die for. So you get into your new car, and find that with every few miles of driving, the engine suddenly, and randomly, shuts itself down.

Now, while scratching your head on this problem, you're looking at your gas gauge and expensive on-board computer and it's telling you that you have about 400 miles left. You drive 150 miles and guess what: you're out of gas.

I'll close my analogy now: you call BMW, and despite all of the other 6's that are on the side of the road with the same problem, BMW won't recognize the issue. Instead, the recommend for problem (a) to disconnect and reconnect your battery whenever this happens, and for problem (b), perhaps carry a little spare gas with you.

Translated:

Despite its rich feature set, and some engineering marvel, this phone suffers from serious issues; the most serious is known as the "LOS issue" or Loss of Service, wherein the radio randomly shuts itself off, and cannot be turned on without a battery pull - and that's once you're aware it's off after missing how many calls? Not to be confused with the other LOS issue, Loss of Signal, wherein your Samsung has one bar (or has started roaming) and your buddy (on Sprint w/a different phone) has 4 bars. Not clear whether the two LOS issues are related.

The second issue is MASSIVE unexplainable battery drain. Theoretically this phone should get - and many people do achieve, 20-30 hours of battery life per charge. Heck, it's one of the reasons I waited 8 months for this phone (they announced it in Feb. 2011). I, and many others, get 5-10 hours per charge, max. Nobody's quite sure why, but the latest thinking is that some out of control processes prevent the phone from 'sleeping' when it's not being used, resulting in diminished battery life. The first issue may in fact be a contributor to the second.

Too much detail to provide here, but if you're seriously considering this phone, check out the XDA Developers forum, or any other popular Android forum, search on 'AOS issue' and/or 'LOS issue' and you'll see what I mean.

And here's what discourages me most - Samsung/Sprint will not even recognize the issues, as (many have theorized) they are astutely aware, but either don't know what's causing the problem, or don't care (even the Sprint Forum is clogged with complaints and no word from Sprint). To be clear - not ALL phones seem to be experiencing this, but MANY are. Roll the dice if you like.

I'm writing this review because I had to find out about these issues - and all of these forums - AFTER I bought the phone, and perhaps I can save some of you that issue.

<<UPDATE 10/24>>
Seems that a lot of frustrated owners are venting in the Sprint forums, but people who don't own the phone yet typically don't go there. If you're reading this and you don't own the phone yet, you should check out the owners forums. If you DO own the phone and are having these issues, please post your personal experience in a separate review here on Amazon (the many comments to this post are great, but will not get as much attention as an independent post/review.) Thanks!

<<UPDATE 1/15/2012>>

After far too many delays, Sprint/Samsung has released firmware fixes that are intended to address the major issues mentioned in this review. I have had the opportunity to evaluate these, even before they were made public, thanks in large part to the great developer community at XDA Forums.

Above I stated that I can now endorse this phone under certain circumstances, and those are that the purchaser's phone contain the necessary fixes. At this time I do not know if these have been 'pushed' over-the-air to all existing users, if they are by default being included in new phones, or if one has to wait for the issues to occur and then have to waste time with Sprint Support to get the update.

There is an easy way to determine if any phone you are considering has been updated. If you are in a Sprint Store, you can follow the instructions below. If the phone meets the requirements, congratulations - you now own what may be the finest mass-market device produced to date. If not, tell them to pull another one from stock, or take your chances by learning how to root your phone and updating it yourself.

HOW TO DETERMINE ROM/KERNEL/MODEM UPDATE TO LOOK FOR:

1) With the phone at its Home Screen, press the <Menu> softkey. Select <Settings>.
2) Scroll down the next screen and select <About Phone>.
3) On this page, scroll down and confirm the following:

- "Baseband Version" (this is the modem): Should have a series of numbers and letters. At the end of this series, make sure you see 'EL13' 'EL26' or 'EL29'. If you see 'EG30' 'EG12' or 'EG31', then RUN AWAY.

- "Kernel Version" (this is the OS): Should also have a series of numbers, beginning with 2.6.3X.X- etc. In the middle of this series, you'll want to see 'EK02' 'EL13' 'EL26' or 'EL29'.

- "Build Number" (this is the ROM version): Since my device is rooted with a custom ROM, I don't know the exact wording of the 'default'. However, if you see any of the recommended codes from <Kernel Version> above somewhere in this description, then you're in good shape, because the ROM that's loaded determines the kernel version (not necessarily vice-versa).

NOW - Enjoy this device - it's pretty amazing!

Excellent Phone, but watch out for surprise charges from Sprint when ordering from Amazon December 1, 2011

Reviewer:  Prospero424 

*WATCH OUT FOR UNDISCLOSED $36 "DEVICE UPGRADE FEE" FOR THIS PHONE ON YOUR SPRINT BILL WITH CONTRACT EXTENSIONS*

Got this phone here about a month ago and I'm loving it. The large screen is a big plus for me as I'm in the IT business and having a device that I can actually use remote desktop on in a pinch can be a lifesaver. Easily fits in all of my pockets. Good size for my hand; when holding it vertically I can perform all functions without having to use both hands.

FAST fast fast is all I have to say about the performance. Probably the quickest phone I've ever used. I can't wait until they get Android 4.0 released for it.

Camera takes very good pictures and video camera WAY outperformed my expectations. The flash is also the brightest I've seen on any mobile phone.

Anyway, I've got it set up as an FTP client, SMB client, VNC/RDP client, DLNA client, Exchange and IMAP client, and even as a Sharepoint client. I can't believe it ALL works flawlessly! Combine this with the Dolphin HD browser and LastPass for password/form-fill management and you've got mobile computing bliss.

Battery life is even better for this model than other Galaxy S II models due to the Epic 4G Touch's larger battery (for WiMax support). If you don't constantly use 4G, it will last even longer than the other models will. I've been getting 20-24 hours of above-normal to heavy use.

4G (WiMax) speeds are much better than I was expecting. I'm seeing real-world speeds of 5-15Mbps down and 1.5Mbps up. Very nice.

Only two major complaints:

1. There is a known bug where if you encrypt both the phone and the (internal) SD card, it disables satellite GPS functionality completely. It will not function at all. This occurs on every phone of this model with the current firmware. Samsung is, I'm sure, working on the problem but not being able to encrypt is a BIG deal for those of us who need to use it for work.

2. Not a complaint about the phone itself, but Sprint adds an (as far as I can tell) undisclosed $36 "Device Upgrade Fee" to your Sprint bill after purchasing it from Amazon Wireless. If it was somehow disclosed during the purchasing process, it must have been in REALLY fine print because I'm not the sort who just scans through. I actually read this stuff.

[BEGIN RANT]Now, calling it an "upgrade fee" is simply false labeling. This fee has nothing to do with recouping the cost of activation or the clerical process of moving a customer's services from one device to another. No, this is not mere supposition on my part. Sprint representatives will tell you up-front (as they did when I called to complain) when confronted about this fee that it's there to "help make their phones' pricing more competitive". So essentially what they're doing is using this as a way to advertise one price publicly while actually charging the customer a higher price than what was advertised. There is no argument in the world - ESPECIALLY having spoken to a Sprint representative on the phone who confirmed this - that this is not a deliberately deceptive business practice. It is unacceptable, and if I didn't already sign a 2-year contract I would have walked out on Sprint over it. No one should tolerate what are manifestly deliberate hidden and obscured fees/costs.

The real kicker here is that Sprint will wave the fee if you purchase the phone through THEIR store (at a higher price than Amazon, of course), but not if you purchased it through Amazon Wireless. I've seen this confirmed by multiple people on multiple forums. Amazon Wireless should be more than a bit peeved by this. I sure am.

So anyway, to sum up: BUYER BEWARE when it comes to Sprint. If they're willing to deliberately deceive customers in this regard, perhaps they're willing to do it in other areas, as well. Keep a close eye on your bill.[END RANT]

So it's a fantastic phone. Probably the best hardware currently available. Even the Galaxy Nexus is getting beaten by it fairly handily in most benchmarks. Once the (rather major) GPS bug is squashed and once it gets Ice Cream Sandwich, it'll be a dream. It's too bad Sprint had to spoil the good time with behavior than ONLY a company with an army of lawyers could get away with.

Style + Substance = Samsung Epic 4G Touch September 21, 2011

Reviewer:  Alex Sanchez  (San Rafael, CA USA) -

I got this phone on friday 9/16 when it was just released. I was at the Best Buy Mobile store in our local mall bright and early to make sure I would get one and lucky thing since they only got 2 units in for the release (strange).

...two weeks earlier I had purchased an HTC EVO 3D at Best Buy and was immediately looking for a replacement. The screen quality was lacking, the 3D looked very gimmicky, and the camera was pretty pathetic. Other than those shortcomings, the EVO 3D was decent but not what I would expect from a high end smart-phone. After some research I discovered that the Samsung Galaxy II was going to be released in the US soon so I bided my time.

The GS2 was not in the store when I got there since the FedEx shipment had not yet arrived. It gave me quite some time to talk to the VERY knowledgeable salesman (thanks for all the info Jonathan Mosblech) who proceeded to demo many of the other phones they carried including his own Motorola Photon. Jonathan described the different features, compared specs, and weighed the pros and cons of each device. Before we knew it, 1 1/2 hours had gone by when FedEx finally showed up. Jonathan unboxed it for me and proceeded with the initial setup.

The first thing that jumped out at us was the size. Sitting next to my old EVO it looked like a monster. But then I picked it up and was shocked with how light it was in comparison. It was also very thin! The design was sleek and sexy, and the poor EVO looked like an unsightly brick sitting next to it. This was only my second Android phone I have ever owned so I left it to Jonathan to look it over and give me the run down. He looked like a kid in a candy store. The more we played around with it the more impressed he seemed. The screen is absolutely gorgeous and it played everything we through at it with ease. The camera took amazingly sharp pictures and smooth high quality 1080p video. He loaded SPB Shell 3D on it and the UI was so fluid and responsive. He also downloaded an app called Quadrant Standard which is a utility that runs benchmark tests and compares the data to other phones. He just about flipped when he saw how the GS2 massively outperformed the other phones. (Score: 3324). In the end, Jonathan was trying to figure out how many of his phones he was going to have to trade in to get his own Samsung Galaxy SII. Since he spends all day working with phones and I am new to the Android market, I accepted his assessment that this was currently the best phone he's seen on the mark to date.

Its been almost a full week since I got the phone and my only real complaint is that the reception is just a tad bit less than that of the HTC EVO 3D. I notice it because I have always had bad reception at my house and the calls break-up just a little more with this phone. Battery life is also less and the power management utility shows that the screen is the majority consumer (like most phones). The phone reception is still very good and in my opinion, the lesser battery life (lasts me about 18 hours with plenty of use) is well worth the trade-off.

One more thing than makes this phone great for me is the wireless syncing system called Kies air. Its about damn time that smartphones have become completely untethered devices. And you don't even need to load software on your computer to sync. Its all done through the internet browser of your choice! You activate the syncing app and just type in the displayed URL in the PC browser and you have access to contact data, music, videos, data files, settings, even firmware updates!

So if you are currently in the market for an Android phone or are ready to take the 12-step program to wean yourself off of iStuff, I recommend you give the Samsung Galaxy SII Epic 4G Touch a try. If you don't like it, just take it back in 2 weeks and trade it in for something different (though I am sure you will not).

Phone is working just fine, a replacement for an iPhone 4s October 27, 2011

Reviewer:  M. Terrell  (San Francisco CA USA) -

A short review as there are several excellent and thorough reviews already up concerning the Samsung Epic Touch 4G. Others may be put off, as I was, by reports of bad reception and poor battery life. I am glad to say that a week and a half in, I have had the same excellent reception I had with my prior phone (also a Samsung, the Instinct) and the battery life has been good. I've never had to recharge during the day, though I have on a couple of occasions with heavy data usage gone below 50% when the phone goes into power saving mode. No Loss of Service or Sleep of Death issues, which is what I feared. It's early days, but I am glad that I wasn't daunted by the negative reviews.

I've been on the Sprint network a long time--at least in my area, it offers better coverage and the everything plan is great for me as I am a heavy data user. I was eagerly awaiting the debut of the iPhone on Sprint, and did actually have an iPhone 4s briefly before replacing it with the Samsung. The iPhone is a fantastic phone, but I did not like the fact that Sprint's usual insurance couldn't be purchased for the iPhone so no coverage for loss or theft. Also, I don't like iTunes, and I wished for a larger screen. To be honest, I think the iPhone screen has better resolution, but the Samsung is easier to read with the 4.5 in screen, and it does show photos and videos well. Cameras seem comparable. My 24 hours with the iPhone did make me realize the genius of Apple product design, though. It feels good in your hand. The bigger, slimmer Samsung is more slippery and less solid feeling. Still, I have no regrets on making the switch.

Great Phone But Not Without It's Issues December 26, 2011

Reviewer:  Sleepy 

The Samsung Galaxy SII Epic Touch 4G is the unnecessary and somewhat confusing name for this device considering there is a phone just called the "Epic 4G" which is the Samsung Galaxy S for Sprint (and also has a touch screen). Anyway, enough about the name.

The phone is, as you have probably heard, great. It's true. However, there are some things I didn't find enjoyable about owning it, so here's an easy to read pros and cons list.

PROS
-Super AMORLED Screen: the screen is super bright and clear. When I went to look at a similar Samsung phone for AT&T with this screen I was like a moth to a street light. The screen on the S2 is just as good.
-4.52-inch Display: this goes along with the last point, but deserves it's own mention. The screen is huge. I've had a lot of people comment on that. You may not like this feature about the phone if you like small devices, but it is nice looking.
-Fast Processor: everything about the phone itself is fast, considering you have a strong internet connection. There is hardly ever any lag when it is working correctly.
-Camera: the camera takes nice pictures and has flash. There are also some cool settings like panorama or cartoon that you can mess around with. For a phone camera it is very good. There is also a front facing camera for pictures and video, but the quality isn't great.
-Video: I felt I had to mention this separately because I was blown away by the quality of the videos that this phone takes. They are amazing and can be recorded in everything up to 1920x1080 resolution. It's something you have to see for yourself.

CONS
-Low Resolution: the phone has a meager resolution of 800x480. This is something I didn't think of before getting the phone because I hadn't had a chance to look at it is person. In general, it really detracts from the overall quality of the display with the low resolution. Considering other phones that were out before the S2 have better resolutions, this shouldn't have even been an issue.
-Low Battery Life: the battery life sucks, probably due in part to the aforementioned huge display. That thing love to suck up battery life whenever it isn't in sleep mode. I found that a good way to save battery if you are planning on keeping the phone in your pocket for a long period of time (in class or whatever) is to just turn the 3G data off. Then you use virtually no battery until you take it out of sleep mode.
-Service Issues: I'm not sure if this is the fault of Sprint or the phone, but sometimes I will lose service and never get it back. The screen will have that "no service" symbol at the top, and it will just say "searching for service". Even when I go somewhere with service, it won't come back. I have to actually turn my phone off and turn it back on to get it back, at which point I will find out I missed calls and texts.

OTHER
-Phone Design: I put this in this section because some people like it and some people hate it. The phone itself is very light and has a "cheap" plastic feel to it. It is very slim, but it somewhat feels like a toy rather than a "solid" phone. I like the fact that it is lightweight and I don't mind the plastic feel. Some people might. When you hold this phone compared to something like the Evo or the iPhone, you can defiantly feel the difference in construction and the S2 does feel more flimsy.

Final Thoughts:

The Galaxy S2 is a great Android phone, there is no doubt about it. It is plagued by a couple issues that may be important to some people and unimportant to others, but overall it is still a very good phone. However, at this point I would just wait for the Galaxy Nexus to come out for Sprint if you like this phone. It is essentially an upgrade to the S2 and has a better resolution despite a smaller screen (which some people might like).

Fantastic phone - The best on the Market! November 28, 2011

Reviewer:  Mackie 

I rarely write reviews, but this phone has been consistently amazing ever since I received it in the mail a few days ago. At .01, it's a steal! (thanks Amazon).

Thin, light, and FAST is the best way to describe it. It feels like air in your pocket, the textured back is a joy to hold, and as far as internals, no phone has been able to touch it yet.

I'm not sure what fairy dust Samsung sprinkled into the Dual Core Exynos 1.2Ghz processor, but it has consistently beat other (higher clock speed, even) phones over the past year, even besting the most recent Galaxy Nexus in Quadrant scores. The result is you can throw any graphically intensive game at it, and it will chomp it it with glee. So far, I've installed N.O.V.A 2, Cody, and Riptide GP and all games play at a level that rivals current generation video game consoles. It's really impressive. And it looks great...

...The screen! There's no equal, period. Although the resolution is 800x480, the sub pixel accuracy combined with the technology of super amoled plus produce a bright screen with the best contrast ratio on any phone out today. While certain screens have higher dpi, this is more than offset by how vibrant the screen is.

I must comment on Touchwiz 4.0, it is by far the most fluid Android skin that I have ever encountered. Furthermore, the motion gestures are actually useful, allowing you to swich home screens with one hand while moving icons/widgets. Oh, and the widget menu is actually intuitive! A swipe at the bottom of the screen allows you to quickly pick and place any widget exactly how you like to. What also helps, is the widgets have a 'predictive' placeholder enabled which allow you to see if it will actually fit on the home page before trying to place it there. Seven home screens available at first, with complete customization of app tray icons as well as folder creation round out the package. Excellent.

Battery life is outstanding. With 4G and Wifi enabled, I was happy to find out I had a good 40% battery left after fifteen hours of light use. This phone can easilly last two days with minimal use, it sips power.

The speakerphone is good, but not the loudest. You won't be craking tunes off this bad boy, but it does the job fine.

Call quality is great on the sprint network, no dropped calls. As an added bonus, there is a 4G toggle switch bulit into the notification bar. But honestly, there's never really a reason to disable it.

Notification light! There is one, it's grand. Thank you, Sprint, for slapping one on.

The Camera is fantastic, capable of recording 1080p video. The only caveat is, I wish you could launch the camera from the lock screen with Touchwiz. It's such an easy fix, and I know alot of people want to jump right into taking pictures.

Overall, this is the best Android smartphone available on Sprint, and in my opinion, the best phone available period.

Best option out there for an Android phone on Sprint! December 3, 2011

Reviewer:  dt2008 

I got my Galaxy S II Epic Touch 4G (longest and completely unnecessary product name...ever) at the Sprint store, but the phone will be the same if you order it from Amazon or Sprint (though you can save $50 through Amazon, because upgrading or purchasing new with 2-yr agreement with Sprint, the phone rings in at $199.99 as of December 4, 2011). A Sprint told me I would have to pay a $35 activation fee for upgrading my phone (this is after he had already swiped my card, he didn't tell me this before, but that's neither here nor there).

Positives:
1. The phone's screen is HUGE. It's beautiful. The color can be vibrant or soft depending on the settings which you can tweak a variety of ways.

2. It's extremely snappy! No lagging in most of the apps that I use (Kindle, Fandango, Movies, Chase Bank, YouTube, Gmail, Facebook, SoundHound).

3. You get a cool notice with how much percentage EXACTLY is left on your battery charge, and then when the battery is done charging, you get a notice to unplug the phone. This is good for the battery, and I like the latter notice.

4. Samsung was smart and gave the back of the phone a little bit of a grip, and this makes me feel MUCH safer pulling this phone out of my pocket!! It's so thin and lightweight that you really can forget you even have it on you!

5. The photos taken with the flash come out looking better than most cheap sensor-having digital cameras. Really no point to have a $80 Point-and-Shoot anymore, just use your cellphone. If you need a better camera, I would get one for sensors and the zooming lens, otherwise this is fine (and I have 2 cameras!).

6. Vlingo Voice is a great addition to Voice Commands! It understands 95% of what I say. Once I get a phone holder for my car, I can safely get directions, receive notifications or send quick text messages/calls. Vlingo and Google work seamlessly on this phone to help you search the web or your phone.

Negatives:
1. The Audio Jack doesn't work with the 3.5mm auxiliary cable from Monster that works with my old HTC Sprint Hero and iPod nano. The phone's Audio Jack is at a slight angle, so there isn't a true connection for the metal. If I hold onto the jack, the stereo in my car can somewhat pick up the sound and it hollowly echoes in my car speakers. This is awful. I need to find a new cord (extra money out of my pocket) or jack adapter just to listen to Amazon MP3 from this phone. The speakers are also not that great for watching movies, so I would suggest using earbuds, but make sure the jack fits! On the plus side, it fits with my cheapo Memorex earbuds (which, granted, have a slightly thinner jack area than the Monster cable).

2. The battery seems to be doing okay, considering I have the screen shut off at about 5 seconds of no use in the "Home" screen. This is not my preference. In the actual "phone/wallpaper/apps" area, if I don't use the phone for 15 seconds, the screen goes black. I have the setting at 30 seconds, but it fades at 5 and then turns off at 15 seconds. I need to tweak this more.

3. Android Gingerbread still doesn't have the full features of Gmail. You cannot "filter messages like this" anywhere inside of Gmail, you must manually label each e-mail is my understanding. Well, at least the lables are color-coded like they are in the web version of Gmail, right?

4. I am not sure if the battery icon is accurate enough in pixels. When I first bought the phone, it had a slight charge good enough for about 2 hours before I got a low battery notice. OK, that makes sense, but I couldn't understand why the green battery icon showed more than 50% full.

5. Adding application widgets to a screen isn't intuitive. If you want just the icon, you need to go into the Applications screen and hold it down until it allows you to drag it to a home screen. If you want the application's widget (example: YouTube widget vs icon), you need to go to the Menu -> Add -> Widget feature. Google needs to cleanup that OS feature, because it makes no sense to anyone.

6. The OS doesn't automatically capitalize proper pronouns or names, which drives me absolutely crazy. Even my HTC Hero which wasn't on Gingerbread knew the difference between Japan and japan!!!!

7. Cheap and shorter than a hooker's mini-skirt USB charging cord. I've already ordered a replacement/back-up cord because the included one is LAUGHABLE.

Conclusion:
This phone is the best choice for Android on Sprint. The size of the phone is large, but you really are just at the sweet spot before ridiculously too small for reading and too large for pocketing. I wear women's skinny jeans and this phone slipped beautifully into my back pocket! Also, new women's handbags are making wider mouthed mobile slots, so you can easily get this in there. I picked up a white iPhone to compare the screen and weight, and the iPhone 4S was HEAVY and thick compared to this beauty! The Samsung Galaxy S II has elegantly flushed side volume and power buttons, so you really don't have any strange protrusions like with the iPhone 4S in my opinion. Most of my complaints about this phone stem from the Google Android OS Gingerbread, not the hardware, so take that into consideration.

Evo to SGS2 September 23, 2011

Reviewer:  A. Rich "kittenpajamas"  (Sacramento, CA) -

I have long been afraid to give up my Evo for any new phone, despite some things driving me crazy about it. Then the Samsung GS2 was released on the day my Evo finally died (just the battery, not the phone, it literally stopped charging). I went to Sprint for a battery and discovered this beautiful phone. Having owned multiple LED/LCD TVs/bluray/monitors/etc from Samsung, I had no question to the quality of the phone.

Please note I am speaking of the SPRINT version of this phone only! This is a partial review, as I have not fully tested everything yet, I will return for more updates.

Things I love about SGS2 so far:

1. Gorgeous, large (4.5) Amoled screen. This thing is so bright and easy to see I don't understand why EVO didn't ship with AmoLED. I had the guys at my sprint store installed the screen protector for me, and there has been no issue with pushing buttons, which I had with my evo when it had the screen protector (also done by sprint guys).

2. Dual processors! 1.2GHZ dual core processors make it so the phone is super snappy, and I have not had lag once even while running a bunch of apps.

3. Video processing: After trying different site's videos (YouTUBE, Hulu, random others) this phone has flawlessly ran any video or stream, no buffering yet!

4. Size: This is a personal opinion, but I like how large and flat the phone is, the case is beautiful shades and textures of grey. I missed my kickstand, but that was easily fixed with the new case Sprint has, which has a kickstand on it.

5. This was confusing at first, but the phone comes with a 16gb sd card INTERNALLY from what I am told. This has caused much confusion for rooting and other things with a lot of folks. The actual SD card slot takes a 32gb card, and because I just wanted the best I made sure to get CLASS 10. Now I don't know if there is a whole lot of difference for the average user, but it is much faster than my 16gb class 2 in my evo. To me personally it was worth the extra few dollars at Fry's.

6. Ships stock with Swype. I used to hate swype. Now that I watched the tutorials on their website to learn to use it correctly, I LOVE it. It is so much faster in most cases to just swype instead of typing things out. It doesn't always work flawlessly, but a lot of the time it is fine.

Things that I don't like so far/soso stuff:

1. The home keys at the bottom are switched up from my evo which has been confusing should those buttons not be lit up - HTC has it as Home, Settings, Back, Search; Samsung has it as Settings, Home, Back, Search. Certainly just a personal issue for me having used the EVO for so long my fingers go to the wrong buttons automatically, but I will get used to it.

2. For some reason the US version or maybe the sprint version of this phone does not seem to have support for Samsung Apps or the Game Hub they state on the samsung site. Every other country seems to have these things on their stock devices, but I can't seem to even find a date when we will get these apps on our phones.

3. The lockscreen is kind of choppy and hard to open quickly FOR ME. Obviously this can be changed, but for now I am speaking of the STOCK device.

4. The battery life is okay on it, certainly not outstanding, but I have yet to find a stock phone/battery that does.

5. Rooting the US version is very difficult. This is obviously personal, but having followed the xda forums, and having rooted phones before, it is near impossible to go back to stock unless you are really careful and use a good backup rom program. A number of people, especially from sprint, have bricked their phones quickly trying to do this, even with CWM/CM7, and since there is no firmware release for D710 it's very risky to do this right now, unless you are an advanced user/dev.

That's about it for now, I will update again later, when I delve more into it. Thanks for reading, I hope this helps someone out there :)

Is this phone still competitive with todays options? August 9, 2012

Reviewer:  Chris 

I am a long term owner of this phone, I have had it more than 6 months and I must say, I really like it. What has truley amazed me about this product is that over time, it hasnt started to slow down. My phone still feels very fluid. The battery life lasts me a day, but I must say with the most recent update to Ice Cream Sandwich the battery life hasnt been as stellar, it is still good, but it isnt AMAZING. Will it last you a day? Probably.
For phone nerds: Rooting is a pain and I just stopped trying. The great news though is that with the update you can use the stock ICS launcher and it looks really good, is it a galaxy nexus, no, but it is a zippy stock feeling that I am more than happy with.
For everyone else: The phone feels great in your hand. It is SUPER light and very thin. Colors are vibrant and the camera on the phone still rivals the cameras on todays phones. Call quality is great as well as signal strength. I have dropped 1 call before on this phone, for 6 months of ownershop that isnt that bad.
But now it is time to look at this phone in comarison with what is avalible today. Is this as good as a galaxy S3? No. The S3 has a better screen resoloution, more ram, and is more likeley to be supported by samsung further into the future meaning that you will get lots more features in the future. The S3 and the Evo LTE both have a large advantage over this phone though, it has 4g LTE. Sprint's company that has been rolling out the "4g" supported by this phone is pretty much stalled on rollout due to the fact that the 4g technology that this phone uses is not the industry standard. If you arent covered by the 4g now, dont hold your breath. Sprint is deploing their LTE network which is much faster, at a very rapid pace.
My advice with this phone. If the price point fits your budget, you wont be disapointed, I love mine. However if you can afford, I would recommend going with an LTE phone like the S3 or and Evo 4g Lte. Keep in mind that the phone that you buy will account for only about 5-10% of the cost of owning the phone for 2 years. It might seem like a lot of money to buy the better phone, but over the course of 2 years you will be happy that you did.
I gave this phone 5 stars for my experience with it. Great buid quality, good reception, great screen (a little lack of resloution),great camera, fantastically fluid however in comparison to todays phones avalible I would give this a 4/5.

If you value GPS, avoid this phone like the plague! May 17, 2012

Reviewer:  Jen 

In many ways I love this phone. It's got a gorgeous screen, ample storage space, great camera, and very responsive. However there are two glaring issues that I'm having a hard time getting past.

Signal strength - coming from an Evo I'm used to pretty good signal. The Epic Touch 4g has 1 bar or no signal in the exact same places. It's annoying but not a dealbreaker since I can still get enough signal to make and receive calls most places.

GPS - horrible horrible. You can use the GPS but if you turn it off and back on, you'll have to restart the phone to get a location lock. Even with apps to clear the GPS cache, I still have to power off and on if I want to use the GPS. Even then, you better be outside when doing it, and it will still be slow. With Beautiful Widgets I very often get "invalid location" whether I've got it set for wireless network or GPS. That's not due to an update in the app., it only started happening when I bought the Epic Touch 4g. For someone who travels often, the GPS is a complete nightmare.

If you don't have need for GPS, the phone is a good option if you are in a WiMax area since Sprint will likely make those the last places to get LTE, but if you value your GPS like I do - you will want to choose a different phone.

This phone......is amazing! Beats the iphone May 5, 2012

Reviewer:  ss "ss"  (Los Angeles, CA) -

This phone is simply amazing. I was stuck between this and the iphone. I carefully compared both, specs and reviews. Not forgetting to mention, I've played with iPhones plenty. I'm glad I made this decision. I think the problem with the older droids is that the OS wasn't refined. The older ones had lag times, froze up, crashed etc. I'll be the first to admit the first generation droids were not that good. Not this phone. Samsung has done a great job of refining the operating system and their touch wiz interface. Battery life is no longer an issue with this phone. It lasts 12+ hours easily with moderate use.

What this has that the Iphone doesn't:

*Bigger Screen - Look, this is huge. This screen is very nice. And just the perfect size.
* 4G - You'll use it!
*Better keyboard options (I use the Ginger bread 2.3 keyboard from the market). The predictive text and auto correct is way better than apples. Hands down.
* Widgets. You'll use them, trust me.
* Slot for extra storage.
*More options for customization

Both Have:

*Fluid OS. Look the iOS is a great operating system, but Samsung has done an excellent job with theirs version of android. No complaints. Not one crash. Not one.
* Decent battery life. No difference. What I like about the Samsung is the battery is removable.
*Great cameras. In my opinion, no difference quality.
*Sharp looking screens. Although IPhone technically has a better screen, you cannot tell the difference. I've compared them side by side.

No regrets getting this phone. It's polished and ready for prime time. I use it for work with Microsoft exchange, and personal use with Gmail. An absolutely great phone.

Awesome phone! March 26, 2012

Reviewer:  Mike Sharkey 

This is the first android phone I've had for starters. My previous phone was a Blackberry Curve 8330. This phone blows that one out of the water by a ton. It's awesome. It's more like a handheld computer then a phone really. It's more powerful and portable then my laptop even.
I originally thought the screen might be too big but I was wrong. I love the extra room compared to screens of the other phones on the market.
Before my purchase I was also concerned about the touchscreen typing. Coming from the convenient qwerty keyboard of the blackberry, a touchscreen has been a bit of an adjustment but swype makes it easy. The screen size also helps with this as there is more room for the keyboard.
Another pre purchase concern was battery life. My wife has had the Evo and Evo 3D and has to charge her phone all the time. It seems like a big hassle. While I don't use the phone constantly like she does, I'm very pleased with the battery life thus far. It usually lasts me the whole day on moderate usage. That's acceptable to me, given the power of the device.
All in all the phone does everything I want out to do and more. I highly recommend it.

"The Best Phone of 2011" November 19, 2011

Reviewer:  Crash Override "Crash"  (Michigan) -

I've owned this phone now for 2 weeks. I've spent the whole time exploring and figuring out the phone's capabilities, and here is my report. Wow. This phone blows me away. My other choice was the iPhone 4S - I am so glad I dodged that bullet. I have a hard time imagining anyone saying anything negative about this phone. The battery life on the phone is nothing shy of spectacular (especially when compared to the 4S). I've gotten 2 full days on 1 charge with light to moderate use including media, internet, and bluetooth. The biggest drain on the battery is weak signal (specifically for 3G data). In the metal building where I work, I have 0-1 bars at best. On the 1st day of of work use, I left the 3G on and lost 30-35% battery after 9 hours without making a single phone call or using and data, I only sent 3-4 texts (don't need as much signal to do so). But here's what I found out later. It's not having the 3G on that kills the battery, it's having the 3G on with no signal that kills the battery. The following weekend, while at home on 3G/Wi-fi, the phone lasted 2 full days before going on the charger Sunday night. The Epic Touch has built in, what other phones require several apps to achieve. Samsung powered by Vlingo for Voice Talk is a nice touch. There's a built in file explorer, which is a big plus for me and those like me who aren't iPeople. Text-to-speech, Voice Recognition, the list goes on. Now let's talk about speed. The Galaxy S2 has been called "The Best Phone of 2011" by PCWorld. One of the reasons is the incredible processor. Lot's of phones have a 1.2GHz dual core processor, but they're not the Exynos processor. It's like comparing an Intel with an AMD of the same clock speed. No contest. It's by far the fastest platform on the market. It gets it done, and gets it done now. Now for the screen. You're thinking maybe you don't like the low 800x480 resolution? Think again, it's apples and oranges. You can't compare a 960x540 TFT with a 800x480 Super AMOLED Plus. That "plus" is the dealmaker. It's unmatched, even the iPhone's Retina display loses in side by side comparisons -Engadget. (Although, to give credit to Apple, even newer phones with higher resolutions still don't surpass the Retina display's pixel density). But the iPhone's screen is simply too small for my taste. Even the up and coming Galaxy Nexus falls short of this phone's CPU power and display aesthetics. As far as some people's reviews stating that the phone had som weird signal issue, I've not experienced anything like this. I have just as good, if not better signal than my last phone. All in all, this phone is the unrivaled people's champion. Don't forget, this phone will be getting an Ice Cream Sanwich update very soon.

Best Android Phone October 6, 2011

Reviewer:  johnnyb588  (arizona) -

Long story short, this is the best Android phone there is. You can make arguments that it has rivals, but there is no phone better. This phone is half a year old, and there still hasn't been an Android phone released that clearly tops it. It's that good. Even the phones scheduled for release this holiday season are only expected to be "on par" with it, and not truly surpass it by great measures. If you have any doubts about this phone, get rid of them. This is as good as it gets at the moment.

Feel- Extremely light with a comfortable form factor. 4.52 inches of screen real estate is a little difficult to get used to, but I don't think it's so big that it's uncomfortable. I have small hands, and I can still manage to type with one hand. Some people complain abou the plastic feeling cheap, but I honestly have no idea where that comes from. Since when does a phone have to feel either metal or heavy to feel expensive and sturdy?

Battery- More powerful than any other Android phone out there, but its battery is still better as well. It's a win-win. I have no problem going a full 15 hours without charging.

Screen- SAMOLED+ is that good. The low resolution is an ever so slight disappointment, but let's be honest, unless you're looking at the screen from less than a foot away, you're not going to notice any pixelation. I would take this screen over any other phone's screen today. Brighter, better colors, more "crisp."

Speed- This phone is blazing fast. Less lag than any other phone I have used, including Droid X2, Evo 3D, Sensation, and iPhone 4 (haven't used the Bionic). You get nearly instantaneous response for every command, and I absolutely love it.

Call quality- I switched carriers to get this phone, so I can't say for sure it's better than other phones on the same carrier, but I haven't had one dropped call yet (I'm in a major metro area). The speaker phone could be a little louder, but I have used it for a conference call in a room with 15 others, and it served its purpose well enough.

Features- It has virtually anything you could ask for. I think it is worth nothing that the camera on this phone is superb. If you have a point-and-shoot that's around $150 or less, you can pretty much toss it. The video quality is also fantastic. 1080p recording is a little choppy, so I would recommend recording video in 720p or lower, but having the ability to record 1080p if I wanted is pretty awesome. I can't possibly cover all the other features, but I thought the camera definitely deserved the praise. I'll just say that, if you want it, this phone has it.

If you want a phone now, there's no question that you should get some version of the SGS2. If you are on Verizon and really want to stay there, you could wait for the Nexus Prime/Galaxy Nexus. It will be virtually the same phone with LTE and the "Google Experience." To be honest, I like TouchWiz and I like Sprint's unlimited data. I couldn't be happier with my SGS2, and I don't think anyone would truly be disappointed if they had one.

Best phone 2011? October 2, 2011

Reviewer:  Kevin  (Alabama) -

Awesome screen. Vibrant colors and 4.5".
Fast. Responsive.
Light. With great build quality.
Excellent camera.
I can't imagine a better phone.