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Reviews and Video Thread

LxMxFxD said:
"The notification icon changed to "Zzz" when it's idle."
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One of the video reviews showed the little zzzz's over the 4G. (Was it Wirefly? There's been sooo many....) The reviewer remarked that it went into sleep mode rather quickly.

I forgot about this, but it really could be quite a battery saver.
 
you2 said:
Very detailed review. These are the folks in ny who always have problems with sprint 4g and call quality. Call quality came in pretty decent in this review (relative to other sprint phones).
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Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch Design, Display, Audio, & Keyboard | Android Smartphone Reviews | Smartphone Reviews
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Mediocre battery life - 6 hours of straight of 4G surfing is mediocre??
Slow 4G speeds - Not what wirefly says...
No HDMI port - Well yeah you need a cable, but...

If that's all they could say, we have a winner. Ugh...can't wait!!!!
 
gsxr150 said:
Mediocre battery life - 6 hours of straight of 4G surfing is mediocre??
Slow 4G speeds - Not what wirefly says...
No HDMI port - Well yeah you need a cable, but...

If that's all they could say, we have a winner. Ugh...can't wait!!!!
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I think he mistyped. The actual test data showed 5:48 hours of battery life on Wifi and NOT 4G. He compared it to the Evo Shift, and the battery life on those tests were NOT on 4G. I do not think they ran any 4G battery tests. It also wouldn't make sense for 4G battery tests to last longer than 3G.

4G speed is indeed slow compared to both HSPDA+ and LTE, but that is Sprint's fault and not really to do with Samsung.

I don't personally use an HDMI port, but it is pretty important to some people who like to connect to TVs or monitors on the go, and having to bring an adapter is not ideal.
 
gsxr150 said:
Mediocre battery life - 6 hours of straight of 4G surfing is mediocre??
Slow 4G speeds - Not what wirefly says...
No HDMI port - Well yeah you need a cable, but...

If that's all they could say, we have a winner. Ugh...can't wait!!!!
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data speeds vary from location to location, where ever the laptop magazine is located must have mediocre 4G sprint coverage. but its generally known that sprint wimax 4G speeds are slower than verizon LTE 4G. I was actually surprised to see the Wirefly smackdown showing verizon LTE being 50% slower than Sprint for that location.

In downtown Chicago, the average sprint 4G speeds are in the range of 3.0 mbps to 5mbps. as for 3G speeds, lately they have been atrocious, ranging from 50kbps most of the time to 450kbps.
 
Gotta say...I don't believe anything that these jaded reviewers say about any phone. Personally I wouldn't believe any of the negatives till I could prove it to myself.
 
toolwarrior said:
:eek: Gotta say... I am pretty disappointed that Samsung did not seem to put much focus on call quality.
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This review stands out from all the others. No review I have read would even compare the Photon to the SG2SE4GT, let alone state that the Photon is better. The opinion on call quality in other reviews has been generally positive to, at worst, average.

The obvious reason that PC Mag downgraded the SG2SE4GT is because the Photon had a docking station for a laptop and keyboard. They like that because they are a PC magazine. They negated the positive aspects of the Epic so that they could pump up the Photon. For instance, they derided the MHL USB connection while others have reacted positively to it because you can charge the phone while playing HDMI videos on a monitor or TV.

They almost completely ignored or negated the positive aspects of the photo and video of the Epic. They provided no proof or examples for saying the Photon had better photos. While other reviews lauded the photo and video performance of the Epic 4G Touch as one of the best in the industry. And these other sites gave specific and review-able examples.

I think this review, though largely positive, is like the Russian judge in the Olympics. A 9.2 appears good, but when all the other judges are showing 10's and 9.9's, this one should be thrown out.

NOTE: Also, they give the Droid Bionic an editor's choice when that same phone is trounced by the Epic 4G in Wirefly's review comparison. That says a lot about this magazine.
 
unplugged1 said:
This review stands out from all the others. No review I have read would even compare the Photon to the SG2SE4GT, let alone state that the Photon is better. The opinion on call quality in other reviews has been generally positive to, at worst, average.
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Lol. Wow, what a statement. Its like the Photon is not even in the league as the Galaxy S2.

What we have here is a phone after all so shouldn't call quality be important. Secondly I agree with their opinion with the MHL port. It's only benefit is that one cable can charge and output video at the same time. The standard is not widely accepted yet and how many of us have TV or monitor now that can take advantage of it? I am willing to bet less than 1%. In the end we end up with 3 cables. An adaptor, HDMI cable, and a micro usb cable to do what was suppose to be done with one cable.
 
whatsitsname said:
Lol. Wow, what a statement. Its like the Photon is not even in the league as the Galaxy S2.

What we have here is a phone after all so shouldn't call quality be important. Secondly I agree with their opinion with the MHL port. It's only benefit is that one cable can charge and output video at the same time. The standard is not widely accepted yet and how many of us have TV or monitor now that can take advantage of it? I am willing to bet less than 1%. In the end we end up with 3 cables. An adaptor, HDMI cable, and a micro usb cable to do what was suppose to be done with one cable.
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As I mentioned, call quality has been reviewed from excellent to better than average. Only in this PC Mag review has the call quality been questioned.

The MHL is up to one's opinion. I like the idea of being able on the Epic 4G Touch to play a 1080i movie onto a large screen TV. Only with the charge capability would you be able to play a movie of any length.

As far as I remember, the adapter allows you to play these movies on any HDMI monitor or TV.
 
^^
Well, it sucks no doubt, but for non-Premier Gold members, its actually an advantage. They can now upgrade at 20 months instead of 22 months.
 
BenChase7 said:
^^
Well, it sucks no doubt, but for non-Premier Gold members, its actually an advantage. They can now upgrade at 20 months instead of 22 months.
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True. But how I read the changes is that we must upgrade once after October 2, to qualify for the new 20 month period. That means that we are screwed because we upgraded at the end of this month.

Oh well, I'm sure I'll be able to talk my way into an early upgrade if I really want a phone bad in 20 months.
 
I am okay with doing away with Premier, change ETF to $350, and I am okay with shortening the trial period to 14 days. I am not happy with the $36 upgrade fee. What the heck are we paying for anyways. If you read the notes correctly customer service is not allowed to credit the upgrade fee anymore. At lease Verizon's upgrade fee is only $18. Grrrrr.
 
whatsitsname said:
I am okay with doing away with Premier, change ETF to $350, and I am okay with shortening the trial period to 14 days. I am not happy with the $36 upgrade fee. What the heck are we paying for anyways. If you read the notes correctly customer service is not allowed to credit the upgrade fee anymore. At lease Verizon's upgrade fee is only $18. Grrrrr.
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I know, this is a review thread, and I hate to go off, but I do agree with you. Raising rates incrementally is one thing, but increasing a fee 100% is a bit over-the-top. This is especially true when the other carriers are more competitive on the fee cost.

And what about the poor schmucks who pre-ordered their Galaxy S2 with Sprint online, only to find out that their free upgrade fee has turned into a $36 fee?
 
whatsitsname said:
This lady always gives the best reviews in my opinion.
I hope that is not the loudest as the loudspeaker will go because it sounded pretty quiet.
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Yes, I first saw one of her reviews for the hp dm1 11.6" notebook, basically every time she reviews something she does a fantastic.
 
unplugged1 said:
True. But how I read the changes is that we must upgrade once after October 2, to qualify for the new 20 month period. That means that we are screwed because we upgraded at the end of this month.

Oh well, I'm sure I'll be able to talk my way into an early upgrade if I really want a phone bad in 20 months.
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I read it as follows:

Anyone who is eligible to upgrade between 10/2/11 and 12/31/11 and does not use it, can use it all the way until 12/31/2012. Upgrading during this period starts the 20 month upgrade clock.

So say you upgrade 10/2. This starts the 20 month clock. If you upgrade 9/16 we are stuck in a 22 month clock instead. This difference is only really 1.5 months. And to your point, I'm pretty sure that we could call and bitch bitch bitch and get sprint to upgrade us 1.5 months early. Everytime I call sprint and start waiving the theory of me signing a new 2 year contract I feel as if im a human surrounded by hungry vampires.. but that im standing in the sunlight. Sprint will do anything to get me to step out of the sun to taste my juicy juicy 2 year contract signature.

In the end this really really really aggravates me. If I had hesitation about waiting for nexus prime before, now i really do. One phone every 20 months starting 9/11/2011. Better get teh right one or you'll be paying $600 for your phone upgrades in the future!
 
So with this change; is there any reason not to switch to verizon ?

LxMxFxD said:
I read it as follows:

Anyone who is eligible to upgrade between 10/2/11 and 12/31/11 and does not use it, can use it all the way until 12/31/2012. Upgrading during this period starts the 20 month upgrade clock.

So say you upgrade 10/2. This starts the 20 month clock. If you upgrade 9/16 we are stuck in a 22 month clock instead. This difference is only really 1.5 months. And to your point, I'm pretty sure that we could call and bitch bitch bitch and get sprint to upgrade us 1.5 months early. Everytime I call sprint and start waiving the theory of me signing a new 2 year contract I feel as if im a human surrounded by hungry vampires.. but that im standing in the sunlight. Sprint will do anything to get me to step out of the sun to taste my juicy juicy 2 year contract signature.

In the end this really really really aggravates me. If I had hesitation about waiting for nexus prime before, now i really do. One phone every 20 months starting 9/11/2011. Better get teh right one or you'll be paying $600 for your phone upgrades in the future!
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