[Epic 4G General] mtwow789:
Recently, I have been so negative about my Epic 4G, so this time, I am writing why it became so outdated. I believe during Froyo era, Epic 4G was the best phone ever. It had better cpu/gpu for everyday experience and had better gaming performance than any other phones. When compared to Evo, our Epic crushes Evo with superior screen quality, better camera/camcorder+FFC and speedier everyday performance. It was once named top Android phone on some website.

Although Epic had its faults, such as keyboard skipping and inaccurate GPS, these were quickly fixed/mitigated by our proud devs in XDA. I was also pleasantly surprised when Epic natively supported 720P avi and mkv files. Epic really shined when all the emulators like FPSE, N64oid came out and they ran nicely and utilized keyboard well. I personally thought it was amazing to run PS games on my Epic. Some people even mistook my Epic as a PSP. So everything was good and I was proud to be the owner of the best phone.

Fast forwarding to Gingerbread era, where many high end phones are coming out with current OS installed, our Epic is still shining. When I run Netflix, the phone handles well, there are no signs of phone struggling. When on skype call, I can simultaneously browse webs or play games without causing the phone to slowdown too much. Also when using Google navigation and music simultaneously, the phone handles it with breeze. I didn’t have much frustration because of phone lagging/crashing. So Epic is still up there when it’s about performance. But why I do I still feel dissatisfied. Why do I feel so short changed?

The environment is changing. More specifically, technology is advancing in a way features of Epic 4G can’t utilize. More and more sophisticated apps are coming to Android and most of them are optimized for keyboardless phones. These sophisticated apps were already successful on iPhone platform, so naturally, these apps are optimized for keyboardless phones. Recent days, I rarely use my HW keyboard. I don’t play emulator games anymore as native games have better experience. Apps are becoming more virtual keyboard friendly that it is faster and comfortable than HW Keys. It seems like developers build apps without thinking about HW keyboard. The keyboard can still be utilized for document editing, but there are no good viable document editors. Also, this task is being quickly replaced by tablets as it has more potential thus developers are ditching developing good office apps for phones.

Also when talking about playing HD contents. It is now a trend to stream HD videos. People used to transfer mkv files to the phone to watch them but this is not only cumbersome to do it, it is a chore when having to deal with limited amount of SD space. It is very convenient to stream HD contents right on the phone with so much more selections. Epic can also do that but with critical limits. The current 3G is unreliable and 4G is not available for the majority. Phone still needs to rely on WIFI, when at this point, it is just better to use a tablet or a laptop.

A feature like FFC is not utilized as well since Skype is so slow on updating and supporting FFC for non-Gingerbread phones. It is difficult to have a video chat with people w/o high-end phones since they have to use the rear camera, which then they can’t see me, rendering video chat useless.

So all of sudden, the phone, Epic 4G, that had complete features, feels so outdated and unsupported. This is bound to happen for any phones out there, but it feels Epic was especially short-lived. The phone that had so many potential is quickly being outdated without ever realizing any of them. This is why I feel frustrated and how turn of events made Epic less useful.