[Epic 4G General] bitbang3r:
I feel your pain. Before Access released the new version of Graffiti that works perfectly on the Epic, I was literally within hours... maybe a day or two... of taking my Epic back and exchanging it for an Evo. It's amazing how being totally handicapped at text-input colors (darkens?) your view of pretty much everything else about the phone.

I'm still not thrilled with the Epic's jiggly-ness, but I have hope that Seidio (or maybe Otterbox) will eventually release a case that lets you latch the halves together (or clamp on a semi-temporary exoskeleton that achieves the same purpose).

The single worst problem I found with the Evo is its usb port. HTC cut corners and didn't attach it properly, so the solder connections (surface-mount, no less) end up bearing 100% of the stress and strain from attaching and removing the cable, and eventually fail. Technically, that's something I could probably fix myself if it happened (I have a hot air rework tool, solder paste, tubes of flux, tweezers, and the other usual supplies needed for homebrew surface-mount soldering), but I know *exactly* how it can fail, and it bothers me that HTC could have possibly done something that stupid. That's not the kind of mistake an engineer makes... that's the kind of screwup that happens when HTC management decides to cut corners anyway after their engineers throw a fit and threaten to quit over it.

Also, I've spent the past week lurking on the Evo development boards, and got the worst sense of deja-vu when I saw that HTC still releases useless kernel source that's unbuildable, with proprietary binaries compiled straight into it (in total violation of the GPL, not to mention common sense and human decency) so that it's nearly impossible to take an old kernel and use it as the basis of a newer one (without breaking every single binary driver in the process). Samsung might have sinned mightily and royally screwed up the GPS, but at least they had the decency to treat the kernel with respect & dignity, and implement everything that's not open-source as proper loadable kernel modules. It might be the only thing they've done right, but it's a really big, really important thing that NEEDS to be right :)

Both the Epic and Evo have criminally-undersized batteries, and battery life that totally sucks. The main difference is that there are multiple extended battery choices for the Evo available today, and zero extended battery choices for the Epic today (though there will probably be just as many Epic choices as Evo choices by Christmas... maybe more, since only the extended battery's back cover would be unique to the Epic, and the batteries themselves are common to the entire Galaxy S family).

Out of the box, the Evo feels a lot better in your hand. I bought the Epic originally because I wanted the keyboard, but I personally think the Epic's keyboard sucks to the point of being unusable because they made the keys too big and too flat. Had they made the keys smaller (keeping the same pitch), or made them taller and more rounded (like the Sidekick's keyboard), it would have been awesome. Thus, I'm now officially in the "I want a case with exoskeleton or latch so I can just secure the keyboard shut and forget it exists... at least, until I'm in a mood to slap on a GameGripper and play videogames with it" camp. It's a shame, because it COULD have been a really awesome keyboard if Samsung hadn't ruined it for the sake of aesthetics.

I'm a little nervous about the Epic's AMOLED screen, because I found out that they suffer from an effect that has similar appearance to burn-in. Apparently, the blue elements have a half-life of ~7,000 bright hours before they dim noticeably. The result is that if you display static bright blue content for extended periods of time, it will look like old-school yellow burn-in when white is displayed (the blue will dim, causing the brighter red and green to give the pixel a yellowish cast). LCDs can develop persistent images, but it's a temporary effect due to static electricity that dissipates over time. With AMOLED and blue-fade, by the time you see it happen, it's too late -- the panel's ruined forever.

I'll admit I've slightly warmed up to Touchwiz... especially once I replaced the homescreen with ADW, and figured out how to make the app drawer scroll vertically (god, the horizontal scrolling drove me *insane* for a couple of days). Samsung's "Phone" app is definitely prettier than HTC's was on the Hero (I've never actually used an Evo to make a call), and "Weather and Toggle Widget" (or whatever it's name is) gave me enough SenseUI look and feel to keep me happy without it.

There's still a tiny chance something will motivate me to switch to Evo before my 30 days are up in 2 weeks, but for now, I'm back to being content with my Epic.