Last week, we exclusively reported that AT&T was planning to launch a variant of Samsung’s Galaxy S II with a full QWERTY keyboard. Well, we have good news and bad news: BGR learned on Friday from a trusted source that this handset is actually not the Samsung Galaxy S II that should soon make its way to AT&T. That’s the bad news — but it’s really not that bad. The good news is that this is an entirely separate smartphone that will be launching soon, which means Android fans on the nation’s No. 2 carrier now have two sleek Samsung smartphones to look forward to. The phone we leaked showed the model number SGH-i927, which was widely reported to be Samsung’s internal code number for the Galaxy S II ahead of launch. It looks like Samsung did some recycling with this smartphone, because test models currently carry the same model number. Also of note, the image above shows that the phone is running kernel version 2.6.36.3, which is actually a Honeycomb kernel rather than a Gingerbread kernel. We’re not sure what kind of game Sammy is playing here, but we’re now certain AT&T won’t be adding a QWERTY to the S II when it launches soon… alongside the sexy unnamed slider pictured above. Android is all about choice, and AT&T subscribers are about to have two pretty great new choices in the near future.

BGR has obtained exclusive images of AT&T’s upcoming Samsung Galaxy S II smartphone. Following our report on Monday showing an unnamed Samsung slider headed to AT&T, we have confirmed that the device pictured is indeed a variant of Samsung’s blockbuster Galaxy S II headed to AT&T. Live images of the device reveal the Galaxy S II model number, SGH-I927, along with additional details surrounding the sleek Gingerbread phone. While it appears as though Samsung managed to keep AT&T’s Galaxy S II relatively slender in spite of adding on a full sliding QWERTY keyboard, the textured back cover on the phone looks like a bit of an eyesore. The Galaxy S II is already the fastest-selling Samsung smartphone of all time, and it has yet to launch on a single carrier in the U.S. market. While U.S. carrier versions of the smartphone are expected to arrive in August, release timing and pricing for the AT&T version pictured here are not yet available. It is also unclear whether the device will launch with the Galaxy S II moniker or with AT&T’s own branding as the original Galaxy S did. Several additional images, including a pair that shows off some very impressive benchmark test results, follow below.

If Samsung’s Android lineup is feeling a little sparse on AT&T, don’t worry… there’s about to be a new flagship in town. We have just exclusively received a photo of an unnamed Samsung device complete with sliding QWERTY keyboard that’s headed to AT&T in the coming months. While we don’t have much to go on, the device will sport the four-button Android layout as opposed to Samsung’s typical three-button layout at AT&T’s request, and the QWERTY keyboard even reflects that.

Verizon Wireless could be preparing to launch the third version of its popular DROID smartphone on July 14th. Android enthusiast blog Droid Attic posted what it claims to be a screenshot of an internal Best Buy inventory system. The image clearly shows an in-stock date of July 13th for the DROID 3, and the blog notes that the phone should launch one day later on the 14th. Motorola’s DROID 3 is already official in China as the Milestone 3, so it’s clearly only a matter of time before Verizon makes an announcement. And if the July 14th launch date is accurate, that announcement will likely come some time next week. Spec highlights include a 4-inch qHD display, Android 2.3 Gingerbread, an 8-megapixel camera with 1080p HD video capture support, 16GB of internal storage and a slide-out QWERTY keypad.

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More than 100 tablets were unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show this past January, but only a few of them really caught our attention. Among those select few were the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer — a tablet that saw high demand at launch, though it may now be waning — and the ASUS Eee Pad Slider. When the slider was announced back in January, ASUS said it would launch in May and we expected it to cost between $499 and $799. While exact pricing remains a mystery, May has come and gone, and the month was decidedly Slider-less. A launch in some regions may be fast approaching, however, as Amazon’s German website now displays the Eee Pad Slider alongside an option to be emailed once the slate becomes available. ASUS already covered most of the specs when the convertible tablet was announced, though Amazon.de does indicate that it will sport a new 1.2GHz dual-core Tegra 2 processor, known previously as the Tegra 2 3D.

Thanks BH

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When Palm first introduced webOS in January 2009 and subsequently launched the Palm Pre, I called the innovative operating system the best thing to happen to smartphones that year. To this day, webOS holds a special place in my heart for taking a novel approach to smartphone operating systems and making it beautiful. It was refreshing, it was capable, and it was not received at all well by consumers. But webOS’ problem was never the software. Perhaps the lack of available apps has been a bit of a hindrance, but I view Palm’s release strategy, its horrible marketing strategy and its sub par hardware as having played the biggest roles in preventing webOS from finding stardom. In terms of hardware, I had high hopes when HP announced it was buying Palm; webOS might finally have a vessel worthy of consumers’ attention. Discounting the Pre 2, which should never have been allowed to ship, the Veer is HP’s first webOS smartphone to reach store shelves. The phone is undoubtedly unique and it features the latest version of the Palm team’s software platform, but is it the vessel webOS needs so desperately? Hit the break for my review of the HP Veer 4G — or, as I have come to call it, the Palmagotchi.

The Inside

AT&T’s version of this cute little critter ships with version 2.1.2 of webOS, the latest version available to the public. Compared to older 1.x versions of webOS, the most important changes in my eyes all revolve around performance. Under Palm’s rule, the webOS operating system was gorgeous but it was anything but smooth. On the original Pre, the OS would choke regularly and stutter constantly. Then webOS 2.0 brought the cavalry and smoothed out webOS significantly.

As much as we love tossing specs around, particularly where processor speeds are concerned, savvy users know there are many factors that impact a device’s performance. Of course the processor will play a large role, but memory, component quality and software optimizations are just as important when painting a complete picture. The Veer 4G’s 800MHz single-core Qualcomm processor, for example, is dwarfed by the blazing fast dual-core offerings found in new Android phones, and yet the UI on the Veer is often much smoother and more fluid than many Android phones I have used. Even with a dozen apps open, flicks and taps are typically just as smooth as they are on a fresh boot. Booting the phone, by the way, takes forever.

There are times when the Veer gets bogged down, however, and the culprits are often familiar ones. The Google Maps app, for instance, has always been a tough pill for webOS to swallow. On the Veer, Google Maps takes a very long time to launch and render maps. This, in turn, slows other functions down and can cause hiccups. The contacts app is another constant culprit, and the phone seems to slow down a fair amount whenever contact or email data is syncing.

The webOS team at HP also added some other great new features to webOS 2.x, such as enhanced multitasking. My original Palm Pre would often bog with just two or three apps open, and that is not the case on the Veer 4G. Save for a few exceptions as noted elsewhere in this review, apps remain responsive while background processes tied to other apps are running. So streaming Pandora Radio while downloading Twitter updates and playing Angry Birds is no problem at all, for example.

Other new features include “Just type,” which is a global search much like Spotlight on the iPhone or universal search on BlackBerry phones; stack support, which allows users to group similar cards into stacks; and support for Adobe Flash. Synergy has also been refined, providing more control and more supported account types. For those unfamiliar with it, Synergy is a webOS feature that combines contact information from multiple account types — Gmail contacts, Facebook contacts, and so on — and merges everything into one entry. So, for example, the single contact entry I have for BGR President and Editor-in-chief Jonathan Geller contains data from his entry in my Exchange contact list, his entry in my Gmail contact list, his Facebook profile, his LinkedIn profile and his AIM account.

Phone calls placed using the Veer were loud and clear on AT&T’s network, and callers on the other end of the phone said the quality was terrific. The speakerphone function is also nice and loud on the Veer, though there is a fair amount of distortion as volume levels approach max. As far as battery life is concerned, this is another area where specs can be deceiving. At only 950 mAh, the Veer has the smallest battery of any smartphone I have tested in years. With solid software and such a tiny display to power, however, I was easily able to get a full day of moderate usage on a single charge.

The Outside

Unlike its grandfather, the Palm Pre, HP’s Veer features a very solid build. While I personally far prefer metal or soft-touch plastic to hard plastic, the Veer 4G feels very solid and comfortable in the hand. The phone is quite light but it still manages to feel substantial in the hand, and the slider mechanism is very well constructed.

The Veer is also very, very small.

Measuring just 3.31 x 2.15 x 0.59 inches, HP’s Veer 4G is easily the smallest smartphone available from a U.S. carrier. It’s not terribly thin, but it is very short and very narrow compared to other cell phones. The face of the device is home only to a 2.6-inch touchscreen display and an ear speaker. The display sports a 320 x 400 resolution, which would be quite low if they weren’t all crammed into such a tiny screen. The result is bright and vivid, however, and if it wasn’t so tiny it would be a pleasure to use.

The top of the phone holds a SIM slot and a mute toggle, the left side of the device is home to the volume rocker and the right holds the power/lock button as well as a proprietary connector port. The phone ships with a magnetic adapter that fits on this port and allows a headset to connect to the phone. The USB cable that doubles as a charger has this special fitting as well, since there is no microUSB port on the device. In other words, if you plan to buy a Veer, invest in a Bluetooth stereo headset and a touchstone charging dock. The port and adapter were necessities since the device is so tiny, but having to worry about losing the adapter would be a huge turn off for me. HP’s inductive Touchstone charger technology is awesome and Veer 4G owners should plan to make use of it.

An HP logo, an AT&T logo, a loudspeaker and a camera with no flash are located on the back of the Veer. Plainly put, images captured using the Veer’s 5-megapixel camera are very disappointing. They’re grainy, colors are washed out, and even images captured in bright daylight are eyesores. Also on the rear of the device when the keypad is slid open, is a mirror.

The last item of note on the Veer’s exterior is the QWERTY keypad, which to me, is easily the most surprising thing about this smartphone.

The Upside

I was as shocked to determine this as you undoubtedly will be to read it, but the Veer’s keyboard really isn’t that bad. In fact, it’s pretty ok. While that might not seem like much of a compliment on the surface, consider that this QWERTY keyboard is by far the smallest I have ever used on a cell phone. While I don’t have giant hands, I fully expected to find the keyboard laughable the first time I slid the phone’s display skyward. But after typing a sentence I found my smirk starting to fade. After making it through a second sentence, and then a third with no errors, I’m sure a puzzled expression stuck to my face for at least a few beats.

This keyboard isn’t half bad.

I wouldn’t call the typing experience enjoyable, really, but it’s not as bad as you might think. If you have giant hands, don’t even bother. Those with small to average-sized digits will almost certainly be able to manage on the Veer’s QWERTY, though, as the rounded shape of the buttons provides more separation than you might think. I would say that I made no more or less errors while typing on the Veer 4G than I do while typing on the iPhone 4 or a Windows Phone, which house my two favorite keyboards. I definitely type a bit slower on the Veer than on the two aforementioned devices, but not by much.

Beyond the keyboard, there isn’t much else to cover in this section I’m afraid. The device’s biggest strength is its operating system, of which I am a huge fan. The UI is gorgeous, the card interface is brilliantly intuitive and the feature set is all there. But…

The Downside

Where to begin?

As a phone, the HP Veer 4G is more than adequate. As a smartphone, the Veer is very capable and fairly smooth for the most part. And yet at the same time, I’m unable to take it seriously.

My real question, jaded though it may be, is simply: why is this phone so small? It serves no purpose. It is a gimmick and nothing more. And it’s not even a good gimmick, in my eyes. Tiny phones had their day in the sun, but that day has passed — and the tiny phone craze didn’t even occur in any of the Veer’s launch markets.

The Veer 4G would be a blast to use if it was the size of a normal phone. Professionals might enjoy it more if they were actually able to see the text within emails. Children might enjoy in more if they were actually able to see the birds as they are flung toward pigs. Commuters might enjoy it more if they were actually able to see videos as they play (or listen to music without needing an adapter to connect their ear buds). Instead, 20/20 vision doesn’t even cut it with this minuscule mobile phone, and the expense HP incurred to build and ship it might not even be wholly recouped.

This concept of “build it small and cute” is one more thing that spilled over from the pre-acquisition Palm team that most definitely should not have. People didn’t bite with the Pixi and they won’t bite with the Veer.

Beyond that — though I’m not sure there really is a “beyond that,” unfortunately — there are some things that really cause the phone to choke, as I mentioned previously. Google Maps, the Contacts app and email are a few examples, but the Web browser is another area where the Veer can definitely use a boost. Even while connected to my home Wi-Fi network with download speeds in excess of 30Mbps, web pages sometimes feel like they take forever to load. Even mobile versions of sites, built specifically so low-performance browsers can pull them up quickly, have trouble loading on the Veer 4G. This is a problem, of course, and it’s compounded by the fact that the webOS App Catalog is still quite light.

The Bottom Line

In the end, I’m having a hard time figuring out who HP built this phone for. It’s obviously not for power users, so to think of it from the perspective of a tech savvy smartphone lover is a waste of time. Is it for tweens and teens? Maybe. AT&T’s $15 smartphone data plan makes this phone a great affordable option for parents looking to save some money but still get a cute and capable smartphone for their child. Is it for high school or college students? Possibly. Affordability is still a huge factor with that demographic, and the Veer can can definitely keep up with a fast crowd, though the lack of apps could be more of an issue here. Is it for young professionals? That’s doubtful. WebOS is strong where productivity and PIM are concerned, but the tiny display on the Veer 4G is not good at all when it comes to email and other text-heavy functions.

As a fashion accessory, the Veer is great. It’s a cute phone phone that will definitely attract attention when it’s pulled out. The problem is that people looking for a smartphone and a fashion accessory typically opt for the iPhone, and I’m not sure there are many valid arguments for the Veer 4G over an iPhone in the eyes of a consumer looking for a fashion accessory.

Images of what appears to be the unannounced Nokia C2-06 have been leaked by Hackintosh India. Judging from the photos, the C2-06 will be a new S40 device with a slider form factor that’s capable of accepting two SIM cards at the same time. A dual-SIM phone is a good option for frequent travelers, or for two people that want to share a single device with two phone numbers. The device appears to have a low resolution touchscreen as well as a slide-out full alphanumeric keypad. Given the lack of amenities like Wi-Fi or 3G, we suspect this Touch and Type phone will likely be launched in emerging markets. Hit the jump for two more images.

[Via Unwired View]

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Finnish mobile giant Nokia has quietly made its business-centric E7 handset available to U.S. consumers. Released overseas in early February, the Symbian device packs a 4-inch, polarized, AMOLED display with a 640 x 360 pixel resolution, peta-band WCDMA radio, quad-band GSM radio, Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, GPS, 16 GB of on-board storage, 8 megapixel camera with 720p video recording and dual-LED flash, HMDI connector, and 1200 mAh battery. The E7 is available from Amazon.com for $649, or Nokia USA for $679.

[Via Phone Scoop]

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Last month I wrote a piece entitled Keyboard Buddy case transforms your iPhone 4 into an iPhone Pro, in which I took a look at a nifty iPhone 4 accessory that added a slide-out QWERTY keyboard to the iPhone 4. Shortly after the piece was published, a Boxwave competitor reached out to me and offered up a similar product for review. I was skeptical, to be honest, as typically such requests come from companies with inferior products desperate for coverage. In this instance, however, that was certainly not the case.

Hong Kong-based NUU is about to release an iPhone case called the MiniKey, and as has likely already been gleaned, it includes a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. I won’t bother going over the basic concept and function again — feel free to see my earlier post for the broad strokes. Instead, I’ll run through the good points and the bad points as compared to the similar case I reviewed earlier.

The Good

The keyboard on the MiniKey is pretty terrific in general, and for my taste it’s far superior than the QWERTY on the Keyboard Buddy case. The buttons are much more BlackBerry like and substantial; the four-row arrangement, though not staggered, is much more logical; and the Function and Shift commands stay active until another key is pressed — with the Buddy, you have to keep holding either key while you press a second key, as though you’re using a full-sized keyboard.

NUU’s iPhone 4 keyboard case also has another feature the Keyboard Buddy was lacking: backlighting. As a result, the keys are visible in any light. There are also very handy LEDs that indicate when the Function, Shift or Command keys have been depressed — just like the HTC Arrive has on its keyboard.

The look of the MiniKey tops the Buddy case in my opinion, simply because it looks like one unit as opposed to two separate pieces as was the case with the odd design of the Buddy. You can see better images of the case when closed in the image gallery. The case has a rubberized finish that is very easy to grip.

Finally, I love that the MiniKey case goes to sleep when the iPhone goes to sleep. After a period of inactivity, the Bluetooth connection will automatically be severed and the case will go into standby mode. This obviously conserves a great deal of battery life. When you’re ready to use the keyboard again, simply tap a key and it will reconnect in an instant.

Battery life, by the way, is rated at 30 days of standby or up to a week of usage per charge. A full charge takes roughly three hours, and the MiniKey takes a standard microUSB charger, thankfully.

The Bad

There’s no home button on the MiniKey and that was one of my favorite features on the Keyboard Buddy. Having the ability to close apps or open the app switcher from the keyboard was great. I also miss the dedicated Spotlight button from the Buddy.

The space button is centered as opposed to being positioned off to the right as it is on the Buddy, and it works quite well as long as you catch one of the corners when you tap it. If you hit the center of the space key however, it takes much more force to depress it than it does with other keys. The result is often a missed keystroke and the need to back up to add a space.

NUU’s MiniKey buttons click very, very loudly. It’s great that there’s audible feedback but the manufacturer went a tad overboard in the department. It’s hardly a deal-breaker, of course, but I wouldn’t recommend using the MiniKey in a quiet room.

There is a dedicated button to pull up the iPhone’s virtual keyboard, which is a good thing, but the placement of the button is a tad bit weird. It’s on the side of the device and can be seen in the image above. I like that it’s accessible whether the keyboard is slid open or closed, but its location is not overly convenient in either position.

Last but definitely not least, the MiniKey holds the iPhone 4 nice and tight, which is a good thing until it comes time to remove the phone from its case. Hopefully the grip will loosen a bit with age because as it stands, it’s almost painful to pull the iPhone from the MiniKey’s grasp. The only way I’ve found to work consistently without causing damage to the case, the phone or myself is to poke my finger through the space left for the camera while digging my fingernails into the side of the case and prying. It’s annoying and it’s even a little painful. As great as the MiniKey is, I still want to shed the added bulk from time to time and it would be nice if I could do that without injuring myself.

The NUU MiniKey begins shipping on March 28th, and it will cost $79.99. Check out NUU’s website for more information.

It finally looks like the first round of Windows Phone 7-powered devices unveiled last year will be getting some company soon. CTIA should finally bring us some new Windows Phones when it kicks off next week, and we may now be seeing preliminary details leak out as the show draws near. The full touchscreen HTC Ignite broke cover earlier and now we catch a glimpse of its cousin, the HTC Prime. According to an unconfirmed report, the Prime features a 3.7-inch WVGA touchscreen, 512MB of RAM, a 5-megapixel camera and a slide-out QWERTY keypad. The phone looks sleek and stylish, and it should be a welcome addition to the Windows Phone 7 family. We’ll be on the look out for it at CTIA, where we’ll be on hand to cover all the latest devices as they’re unveiled.

[Via pocketnow.com]

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The HTC Arrive… has arrived. Sprint’s first Windows Phone 7 device is a rebranded version of the HTC 7 Pro, a QWERTY-equipped phone that is definitely among the nicer smartphones made available when Microsoft’s new mobile platform officially launched last year. Sprint is the first U.S. carrier to pick up the 7Pro and it will also be the first CDMA carrier in the world to launch a Windows Phone 7 device when the Arrive is made available to subscribers this Sunday, March 20th. Was it worth the wait? Check out our HTC Arrive gallery below and sit tight while we put this sleek smartphone through its paces for the complete review.

Sony Ericsson has just taken the wraps off their Xperia Pro handset, and it’s a large one. The phone is a full QWERTY keyboard sliding device, and nicely joins the Xperia Neo and Xperia Play that have been announced. There’s an EXmor 8.1 megapixel camera sensor on the Xperia Pro, Sony’s mobile Bravia engine for the display, HDMI out, and Google’s latest mobile OS, Gingerbread 2.3.

Ah yes, the proverbial handset-image faucet is really starting to leak now. Blog CellPhone Signal has acquired several images of Motorola’s CLIQ 2 handset that is bound for U.S. wireless carrier T-Mobile. The device will sport Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 + ERD, aGPS, 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, an interesting honeycomb-style keyboard, and will run the MOTOBLUR UI. The report speculates that the device could be Moto’s first HSPA+ device and the Android version the device will ship with is still unknown. This one should touchdown next week at CES and CellPhone Signal pegs the release date as January 19th, lining up perfectly with previous rumors.

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A new video posted to YouTube Wednesday reportedly shows a man handling Sony Ericsson’s upcoming PlayStation Phone. While very little, if anything, can be gleaned from the video itself, the important takeaway is the very existence of this footage. The PlayStation Phone is now being demonstrated in various corners of the world, which means an announcement shouldn’t be far off. The blogger who played with the phone did have some interesting tidbits to share as well, such as specs that include a 4-inch touchscreen, Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), a dedicated game store, a touch-sensitive control surface on the slider, an 8-megapixel camera and some special PlayStation-themed live wallpapers. He also says that the codename of the device is listed as Zeus, which jibes with earlier reports.

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The Samsung Epic 4G is Sprint’s second 3G/4G hybrid Android device. Although its form does not resemble that of the Captivate, Fascinate, or Vibrant, it has been adopted into the Galaxy S family of handsets. Physical appearance aside, the device comes complete with the standard set of Galaxy S equipment — TouchWiz 3.0 interface, 1 GHz Hummingbird processor, and 4-inch Super AMOLED display — but sets itself apart by being the only device to have a full QWERTY slide-out keyboard. The Epic is poised for an August 31st release on the Now Network. We’ve been putting this bad boy through its paces for the last few weeks, so hit the jump and lets do this thing.

Hardware/Build

Overall, we found the build quality of the Epic 4G to be very good. The device’s official dimensions are 4.90 x 2.54 x 0.56 inches and it weighs in at 5.46 ounces; which is about an ounce heavier than the Captivate. The back and sides of the device are constructed completely from plastic and there is an aesthetically pleasing chrome bezel that divides the phone into two hemispheres. The back cover of the phone has a metallic finish to it and there is 360-degrees of chrome around the 5 megapixel shooter, a nice continuation of the device’s design traits. The battery door is removed by prying it off the device (we have to say this is one of our least favorite ways to get at a battery) and seems a little on the thin side. The thin door does affix itself very securely to the device; there is no wiggle or give when you put the back-cover back on and push on it.

Going around the outside of the handset: on the top you have a 3.5 mm headphone jack and micro-USB port with sliding door. We’ve heard some people say that they don’t like the little USB door that Samsung has put on the Galaxy S line of phones; one common complaint is that the USB cord falls out easily when charging. We can’t say that we’ve experienced this in any way, and well, we kind of like the door. It keeps lint, dust, and other foreign objects out of the USB port when the device is in your pocket, purse, or even — *shudder* — murse. The left side of the device has volume up and down keys and the bottom of the device is nearly naked except for a pin-hole for the voice receiver. The right side of the device has a dedicated camera button towards the bottom and a power/sleep button towards the top. Switching to the back of the device… that’s where the camera and LED flash are housed, which are both towards the top of the phone and centered, as well as an opening for the speakerphone. The front of your Epic 4G has the earpiece at the very top of the phone which sits right above a shiny Sprint logo. To the immediate right of said logo is a red LED notification light and to the right of that is the unit’s front-facing VGA camera. Towards the bottom of the front panel you have a Samsung logo with the standard menu, home, back, and search buttons directly under it.

The Epic’s slider mechanism is mechanically assisted and works as expected. Once you slide the screen more than halfway up the keyboard, the internal springs jump into action and snap the device into the full-upright and locked position. The slider is guided by two rails on the rear of the display-housing and it does a great job of holding the device in place with minimal wiggle when it’s splayed open. Some of you may prefer the cold, stiff feeling of the Motorola DROID’s non-mechanical sliding mechanism, but as far as mechanical sliders go, this is one of the better ones we’ve seen.

Keyboard

The keyboard on this device will be, in all likelihood, the one piece of hardware you interact with the most (it is why you’re considering this phone isn’t it?). After several weeks of use we have to say the keyboard has really grown on us. The keys are boxed, separated, and raised like that of a MacBook or one of the newer HP laptops. What makes the keyboard a little different is that the keys are not “offset” as they are on a standard keyboard. Look down at the keyboard on your computer, to go from 6 to y to h to n to the space bar you have to draw a semi-diagonal line. On the Epic that offset is not present. If you are used to a phone with an offset, horizontal keyboard the keyboard on the Epic will take about a week to get used to.

A few things we really love about the keyboard are the dedicated number keys, arrow keys, and secondary symbols available. There really isn’t much to say about the dedicated number keys, other than the fact that they are there and that they weren’t added at the expense of the rest of the keyboard (Dear OEMs, If you have room… put number keys!). The arrow keys are also appreciated as it makes editing text far easier and allows you to keep your hands on the keypad and navigate the phone’s UI. The secondary symbols included on the keys (the lettering that is in yellow) are also fairly extensive and save you from hitting “Sym” then looking at the grid of icons that pop-up on the screen. It isn’t a deal breaker by any means, but we found them saving us tons of time; several of our frequently used passwords have some obscure symbols in them.

The backlight on the keyboard and the backlight on the soft keys operate independently from each other. By default, the soft-keys turn off their backlighting after six seconds, which, in our opinion, is way too short. We recommend jumping into the settings and upping the time to 15 or 30 seconds. Since the soft-key symbols (menu, home, back, and search) aren’t actually drawn on the bezel — they are only backlit — when the backlighting goes out you are left blindly pawing at the lower half of your Epic trying to find said keys. There is also a toggle switch that allows you to make the backlight times of the keyboard and soft-keys sync up, which can make your life easier.

There is a dedicated “emoticon” button for those of you who prefer to express your inner feelings by using three ASCII characters, and our only — rather small — gripe about the keyboard is that we would have preferred the “Shift” key to be above the “Fn” key… but that’s just us.

Battery

We’ll just come right out and say it: the 1500 mAh battery on this device is average. We took the handset and fully charged/discharged it twice. We then set up the device with an Exchange and Gmail account set to synchronize via push, put the phone down, and set a timer. After about twenty-nine hours the phone was beeping, politely asking to be charged. The unit had 3G and Wi-Fi on (in good coverage areas) and 4G off and we did not turn the device’s screen on at any point during the test. On the scale of smartphone batteries we’d say that is about average; not great but not poor.

If you happen to be in an area with 4G coverage — and plan on leaving your Epic’s 4G radio on todos los días — you can expect the battery life of the device to go down significantly. We were testing the phone in Boston — even though it isn’t officially lit up with 4G there is still 4G signal to be had — and managed to squeeze about 15 hours out of the device with moderate emailing, text messaging, and web-browsing. We also saw 4G downlink speeds of around 5 Mbps which were very, very much appreciated.  The device lasted about 3 hours and 30 minutes — from full charge to 6% charge — while being used as a mobile hotspot and connected to Sprint’s WiMax network. 4G is definitely one of the things that sets this phone apart from other high-end smartphones — duh — but it is quite taxing on your battery.

For the next battery test we set the screen timeout function to 30 minutes (that’s as high as it can go) and continued to muck with the phone every twenty-eighth minute so the screen would continuously stay on. The device persevered for just under three hours before throwing in the towel and needing a recharge.

Depending on how you use and abuse this phone will ultimately determine what your battery life is. But the super-bright, Super AMOLED display and 4G radio (which are all good things) aren’t going to help your cause any.

Phone

The phone component of the device is good; there are no real hiccups or anomalies to report here. The voice quality emanating from the earpiece is loud and crisp; if you have the volume all the way up you do get a tiny hint of buzzing but kick it down one level and that all goes away. The speakerphone is also loud and you hear your call-mate(s) clearly; the speaker works really well for media too.

The Epic uses the standard Android dialer, with the TouchWiz color scheme, but does add several neat features. If you dial a number not in your phonebook (using the number pad) the phone prompts you to add the number to an existing contact or save the number as a new contact upon call termination. There is also a dedicated text message button on the number dialer. If you dial a number and hit the text icon, you are bounced into the messaging application with the dialed number already in the “To” field. Not reinventing the wheel, but still nice touches. The device also includes a Sprint-run visual voicemail service for those who don’t know, or don’t want to know, what Google Voice is.

Camera

As we mentioned in our “initial impressions” post, while the auto-focus still-camera is very good, it is also sort of in the hands of the user in low-light settings. Shooting images outside — or in good indoor lighting — yields clear photos. Shooting inside — or in low-light–  can at times be frustrating, as the devices flash doesn’t always know when it is needed and when it isn’t.

Like the Captivate and Fascinate, the Epic has a ridiculous amount of options and settings to tinker with from within the camera application itself. The modes are: single shot, beauty, continuous, self shot, smile shot, panorama, vintage, action shot, add me, and cartoon. Single shot, beauty, continuous, panorama, vintage and cartoon are all pretty self-explanatory. Self shot activates the devices front facing VGA camera and will allow you to snap a quick photo of yourself; which we don’t recommend considering the difference in quality from the rear facing camera. Smile shot allows you to press the shutter button and spin the camera around, the device will fire when it detects that your pearly whites are in frame. Action shot allows you to make a panoramic picture from a moving object; you can see below what we did in our apartment with a swiveling desk-chair.

The GPS tagging and anti-shake modes on the camera are off by default; we would have preferred to see them on and recommend using them. GPS is convenient and the anti-shake mode helps compensate for the small amount of jitter your phone will inevitably be doing when you press the shutter button.

As you probably know, the video camera on the device shoots in sweet, sweet 720p HD. The video camera offers far fewer configurable options than the still-camera, but there still are a few bells and whistles to play with: Flash on/off, exposure, and “Limit for SMS” mode to name a few. The video the Epic shoots is not spectacular, it isn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination, but it is not as crisp as the 720p video you get from the DROID X or EVO 4G. We’ve got a sample video below; we’ll let that speak for itself.

The front-facing camera is good for using the Qik video chat… and that’s about it. We wouldn’t recommend firing this bad boy up for anything but that (see example images below). The video quality during a Qik chat matches that of the EVO 4G; no real improvements or differences to report.

All things considered: this is a camera on your high-end smartphone and as such it is more than suitable for most users. If you’re a photo fanatic, don’t leave your SLR or point and shoot at home. If you just like capturing life’s random moments in good quality, no problems here. As for the video camera, it is on par with all the other major smartphones out there, but it certainly isn’t a stand-out feature of the device.

Official Specs

The official wrap sheet for the Epic 4G looks like this:

• 4-inch Super AMOLED capacitive touch-screen display  (480 x 800)
• 1 GHz Coretex A8 Hummingbird processor
• Android 2.1 with TouchWiz 3.0
• 512 MB RAM/512 MB ROM
• CDMA EV-DO rev. A/WiMax
• Wi-Fi b/g/n
• Bluetooth 2.1
• a-GPS
• rear-facing 5 megapixel camera with 720p video recording and LED flash; front-facing VGA camera
• micro-SD card slot
• 4.90 x 2.54 x 0.56 inches
• 5.46 ounces

Software/UI

What makes these phones both fun, and painful, to review is that even phones within the same device family have a litany of different features; the Epic 4G is no different. In our initial review we said the device felt a bit snappier when compared to AT&T’s Captivate and it may have something to do with things that this device does not have. It does not use Samsung’s Music Player that is present on the Captivate (just the stock Android player colored to match the rest of the phone’s UI). The Daily Briefing application and accompanying widget are also not on the Epic 4G. Some of these applications have services that are constantly running/updating in the background and could be the source of the Captivate’s and Vibrant’s UI weight.

Another thing that is missing from the Epic, aside from the aforementioned, is the ability to customize your application list and dock icons. Sprint refers to the dock icons as “primary shortcuts” in the user guide, which leads us to believe you are pretty much out of luck in terms of moving these bad boys around. Your two options for customizing the main applications layout are “list view” or “grid view.” “Custom view” is not present as it is on other Galaxy S devices. So sad.

One nice UI touch we appreciate (aside from the one found in the dialer) is the two-click access to the task manager. If you hold the “home” soft-key, which invokes the application switcher, you are presented with a list of open applications and an option to go directly to the task manager. This makes closing unwanted tasks fairly easy; although not quite as easy as a program like Advanced Task Killer.

Programs that are pre-loaded on the Epic include: AllShare, Amazon MP3, Asphalt 5, Sprint NASCAR, Qik, Sprint Football, Sprint Hotspot, Sprint Navigation, Sprint TV, SprintZone, and ThinkFree Office.

The device ships with Android 2.1. There isn’t much else to say about that fact. Froyo is due to hit the device in the September time frame according to Samsung. If Android 2.2 is on you list of “must haves,” then you’re out of luck for the time being.

A quick note on GPS…

While the GPS unit on the device isn’t quite as bad as the one on the Captivate it still isn’t on par with other smartphones. We get a GPS lock almost instantly that gets us to within 20-30 meters, but getting a lock down to 2 or 3 meters takes close to 60 seconds. Hopefully Samsung rolls out a fix for this ASAP; we know there are a lot of Galaxy S owners out there who are frustrated.

Conclusion

The fact that Sprint now has two high-end, 4G, Android handsets in the marketplace is really an impressive feat. The Samsung Epic 4G is an amazing device and certainly one worthy of standing on the same pedestal as the HTC EVO 4G. The device is quick, responsive, and — perhaps most importantly — you feel like you are using Sprint’s flagship device (even if technically it isn’t). Would we have loved a key on the keyboard moved and maybe a better video capturing experience? Yes… but that didn’t really hinder our overall impression of the device.

At the end of a phone review we always ask ourselves: could we use this device day-in and day-out as our primary phone? And we are happy to report that in regards to the Epic 4G the answer is: absolutely. Combine the flexibility of Android with a rock-solid keyboard and high-end features and you have yourself a winner. We wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the Epic 4G to anyone and truly wonder which of the two 4G handsets Sprint considers its flagship. The device is priced $50 higher than the EVO 4G, but if you need to have a physical keyboard — and don’t mind the TouchWiz UI and Android 2.1 — it’s money well spent.