Epix Fail

I really wanted to like the Samsung Epix (aka SGH-i907) because there was a lot going for it. There was one big thing that was a deal breaker and caused the phone to go back as a return, but lets talk about the good stuff first.

The Good

• The phone itself was fantastic. It looks thick and chunky, but in hand, it felt “just right”. The high gloss plastic that it was made of was a magnet for fingerprints and grease, but I like this kind of material better than the soft-to-touch and grippy materials that other phones are made of.
• The keyboard worked well.  Yes, the keys are not giant keys like on the Moto Q9h (or the HTC Fuze), but they had the right domed shape to make each key distinct.  It took me a while to get used to the smaller keyboard, but eventually, typing on it was second nature.  I like hardware keyboards compared to software ones (like the iPhone).
• The optical mouse -- which should actually be called and optical trackpad -- is awesome.  Some people will say that the optical trackpad is redundant as the Epix has a touchscreen.  I say to them:  Bah!  Because the Epix runs Windows Mobile Professional, it is littered with tiny controls and icons.  Trying to tap some of these things with a fat finger tip does not work. Pulling out the stylus will work, but that's too geeky in public and it makes for two-handed operation. But, with the optical trackpad, I got the precision of a stylus using only one hand!  Yay!
• Battery life was superb, mainly because of the mega-battery (1800mah+).  I could use the phone heavily and still end the day with 50% charge.  If I used the phone moderately, I would be able to go two days without charging.

• Notifications, while sleeping, are broke out of the box.  If you have a text message or email come in while the phone is sleeping? Don't hold your breath that you'll get notified.  Samsung does provide a patch on their support website, but the patch only fixes the problem half-way.  With the patch in place, you will get notified, but the notification does not follow what you tell the phone you want it to do.  For instance, I wanted the phone to blink the LED for 20 minutes after an email arrives.  But, the phone would get the email, blink the LED really quick, then stop.  No matter what I tried, the notifications were still half broken.
• While the phone felt good in hand and looked "OK", it was a very boring looking phone.  Don't expect to turn heads with this phone, its looks are all business and no play.
• The optical trackpad has one drawback.  The drawback is that is if it is turned on, there is no five-way control pad.  You can turn off the optical trackpad functionality and the trackpad turns into a five-way control pad.  Sometimes using a five-way control pad is a better control method.
• The screen is OK indoors, but take the phone outdoors and be prepared not to see a thing.  The screen just does not do well outdoors.  With a resolution of 320x320px, the screen is sharp and very readable indoors.
• The Samsung Today plug-ins are ugly and not very functional, they cry out to be dropped or replaced.
• The phone, even with its beefy processor, is severely laggy at times.  While some may blame this on Windows Mobile Professional, I do not believe this because the HTC Fuze, which has a slower processor, runs the same OS quite snappily.
• The camera is your standard-fare camera-phone quality camera:  In other words, it takes pictures, but they are fuzzy and not very good.
• The resistive touchscreen cannot compare to the capacitive touchscreen on the iPhone or G1.  While it works, it takes quite some pressure to make it work and the screen feels soft and mushy instead of like glass.  Also, because it is resistive, it cannot do multi-touch. This is not an issue just with the Samsung, rather it is one of Windows Mobile -- Microsoft has yet to support capacitive touchscreens.  Bah!
• The cover for the battery/data port is screaming to be ripped off by accident.  Ugh.  So small.  So delicate.  Just hanging there.

• The killer for this phone was that on multiple occasions during my two-week test, it would go to sleep and not wake up.  During this zombie period, the phone would not check email, would not receive text messages and worse, would not take calls.  The only way to clear this zombie state was to take the battery out and reinstall it.  Was it just my phone?  Doubtful.  Forums are filled with complaints about this.  (Search for "samsung epix slog").