Last time, I reviewed the Epic 4G hardware, except for the camera. This time, I’ll dig into a comparison of the camera on the Epic versus iPhone 4.

Below is an outside picture of a structure in half sunlight and half shade (bottom), against a bright blue sky. The first one is from the Samsung Epic 4G using the default settings. Click on the picture to see the full resolution version.

Epic - Outdoor with natural lighting

The photo below is the same picture from the same spot, at the same time using the iPhone 4. Notice that the iPhone tried to compensate for the shade and bright areas causing a change in the color.  The Epic version is closer to the actual color, but the iPhone is better at getting more detail in the darker areas. However, because the iPhone tried to brighten the dark areas, the sky is washed out.

It’s hard to decide which picture is better. The Epic pictures looks more like the real thing, but the iPhone picture shows a little more detail under the roof.

For most people, the Epic version of the picture is probably what they want.

iPhone 4 - Outdoor with natural lighting

Next up, indoor pictures, with and without flash. The picture below is from the Epic using flash, taken indoors with very little lighting coming in from the window on the right. As you can see, the flash is very strong and goes all the way to the ceiling. In fact, the flash is so bright that it almost washes out the wall.

Epic - indoors with flash

The picture below is the same picture taken with the iPhone 4. As you can see, the flash is not as overwhelming as the Epic but plenty strong enough to reach the ceiling. Strangely, I’ve taken pictures with the iPhone where the flash was so strong, the face of the person was washed out. I’m not sure what causes this problem on the iPhone but it hasn’t happened to me on the Epic yet.

If you click on both pictures, you’ll see that the iPhone version is very grainy, and almost not acceptable if you were going to print it large.

This is harder to compare because the iPhone 4 flash looks better but it’s grainier. I’m going to rate this as a tie.

iPhone 4 with flash

Next, the same picture without flash. The one below is with the Epic and with the low lighting conditions, you see some grain but you can see the bike.

Epic without flash

The picture below is the same picture with the iPhone 4, and as you can see, it’s much darker than the Epic but you can still see enough to make out the bike in the picture.

As with the pictures with the flash, the iPhone version of the picture is incredibly grainy and not acceptable for printing purposes to blow up, in my opinion.

I’m going to give this one to the Epic because of the graininess of the iPhone version.

iPhone 4 without flash

Finally, a close-up picture of some flowers in ambient outside lighting shown below with the Epic. The Epic has a special macro focus mode, which I used for this picture. Unlike my Sony digital camera, to get the Epic into macro mode, you have to go into a sub-menu so it’s not something you will be able to use quickly. However, although the focus is slightly off in the picture below, the macro mode does work properly on the Epic.

Epic - Using macro mode

The picture below is the same flower taken with the iPhone. The iPhone is pretty much auto focus and works on larger objects but as you can see below, it had a really hard time focusing on the flowers. In fact, I had to keep trying over and over and took about 8 pictures to get this one below.

Clearly, the Epic wins the close-up challenge, as least for flowers.

iPhone 4 - Auto focus

Neither camera is as good as my point and shoot Sony digital camera, but both are good enough to take family snap shots for Facebook. If I had to choose, I think the Epic takes slightly better, less grainy pictures than the iPhone 4. Although some people may not like the more complicated user interface on the Epic, it does allow for more control over the “automatic” settings for the iPhone.

Next time:
Android vs. iOs

In case you forgot that robots were going to become our overlords, this video of a Geminoid (robot twin of it’s maker) from a Dutch professor should remind you it’s coming.

While trying to record the ESPN WSOP Europe on my Time Warner Motorola cable box, I got the list below.

Software bug in TW cable box

As you can see, the entire page is the same show at 7pm repeated. What you can’t see is there are multiple pages of the same entry, over and over again. There is no way to delete it or change it. It’s just stuck in there and preventing anything else from being recorded during that time.

Hey. Time for a firmware upgrade guys.

It’s time to go back to Century City again and this time to RockSugar which is one of those fusion Asian snazzy type places, typical of LA.

After going to restaurants in LA and Vegas, you’d think I wouldn’t be impressed by just any decor but this place is straight out of the Asian castle scene from “Inception.” Even though the table for 2 is tiny, it actually felt nice and cozy in there.

Salmon Sashimi - $13

We started with the Salmon Sashimi which had the most perfect ponzu style sauce to get the juices flowing right.

Crisp Calimari - $10

Next up, we got the Calimari. If you normally don’t like Calimari, I implore you to try this marinated Calimari. It’s not chewy at all and almost melts in your mouth. Delish. Try it.

Thai Noodles with Shrimp - $13.50

For one of our main courses, we tried the Thai noodles with shrimp. The noodles were very good but I’m not 100% on board with the mix that it’s in. Don’t get me wrong. I ate the whole thing but it’s a little different.

Shaking Beef - $25

If you like beef, try this “Shaking” beef as one of your main courses. The marinated beef is perfectly prepared and seasoned. They don’t even give you a knife to cut it with, because they know you won’t need one.

Carmalized Banana Custard Cake - $9

For one of our deserts, we had the custard cake. My friend liked it but it was not my cup of cake. I’ll pass on this one.

Warm Chocolate Cake - $9

Lastly, the chocolate cake with coffee ice cream was good but nothing I haven’t had before. In fact, it’s about the same as the bunt cake at the Hustler Casino (free at the $300 table), in my opinion.

All in all, this was a great discovery and I’ll put this on my list of places to take out-of-towners I want to impress.

RockSugar Pam Asian Kitchen
10250 Santa Monica Blvd # 654
Los Angeles, CA 90067-6609
(310) 552-9988
rocksugarpanasiankitchen.com

Long time readers of this blog knows I canceled my Vonage to switch over to Ooma for free VOIP, saving me tons of money. But at the end, Vonage managed to give me a swift kick in my crotch with their $40 cancellation fee. End of story, right?

Maybe not. Apparently, some money hungry lawyers sued Vonage in a class action lawsuit and won a bunch of money for us ex-Vonage folk. I signed up for it to get my money back from them but I’m not really sure why they’re not allowed to have a cancellation free when just about every wireless phone company lives off of this fee.

Vonage class action lawsuit

Who knows. Maybe this is just a scam to get my name and address. I’ll believe it when I get my check in the mail and it clears.

Well it happened. I dropped my poor Palm Pre and it became intermittent. As you may know, I’m not happy with the on-screen keyboard on my iPhone, so I decided to go ahead and try an Android phone from Sprint and got the Samsung Epic 4G.

Cost:
The Epic from Sprint, with an upgrade or 2 year contract, will run you $500, minus $200 instant rebate, minus another $100 mail in rebate, which equals $200. That’s the same price as the iPhone 4 upgrade or 2 year contract from AT&T.

Sprint requires you to upgrade your account with a cost of $10 per month which is required regardless of if you want 4G or not. If you want to use the hot spot feature, which allows you to use your phone to connect your laptop to the 4G network, that will cost another $30 on top. The hot spot feature is not required so the minimum upgrade cost to your account is $10 per month.

Screen size comparison - Epic (left), iPhone 4 (right)

Hardware:
As you can see above, the Epic 4G is about the same size as the iPhone 4 but the screen on the Epic is larger. The Super AMOLED display is large, bright and stands out as soon as you see this unit and is one of it’s big features. Unfortunately, this bright screen eats up a lot of battery power. More on that later.

Below, you can see that the Epic is thicker because of the slide out keyboard. It’s not so thick that you can’t put it in your coat pocket but you probably won’t want to put it in your back pants pocket.

The Epic feels lighter even though the iPhone is 4.8 ounces and the Epic is 5.4 ounces. Maybe the plastic fools you into thinking it’s lighter. I like the curves on the Epic in my hand, which feels more like the old iPhone 3G. Unlike the iPhone 4, which is hard to pick up from a flat surface, the Epic is easy to pick up.

Thickness comparison - Epic (left), iPhone 4 (right)

The Epic has both a front and back facing camera with the primary being a 5MP (same as the iPhone 4) with a very bright white LED flash below the lens (see below). You can take pictures using the touch screen or by using the dedicated shutter button on the side. By pressing this button, the “camera” app automatically starts up. I think this is a great feature and makes the unit feel like a camera. You can also record HD video at 720p @ 30fps. More on the camera in the next installment of the review.

Epic Back - 5MP camera with LED flash

While we’re looking at the back of this unit, the back has some type of soft touch backing to keep it from sliding around when you put it on a slick surface. I like this feature because when I put my iPhone 4 on my laptop, it slides off and falls to the floor, whereas this backing keeps the Epic in place.

Unlike the iPhone, the USB jack is at the top and the power button is on the right. I like the power being on top on the iPhone better because when I push the volume on the left, sometimes I will accidentally press the power on the right. I thought I would eventually get used to it but after using the Epic for a few months, I’m still not happy with the power button location.

The Epic also has a tiny red LED in the upper right front, next to the Sprint logo. This LED will flash when you’ve missed a call or text message. This is a feature on the Palm Pre that I missed a lot on the iPhone. The LED is a little small to notice from far away, but it’s better than having to turn on your iPhone every time you need to check to see if you missed a message.

The USB jack at the top seemed very odd at first but I eventually got used to it. If you have your Epic connected to your computer located further than your phone, the cable goes straight back without having to go from the bottom, then up to the computer. If you get the docking station for the Epic, all that becomes mute. There will be a separate review on the docking station.

Epic power button on upper right

The speaker is on the back (at an angle) at the bottom and sometimes can become muffled if you have your phone on a soft surface like your couch. The iPhone’s speaker is located on the bottom (not the back) so it points towards the user, and avoids this situation.

Below the screen, there is a Android function area with 4 touch buttons: Menu, Home, Back and Search. Apparently, Google allows each manufacturer to order these buttons anyway they want so it’s different on many Android devices. Maybe good for the manufacturer if you want to be different, but no so much for the user switching from one to another.

Since you cannot self configure the location of these function buttons, I would have preferred them to be real buttons. However, I did eventually get used to the touch buttons and you can configure it to stay lit in the setup so that it doesn’t go dark too fast.

Slide out keyboard

Of course, the big feature for me with the Epic is the slide-out keyboard. Because it’s a landscape keyboard, it’s luxuriously large, and even includes the top 5th row with numbers. A lot of other keyboards do not include that top row and it’s really nice not to have to press any function keys to get the numbers. There are also dedicated buttons for the 4 main functions (menu, back, home and search). However, the click distance feels a little shallow and sometimes I cannot tell if I’ve pressed the key or not.

Also, although the slide-out keyboard feels okay when it’s open, when it’s closed, feels a little loosey goosey and cheap. I like my gadgets to feel tight and precise, but I’m being picky here.

The actual hardware specs for the Epic is an impressive 1GHz Cortex A8 Hummingbird, so it is very snappy and never feels sluggish like my old Palm Pre. Like the iPhone and Palm Pre, there is no HDMI output, but it does come with a 16G SD card standard out of the box.  So unlike the iPhone, if 16G is not enough, you can always buy more space.

Disconnected from network

For some strange reason, something weird happened to my Epic after about a week and I was not able to connect to the Sprint network. After a quick call to customer support, they were able to quickly remedy the situation. So far, this has not happened again.

As for battery life, out of the box without tweaking the software, I got less than a full day (8 hours) with moderate use. With very light use (no calls, some texting, browsing), I can get through an 8 hour shift. The battery that comes with the unit is 1500 mAh but you can get one that is 1600 mAh from Seidio for $50. They also have one that’s 3300 mAh but it comes with a fatter back cover and makes your phone bigger.

In the Android 2.1 version which came with the Epic, there’s some problems when the battery level becomes extremely low. Sometimes it will become confused and also will not let you launch the camera app. It took me a while to figure out what was going on and at first, I thought it was a hardware problem. I’ve read that this will be fixed in the 2.2 Froyo version which should be coming out this week.

Just by lowering the brightness of your display, you can get a lot more juice from you battery. You can also turn off 4G and bluetooth to save a little power also. This is easy to do on the Epic.You can swipe the very top of the screen downward and you will get a selection of all the network related buttons to turn off or on.  There are other tricks you can do in software which will be in a future article.

I didn’t do a scientific comparison but the battery on the iPhone 4 seems to last longer with the same amount of use. But you can swap out the dead battery on the Epic if you have spare batteries like I do. This can save your life in emergencies.

Seidio battery

Sprint 4G:
Although I didn’t get this phone for the 4G, that’s one of it’s big features so I checked it out in detail.

During my testing, I found the 4G coverage to be very spotty at best. Check with Sprint because 4G is not available everywhere yet. Sometimes, I could not even get 4G in many parts of Los Angeles. What’ strange is, when the 4G is slow, it still uses it even if the speed is slower than the 3G. So if you turn off 4G, it will switch down to 3G and you will get faster service. Not very smart.

In my testing, I found using 4G on the Epic itself to be anywhere from 3.27 Mbps to 6.13 Mbps (downtown Los Angeles) depending on location. However, sometimes it can be as slow as 0.07 Mbps when there’s something wrong with the connection.

Using the hotspot app, I measured the 4G speed on my laptop connected via my Epic with the following results.

Regular DSL Wifi: 2.59 Mbps
4G hotspot: 2.60 Mbps

So basically, the 4G is just slightly faster than the AT&T DSL in downtown Los Angeles. I also did the same test while I was in Honolulu with the following results.

DSL Wifi: 2.07 Mbps
3G hotspot: 0.86 Mbps
4G hotspot: 0.48 Mbps

As you can see, the 4G was actually slower than the 3G hotspot, and both were slower than the WiFi in the room.

According to Sprint, the new Android 2.2 Froyo should fix some problems with the hotspot app, which I’m guessing will automatically switch over to 3G if the 4G connection is bad. This new version should be out shortly.

So I was not very impressed with the 4G service I’m getting on Sprint in Los Angeles. I’m not doing anything that requires a lot of speed but for people that want to use the hotspot with multiple laptops, you’d better find a really good spot with perfect 4G connection or you won’t even be able to browse any websites.

Conclusion:
Compared to the Palm Pre, it’s big but not compared to the iPhone 4. There are some minor problems with button locations on the Epic but nothing that’s a deal killer. The battery life seems to be shorter than my iPhone 4 but I’ve figured out ways to get around it. The Epic is as snappy as the iPhone 4 and makes running apps fun.

The screen in gorgeous and the slide-out keyboard eliminates my complaints about the on-screen keyboard. Actually, I’ve been using the Swype on-screen keyboard more than the physical keyboard. More on this in my next installment.

The 4G is a bust but the iPhone 4 doesn’t even have it.

All in all, I’m happy with my Epic and am using it instead of my Palm Pre and iPhone 4.

Next Time:
Epic camera vs. iPhone camera.

Yet once again, I’ve returned to Zencu. By now, you’re thinking that I go to this place every week but actually, I’ve gone there maybe about 12 times since they opened.

This time, I tried their seaweed salad and found the dressing to be tasty. I don’t usually order seaweed salad but I felt like pretending to be healthy for a change.

Seaweed Salad

Next, the big test for a “fake” Japanese restaurant: Cold Soba. They pass, but not with flying colors. The noodle itself was cooked properly and tasted fine. However, the dipping sauce was too sweet for my taste. I like mine a little more salty. I’ll probably not order it again but it’ll pass for less picky eaters.

Cold Soba

Finally, I finished it off with some Nigiri sushi, a la carte and as before, it was acceptable but nothing to write home about.

Nigiri Sushi

As before, this is a great place to hang with your friends and drink some beer during happy hour, and enjoy some good Japanese eats.

Zencu Sushi & Grill
319 E. 2nd. Street #206
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(213) 687-7780
Map

Since I have nobody to be with for Valentines, I was minding my own business watching “Two and a Half Men” on CBS tonight only to see this Easter Egg at the end of the show.

Androidify.com

If you ever wanted to look like the Android logo, but dressed up like you, try this Android app from Androidify.com.

In case you haven’t heard yet, you can now take credit cards for payments via your iPhone or Android phone. All you have to do is open a free account at Square Up and they will send you a credit card reader like the one shown below. It plugs into the headphone jack on top of the iPhone or Andriod device.

Card reader goes into headset jack

When the app is launched, it will ask for the dollar amount that you enter using the screen keyboard provided. Next, you swipe the card through the reader. After that, you will see a screen like the one below where the purchaser will be able to sign his/her name using their finger.

Customer signs on screen

Once that is done, you will be presented with a screen that asks the purchaser if they want a receipt via email as shown below.

Get a receipt via email

That’s it. Very simple. Now anybody with an iPhone or Android phone can accept credit cards. The money under $1,000 goes right into your checking account. If you have more than $1,000 it takes longer or you can contact Square Up to arrange something with them.

As for cost, that’s the beauty of this service because there’s no monthly fee. If you only use this once every other month, there’s no cost when you aren’t using it. The fine print is that for each transaction, they charge 2.75% + 15 cents if you swipe the card and 3.5% plus 15 cents if you key enter the information (without swiping the card).

For people that don’t want to open a corporate account with their bank and pay a monthly fee, this is a perfect solution. Next time your friend can’t pay you his half of lunch because he has no cash, just whip out your iPhone, plug in the credit card reader and get paid.