By In a pair of surprise (but not really so surprising) news releases this VERY early Monday, Sprint and Samsung are announcing the existence of another Galaxy S device. The Samsung Epic 4G features the same 4-inch touchscreen, Samsung Hummingbird processor, and 5-megapixel camera with 720p HD video recording as the other Galaxy S phones (this version also includes the VGA front-facing camera, a feature that has quickly become a huge fan favorite).
The big kicker here is that the device will come with 4G radios to work with Sprint’s growing 4G network, as well as the fact that it will have a slide-out QWERTY keyboard (pretty much what we’ve been referring to as the Samsung Galaxy S Pro).
The device will launch with Android 2.1 and TouchWiz 3.0, but Samsung and Sprint have stressed that they’ll be working very hard to get this thing upgraded to Android 2.2 “in the near future”. Other specs include 1GB of ROM, 512MB of RAM, a 1500mAh battery, and will ship with a 16GB microSD card (expandable up to 32GB). All of the other connectivity options you’d expect to find in a Galaxy S phone are all included alongside the added 4G.
There are no details regarding pricing and availability just yet (outside of the same $10 fee that’s been haunting the monthly bills of current HTC EVO 4G owners), but we expect we’ll hear all about that sometime soon. Real soon. Full press details straight ahead.
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. – June 28, 2010 – Sprint (NYSE: S) and Samsung Telecommunications America (Samsung Mobile), the No. 1 mobile phone provider in the U.S.1, today introduced the second 4G-capable handset from Sprint, Samsung Epic™ 4G, a Galaxy S™ smartphone and Samsung Mobile’s first 4G Android™-powered device.
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“Sprint takes another leap forward today, announcing its second 4G-capable smartphone,” said Steve Elfman, president, Network Operations and Wholesale. “Samsung Epic 4G joins a portfolio of powerful devices offering an unprecedented simplicity and value to our customers as the only national carrier with a 4G network and devices and applications that can leverage the increased data speeds to provide a high-def entertainment and business experience in the palm of your hand.”“Samsung Epic 4G is a powerful member of our Galaxy S smartphone portfolio which offers premium screen, speed and content features,” said Omar Khan, chief strategy officer for Samsung Mobile. “The Epic 4G ups the ante with a front-facing camera for video conferencing, a full QWERTY keyboard and lightning-fast 4G speeds.”
Samsung Epic 4G is part of a new breed of Samsung smartphones offering their very best in screen, speed and content quality for a premium user experience, and offers a fully integrated multimedia, messaging and social networking experience. It also features an exceptionally thin smartphone design with a slide out, full QWERTY keyboard and 4-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen display.
The brilliant Super AMOLED touchscreen display offers:
• The best representation of color on a mobile phone that matches original content, more than 100 times the contrast quality of other leading displays
• Faster response time that reduces “ghosting” images
• Wide viewing angles to prevent blurring or distortion
• Thinner design to offer more accurate and responsiveness to touchEntertainment at Its Best
In the coming months, Samsung Epic 4G will have access to the Samsung Media Hub, making it the first and only 4G handset to feature a video store with movies and TV available for purchase or rental, and video content set up for an HD-like entertainment experience on a handset screen. With 4G from Sprint, users will be able to get turbo-charged downloads of a full library of video and literary content powered by some of the biggest names in entertainment.Samsung Epic 4G also features Samsung’s exclusive AllShare service to wirelessly share stored music, pictures and HD video to other DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) certified™ home electronics, including HDTVs, monitors, digital cameras, printers and more. Through AllShare, users will be able to capture moments with the phone’s camera and camcorder, and wirelessly show them to friends or family on their DLNA certified HDTV or download music from a PC to Samsung Epic 4G and take on the road.
Amazing Features
Powered by the Android 2.1 platform, Samsung Epic 4G also supports a series of advanced touch screen gestures including multi-touch pinch, long tap and zoom and vertical and horizontal swiping.Samsung Epic 4G is the only 4G smartphone to offer three fast and easy ways to enter text onto the device – a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard, virtual keyboard and Swype technology, which allows users to input text faster and more intuitively with one continuous finger motion across the virtual keyboard.
The smartphone is designed for an optimal gaming experience with a six-axis sensor that fine tunes its accelerometer’s ability to interpret simple movements of the device, so when the phone tilts up and down or left and right, the game can immediately respond in the same directions. A demo of Asphalt 5, a popular racing game, is preloaded exclusively on Samsung Epic 4G allowing users to take full advantage of these advanced gaming capabilities.
It also features:
• Samsung 1GHz Cortex A8 Hummingbird Application Processor supports amazing 3-D graphics, faster upload and download times and the full richness of HD-like multimedia content.
• Dual camera: 5 MP camera/camcorder with autofocus, Power LED flash and 3x digital zoom for HD video3 (720p) video recording and front facing VGA camera for video chat and more
• Visual Voicemail
• Mobile Hotspot capability supporting up to five Wi-Fi enabled devices to share the 4G experience simultaneously
• Android Market™ for access to more than 50,000 useful applications, widgets and games available for download to customize the experience
• Wi-Fi® b/g/n
• 1500 mAh batteryGame-changer for Business Customers
Samsung Epic 4G is designed to deliver one of the best multi-media experience for business users in several vertical industries such as healthcare, education, public safety, construction and professional services through superior speed and display innovation. It offers support for push email and integrated calendar services, including Google™ and Yahoo, as well as Exchange ActiveSync for corporate email including enhanced device management and security features, as well as full support for Google Mobile Services.With Android’s open-software platform, businesses can benefit from several productivity-enhancing applications available in the Android Market™ including bar code scanning, signature capture, document viewing and the ability to stream and upload video for customer approval and archival purposes.
Staying Connected with Social Networking
To make staying connected faster and easier, Samsung Epic 4G includes Samsung Social Hub designed to integrate all your social networking services, messages, personal and business email, calendars and contacts. Additionally, calendar information from portal calendars, such as Google Calendar and social networking services are displayed together in one calendar with two-way synchronization.As work on finalizing the software is underway, Sprint expects to launch Android 2.2 for Samsung Epic 4G in the near future. With the Android 2.2 upgrade, customers can expect improvements to include the following benefits among others: updates to User Interface, improved EAS Support, improved Browser Performance including Flash 10x Support, voice Dialing Over Bluetooth and application Storage on External Memory.
A Sprint 4G developer guide is available today from the Sprint ADP Web site at http://developer.sprint.com. The Sprint 4G developer guide provides details on developing for an Android 2.1 handset and how to take advantage of the Samsung Epic 4G’s unique hardware and software capabilities and the Sprint 4G network. The Sprint Application Developer Program has been providing tools for third-party developers since Sprint first launched the Wireless Web on its phones in 2001.
Sprint will announce pricing and availability in the coming months; meanwhile customers can pre-register for more information about Samsung Epic 4G at www.sprint.com/epic4g.
Blazing trails with Sprint 4G
Sprint 4G offers a faster wireless experience than any other U.S. national wireless carrier, and Sprint is the only national carrier offering wireless 4G service today in 36 markets. Sprint 4G delivers download speeds up to 10 times faster than 3G, giving Samsung Epic 4G the fastest data speeds of any U.S. wireless device available today.2As the first national wireless carrier to test, launch and market 4G technology, Sprint made history by launching 4G in Baltimore in September 2008.
Sprint currently offers 4G service in 36 markets: Georgia – Atlanta, Milledgeville; Hawaii – Honolulu, Maui; Idaho – Boise; Illinois – Chicago; Maryland – Baltimore; Missouri – Kansas City, St. Louis; Nevada – Las Vegas; North Carolina – Charlotte, Greensboro, (along with High Point and Winston-Salem), Raleigh (along with Cary, Chapel Hill and Durham); Oregon – Portland, Salem; Pennsylvania – Harrisburg, Lancaster, Philadelphia, Reading, York; Texas – Abilene, Amarillo, Austin, Corpus Christi, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Houston, Killeen/Temple, Lubbock, Midland/Odessa, San Antonio, Waco, Wichita Falls; Utah – Salt Lake City; Virginia – Richmond; Washington – Bellingham, Seattle. For more information, visit www.sprint.com/4G.
In 2010, Sprint expects to launch 4G service in multiple markets, including but not limited to, Boston, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York City, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
More Satisfied Than Ever
Powerful 4G smartphones like Samsung Epic 4G is one of many reasons Sprint is the most improved company in customer satisfaction, across all industries, over the last two years, according to results from the 2010 American Customer Satisfaction Index.Sprint’s improvement was driven in part by substantial gains in two aspects of the survey. In the area of customers’ perceptions of value, Sprint now leads both AT&T and Verizon. The company also achieved an impressive improvement in the area of customer loyalty. With these gains, the company’s overall ACSI score jumped 14 points over the last two years. In the last six years of the ACSI survey, no other company has improved its satisfaction score by that many points in a two-year period.
The improvements in the ACSI survey come as Sprint has seen nine consecutive quarters of improved customer satisfaction and first call resolution. The company’s improvements have also been recognized by other independent third-parties, including Sprint winning the #1 spot for both overall satisfaction for wireless voice service providers and wireless data service providers in a Yankee Group and Mobile Enterprise magazine survey of large business decision makers. Sprint also ranked high in small and medium business customer satisfaction. Also noteworthy was Sprint’s two-year Reputation Pulse™ score increase in Reputation Institute’s 2010 U.S. Most Reputable Companies Study (published annually in Forbes). Sprint’s 18.22 percent gain puts its improvement in the top 10 percent of the 150 largest U.S. companies, ahead of both AT&T and Verizon.
About Sprint Nextel
Sprint Nextel offers a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline communications services bringing the freedom of mobility to consumers, businesses and government users. Sprint Nextel served more than 48 million customers at the end of the first quarter of 2010 and is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying innovative technologies, and is the first and only wireless 4G service from a national carrier in the United States; offering industry-leading mobile data services, leading prepaid brands including Virgin Mobile USA, Boost Mobile, Common Cents Mobile and Assurance Wireless and instant national and international push-to-talk capabilities; and a global Tier 1 Internet backbone. With its customer-focused strategy, you can learn more and visit Sprint at www.sprint.com or www.facebook.com/sprint and www.twitter.com/sprint.About Samsung Telecommunications America
Samsung Telecommunications America, LLC, a Dallas-based subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., researches, develops and markets wireless handsets and telecommunications products throughout North America. For more information, please visit www.samsung.com.
About Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, digital media and digital convergence technologies with 2009 consolidated sales of (US)$116.8 billion. Employing approximately 188,000 people in 185 offices across 65 countries, the company consists of eight independently operated business units: Visual Display, Mobile Communications, Telecommunication Systems, Digital Appliances, IT Solutions, Digital Imaging, Semiconductor and LCD. Recognized as one of the fastest growing global brands, Samsung Electronics is a leading producer of digital TVs, memory chips, mobile phones and TFT-LCDs. For more information, please visit www.samsung.com.
wow, you’re not kidding about early. it only turned monday 18 minutes ago
$)^#^%*$%$& DAMNIT! Why does sprint get the QWERTY keyboard model!?@ This is one of many reasons why i haven’t given up my G1 yet! WTF?! Damn you T-Mo!
Now THIS is the phone I need! It’s a shame it has Samsung’s custom interface, and no Froyo though… :(
wow so tmo takes away features but keeps the 16 gb of internal memory while verizion and sprint add features but takes away the 16 gb of internal storage insteachippin it with a 16 gb card so ships with 17 gb and maxes out at 33 while tmo ships with 18gb and maxes out at 48 huge diffrence still would have like the front facin cam but i can live without it still got my n900 which will soon be running froyo i;ll get the vibrant until the holidays dual-core gingerbread yeah tmo good luck sprint with your extra 4g charges good luck Verizon withe your high plan rates need i mention at&t withe their overcrowded network and strong reputation with the androids on their network il stick we tmo started on with triton(small company) till it was bought by suncom and was with them them till tmo/dt bought them besides phone choices which look like they are getting better iv’e never had a problem with triton/suncom/tmo
Wow. This sucker actually looks really impressive. I’d rather not have the touch-wiz UI, but other than that, it looks pretty fantastic.
This might be enough to woo me away from Verizon. Still waiting on a release date for this and official specs and release date on the Droid 2.
Woooooo Hoooooo! ….Goodbye T-Mobile…..I will be paying the ETF and leaving the day this beast is released….I love T-Mobile but they can only give me the SGS’s half baked offspring (Vibrant)….I am a qwerty lover and a self professed geek that loves the latest and greatest tech….So for me the FFCamera and rear flash are essential to any superphone I would consider buying….I just hope this phone comes out A.S.A.P. and that it is compatible with the SGS docking station from the SGS official website…..Hey Samsung how about a Pre-Order PLEASE!
Be careful with sprint. I just started using sprint about a month ago. I really like the service and my cool phone. What I do not like is the fact that I have been betrayed. See Sprint owns Boost which offers the same rates at half of the price. On the site following I found Mr Hesse the CEO of sprints email. http://sites.google.com/site/sprintcustomersunite/
If you like me are mad Sprint subscriber email Mr. Hesse he listens.
Hmm, I wouldn’t leave TMO for this until I saw how it performed and reviews. This has very little internal memory as compared to the TMO version, 512 vs 16gbs….why such a difference? and if you’re on TMO, wouldn’t it be worth it to wait for the rumored dual processor HTC Vision coming to TMO later this year? hmmm, decisions decisions.
Hey T-Mobile. This is the phone I want. You sell it, I’ll buy it. kthxbye.
–A 7 year T-Mobile veteran
PS: More memory than this has is good too, but still, yum.
Nice a keyboard. Now that is upgrade worthy. It looks like a decent keyboard too! Maybe we’ll get lucky and this will be a world phone…probably not, but one can hope.
Alex,
The droid 2 is said to come in august. so if you can wait until then.. plus the droid x is said to get froyo then so that goes with the rumor of droid 2 coming with froyo 2 out the box in august. so you have plenty of time to wait. no one knows when this is coming out so i mean let it settle and go play with it and wait.
and the droid 2 was leaked way to early for a august release. so i hope you play the waiting game. more things can come in that time and in Q4 towards next year. comes to being satisfied.
yes, I want a keyboard too, and this does look nice. But I love the great deal and CS on TMO. My N1 with froyo is stellar for now!
amazing! I still have a feeling verizon will get the best version of the galaxy s.
Doubt verizon will get the best version…it wont have 4G…or LTE for that matter. Dont see it having a front facing camera either. If the Droid X doesnt..why should this. Now if i can turn off that Touch Wiz…we may have a winner. Patience against the EVO may be rewarded. Ill turn a blind eye to the missing .3 on the screen and no HDMI out…but i just have a feeling a TP2esque 4G phone from HTC is laying in the weeds…
Oh bloody hell! Who needs these useless customs UI’s?!
hey ahhh ummm I have a question about 4g, I just watched a video of Chris Poralo saying 4 g is not That big of a deal really. So my question. IS what Does it do for Verizon. …and sprint? I hear it allows phone calling while surfing the net and makes a phone usability greater all around the world. Is any of this true?
Omg I want this phone! Praying to god that they will make a gsm version for europe! Have tried a Galaxy S and the super amoled screen is just amazing!
Not sure droid 2 will beat this one?
it has led flash?
We want the samsung galaxy s qwerty version in EU
@bob yes, it has led flash =) according to people the galaxy s without flash takes better pictures in dark areas then a nexus one/htc desire with flash! This one should probably take som decent pictures =)
@olypdd that´s the RAM memory, the TMO version has the same! The internal memory does´nt seem to be the same, but it does´nt mather when you have 16GB sdcard (expandable to 32)
I want to see just how thin it is before I even look at it.
@Marco – Boost is prepay, and you don’t get to use certain phones, etc. It’s more customized to a smaller market without all the high-end technology. The rates might be different, but your choices are different as well.
Evo has some competition thast for sure. I cant stand a slider though, and I am still really captured by Htc Sense UI. Samsung UI is very dull to me. Blah
if the camera has a back-illuminated sensor, it might not need a flash. Samsung is known to make cameras with this technology.
I think this phone kills Droid 2 is almost every way. Droid 2’s kb is a big improvement over the old one but this one has 5 rows…probably the first since the G1. And great specs! It will be so good for games *and* editing spreadsheets :)
I just read that this phone has a 6-axis accelerometer!! Just had to come back and post that. I dunno why thats not in the text. Thats the best accelerometer on any phone so far and The Epic comes preloaded with Asphalt 5 so you can get the feel for it right outta the box. ANNND this beast will have FROYO sooner than anything out there from the way Sprint is talking. Spreadsheets…lol*
The phone is pretty impressive and I’ll take some ugly touchwiz over the bloated slow as hell sense ui crap anyday. they both suck to have so ill take the least sucky of the two.
Hoping for a GSM version of the 4G sans TouchWiz
Oh hi! This is going to be what I use my upgrade with Sprint on :)
i really like that keyboard on this phone a lot
The QWERTY keyboard AND the AMOLED screen…it doesn’t get any better…(so far) :-)