@War Ensemble I think the $249 price tag that Sprint has on the Epic is fair because the other 3 Galaxy S phone's on the other 3 networks do not have a front facing camera, keyboard, and "4G" speed where available so selling it at $199 would not be fair, but 8/10 is a good rating. Once Rooted with stock Froyo it would be a 9 or a 10....
Sense and touchwiz should not be deal breakers for anyone. Infact, they are generally better than stock if you are new to Android. But to be honest, I hope that Google doesn't allow overlapping UIs when Gingerbread comes. We all want unity when it comes to user experience.
Who's idea was for a dedicated smiley face key? That is the stupidest thing any phone maker has done since Apple put the antenna on the outside of the iPhone 4.
(sorry, I'm watching the roast of David Hasselhoff) XD
Honestly, to me of course, Touch Whiz 3.0 isn't so bad. It's a little more cartoony than I'd like, but it's still nice. Sense, however, is a lot cleaner and kicks massive ass in the widgets department. I think Touch Whiz has potential to grow.
I agree. Bump the Droid 2 up to an 8/10. And I agree with the 8/10 on this phone. It's an awesome slider for Sprint, and I've been waiting a long time for a superphone like this.
Woa. Woa. Woa. Hold the presses. Joseph Mama's Highly Ranked comment just got deleted.
He had an awesome comment written about how the Droid 2 was poorly ranked (6/10) compared to this new phone, despite the negative comparisons of this phone vs. the Droid 2. I happen to agree with him.
Did he violate the TOS or something? Tons of people in the comment section happen to agree with him. I hope the fact that it's so late at night doesn't somehow render posts to be more likely to be deleted because nobody would miss them.
@War Ensemble Don't really understand all the hate for the Touchwiz with the exception of the missing lockscreen features, personally. I think it's the best-looking OEM skin out there. I don't see why the brightly colored aspect of it bothers Engadget, either.
I just wanted to throw it out there that I saw that comment, too.
It's not very professional to delete the comments of people that disagree with you, Engadget. I thought this place was supposed to be a vehicle for discussion--a place that's not arbitrarily censoring people for voicing their opinions. Oh well.
@War Ensemble I don't know how you could possibly prefer a device that is artificially capped at 30 FPS regardless of its other positive features. It could be the best phone in the world, but that misstep alone would make me not buy it. The entire phone experience revolves around the ability of the graphics processor to produce fluid animations and the Evo just can't do that. Also, in response to the remarks about the Epic not connecting properly to computers, Samsung recently pushed out updates to the Vibrant and Captivate which fixed that exact problem so I expect that the Epic will be getting its update soon.
@Mike10010100 I deleted Joseph Mama's comment because I will not, nor will I ever tolerate having it suggested that we're being paid off by a manufacturer to influence a review. You're welcome to bring constructive criticism to the table, but I have limits. We've been through this before -- commenting here is a privilege, not a right.
You have comments to drive the amount of people that visit your site up, with multiple page views and people coming back to the same article to read them. To insinuate that you provide us with a public service is just nonsense. If engadget wasn't here, something else would be, doing exactly the same thing you do.
@huzzlehoff The software was also terrible, even compared to Touchwiz. On top of that, the phone didn't have many of the things that made this phone impressive: no Super AMOLED, worse processor and GPU (not helped by the software)...I think it's justified, personally.
@threpac He is saying that we each have the individual privilege to comment, not that comments in general are a option they provide to us.
I didn't see the post, but if it did suggest that Engadget is accepting bribes to influence their opinion, thats a serious personal attack. The editors don't want their credibility attacked with baseless remarks, especially when the attack is done within their site. I would have deleted it just as Chris did. Go ahead and suggest you disagree with the reviews, but suggesting bribery is low.
Stating the obvious in situations like these comes off as a little rude Chris, I must admit. As a fellow Journalist, I would consider it more a privilage for you to see people comment their opinions regarding the articles you write.
In a nutshell, my point is just because there are some bad dogs with behavioral problems in the bunch, doesn't mean necessarily that the good dogs deserve criticism as well.
@War Ensemble I still don't understand this TouchWiz 3.0 hate - it's not resource-hungry, it works smoothly and fairly well. The only downside is the way the Applications menu looks too much like an iPhone.
Other points - I'm *still* not seeing this supposed A-GPS bug in my Galaxy S, it's always found and tracked me perfectly. And if mine came with a NASCAR app preloaded, I'd have BURNT IT WITH FIRE right away! (either that, or rooted it and removed it manually).
It seems needlessly complicated, but you can change the tray icons to anything you want. Every review I've seen so far is done using the tray icons that are there by default.
> Love the Epic, don't understand the 8/10 vs. 6/10 for the Droid 2...
Expecting anything quantitative out of Engadget is unrealistic. They shouldn't even bother. You want real reviews, go to anandtech or something. Go to engadet for "It's pretty good, I like it."
I find that ridiculous and ironic since I have seen MANY comments where people would go a lot farther into that and start cursing and being more rude than he was to both Engadget and other viewers. You can't deny how the score of the Epic isn't on target with the score of the Droid 2 with some of the comments you made about the Epic compared to the Droid 2. I don't think it's at all fair to react that way, especially with the response you made about the commenting. We're doing nothing but giving you guys and AOL money by going on your page, indirectly viewing the ads, perhaps accidentally clicking on an ad to give you some extra dough. We the commenters are indirectly paying you so you should at least be a bit more respectful towards us.
Though I can't see his comment right now, I did see it earlier in the evening when I first saw the review and he made some very valid points. Maybe if the Droid got a 7/10 or the same 8/10 score it wouldn't be as strange, but the comparisons you made with the Droid 2 made it seem like the Droid 2 was a far superior phone. You didn't even mention any ways the Epic does things better yet the Epic is apparently a better phone according to its score. I can understand your feeling about it being less of a revolutionary phone and more of a 2.0 version as supposed to something like the Omnia 1 and Omnia 2 which are two completely different phones, but you gave the Droid the same rating as the Blackberry Torch, the Dell Streak, and the HTC Wildfire which have some serious bugs and aren't anywhere near the Moto Droid 2's league in regards to specs and performance.
If you want to get upset with the service/reception issues on the Droid 2, go onto any other review site and you'll see none of them had the issues you guys had. Whether you guys were unlucky or something just happened, it isn't at all fair to deduct points for that when I doubt ANY other site had those issues. I don't know about other commenters and viewers but that's a pretty harsh deduction and you should at least consider re-evaluating the Droid 2's overall review score.
But besides my feelings on the Droid 2's review, it's not as much about the rating that upsets me as the attitude you gave us with that comment. It's so defensive that in some ways it makes me wonder if it really is true. We the viewers and commenters are more than viewers to you so quit treating us like we're slaves, doing the work by commenting and viewing the ads on your site to give you a portion of your paycheck. I really enjoy Engadget and I comment on here a lot and would love to be an editor for Engadget if given the chance but that was completely uncalled for Chris and extremely disrespectful for the people who view the site daily and comment daily.
I can understand why Engadget would be upset about the comments in regards to the iPhone 4 vs. Evo since they both got the same score yet they're two completely different phones with different operating systems and designs. I know people talk trash about Engadget's "bias" towards Apple and the iPhone but at least you gave them the same score and made fair comparisons. The iPhone 4 and Epic 4G are just so very different and more preference based so it's not as clear cut as two physical keyboard Android phones that have very similar designs (at least more similar than the iPhone vs. Evo). But the Droid 2 is a great phone and you could've at least been the smarter and more reasonable admin and said, "The reason the Droid 2 got a bad score was because of the reception and call quality issues Engadget got." or "The reason the Epic got a much higher rating was because Sprint and Samsung really worked their butts off to get the 4G galaxy phone released and though the phone isn't perfect, it's a very good alternative to the Evo." With great power comes great responsibility and I personally feel that was some unnecessary power abuse right there.
Though I will continue to go on Engadget on a daily basis and make comments, this left quite a bad taste in my mouth and I am extremely disappointed. Go Samsung Epic, go Evo, go Moto Droid 2, go iPhone 4, go Droid X, go every phone that satisfies people and I hope this doesn't happen again with another review.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
I'll stick to the Evo for now--that Touchwiz UI is a dealbreaker for me...
@War Ensemble
It can't be any worse than HTC Sense.
@War Ensemble I think the $249 price tag that Sprint has on the Epic is fair because the other 3 Galaxy S phone's on the other 3 networks do not have a front facing camera, keyboard, and "4G" speed where available so selling it at $199 would not be fair, but 8/10 is a good rating. Once Rooted with stock Froyo it would be a 9 or a 10....
@War Ensemble
all the android fans have gone to Android Central...
@UptownDonkey
yes. it can.
waste of a good name to me.
@War Ensemble
"Wiz"e move
@War Ensemble Agreed.
@War Ensemble Samsung should've gave user an option to turn off Touch Wiz. Samsung software engineers must be sadistic bunch.
@War Ensemble
Sense and touchwiz should not be deal breakers for anyone. Infact, they are generally better than stock if you are new to Android. But to be honest, I hope that Google doesn't allow overlapping UIs when Gingerbread comes. We all want unity when it comes to user experience.
@War Ensemble
I could have swore you could go back to stock android....I did on my Droid Eris when I had it back in the day.
@War Ensemble
Chris Ziegler has the most amazing job in the world, well, not really, but still I envy him so much,..
Who's idea was for a dedicated smiley face key? That is the stupidest thing any phone maker has done since Apple put the antenna on the outside of the iPhone 4.
(sorry, I'm watching the roast of David Hasselhoff) XD
@War Ensemble
Honestly, to me of course, Touch Whiz 3.0 isn't so bad. It's a little more cartoony than I'd like, but it's still nice. Sense, however, is a lot cleaner and kicks massive ass in the widgets department. I think Touch Whiz has potential to grow.
@War Ensemble
This phone is available thru all carriers, and will be nice and polished by xda. Quite Excited for it. Switching from Big Red for it.
Bravo to Sprint on a nice follow up 4 G phone.
Dictated on my EVO 4G
Bravo to Sprint on a nice follow up 4 G phone.
Dictated on my EVO 4G
@Joseph Mama
I agree. Bump the Droid 2 up to an 8/10. And I agree with the 8/10 on this phone. It's an awesome slider for Sprint, and I've been waiting a long time for a superphone like this.
@Mike10010100
Woa. Woa. Woa. Hold the presses. Joseph Mama's Highly Ranked comment just got deleted.
He had an awesome comment written about how the Droid 2 was poorly ranked (6/10) compared to this new phone, despite the negative comparisons of this phone vs. the Droid 2. I happen to agree with him.
Did he violate the TOS or something? Tons of people in the comment section happen to agree with him. I hope the fact that it's so late at night doesn't somehow render posts to be more likely to be deleted because nobody would miss them.
@War Ensemble Don't really understand all the hate for the Touchwiz with the exception of the missing lockscreen features, personally. I think it's the best-looking OEM skin out there. I don't see why the brightly colored aspect of it bothers Engadget, either.
@Mike10010100
I just wanted to throw it out there that I saw that comment, too.
It's not very professional to delete the comments of people that disagree with you, Engadget. I thought this place was supposed to be a vehicle for discussion--a place that's not arbitrarily censoring people for voicing their opinions. Oh well.
@liftedngifted1 where do you see 8/10 rating? That's one thing I don't get about engadget reviews. There is no score just ramble.
@War Ensemble
Arbitrary censoring seems to happen more often at night, as nobody will miss the comment in the morning.
Love the Epic, don't understand the 8/10 vs. 6/10 for the Droid 2...
@War Ensemble
getting my epic on 31st. my first smart phone. my first android phone. so excited. am just loving it ! :)
@Mike10010100
I can't see anyone agreeing with droid 2 review. 6/10 for that great phone, which only big minus was the camera performance
@huzzlehoff
Did you read the wrong review?
Samsung is laughing at you saying EPIC fail.
@Mike10010100
Posting to say I read Joseph Mama's comment, which I agreed with as well . . . some lame censoring here.
@War Ensemble dude you just buy your own theme in the marketplace! I have a captivate and got LauncherPro? how is it a dealbreaker?
It's easily the best commercially available phone on the planet, today.
@War Ensemble I don't know how you could possibly prefer a device that is artificially capped at 30 FPS regardless of its other positive features. It could be the best phone in the world, but that misstep alone would make me not buy it. The entire phone experience revolves around the ability of the graphics processor to produce fluid animations and the Evo just can't do that. Also, in response to the remarks about the Epic not connecting properly to computers, Samsung recently pushed out updates to the Vibrant and Captivate which fixed that exact problem so I expect that the Epic will be getting its update soon.
@Mike10010100 I deleted Joseph Mama's comment because I will not, nor will I ever tolerate having it suggested that we're being paid off by a manufacturer to influence a review. You're welcome to bring constructive criticism to the table, but I have limits. We've been through this before -- commenting here is a privilege, not a right.
i'm gonna watch scott pilgrim vs the world on this and say
"an epic of epic epicness on the epic"
@Chris Ziegler
That is a joke, right?
You have comments to drive the amount of people that visit your site up, with multiple page views and people coming back to the same article to read them.
To insinuate that you provide us with a public service is just nonsense. If engadget wasn't here, something else would be, doing exactly the same thing you do.
@huzzlehoff The software was also terrible, even compared to Touchwiz. On top of that, the phone didn't have many of the things that made this phone impressive: no Super AMOLED, worse processor and GPU (not helped by the software)...I think it's justified, personally.
@War Ensemble Install ADW Launcher from the market?
@War Ensemble You must have missed the Engadget diatribe about marketplace Nazi apps...
@threpac He is saying that we each have the individual privilege to comment, not that comments in general are a option they provide to us.
I didn't see the post, but if it did suggest that Engadget is accepting bribes to influence their opinion, thats a serious personal attack. The editors don't want their credibility attacked with baseless remarks, especially when the attack is done within their site. I would have deleted it just as Chris did. Go ahead and suggest you disagree with the reviews, but suggesting bribery is low.
@Chris Ziegler
"commenting here is a privilege, not a right."
Stating the obvious in situations like these comes off as a little rude Chris, I must admit. As a fellow Journalist, I would consider it more a privilage for you to see people comment their opinions regarding the articles you write.
In a nutshell, my point is just because there are some bad dogs with behavioral problems in the bunch, doesn't mean necessarily that the good dogs deserve criticism as well.
@War Ensemble I still don't understand this TouchWiz 3.0 hate - it's not resource-hungry, it works smoothly and fairly well. The only downside is the way the Applications menu looks too much like an iPhone.
Other points - I'm *still* not seeing this supposed A-GPS bug in my Galaxy S, it's always found and tracked me perfectly. And if mine came with a NASCAR app preloaded, I'd have BURNT IT WITH FIRE right away! (either that, or rooted it and removed it manually).
@KidRobotXXIV
Yea i like touchwiz 3. i have it on my samsung wave.
iv felt the sony ericsson x10 android which you slide up from the bottom then slide up and down to get to your apps but i prefer the touchwiz 3.
@RhymeMaster
right....
@RhymeMaster
Maybe you should read a bit more careful who I was responding to, not just ace..
@Chris Ziegler
Us reading this post is a privilege to Engadget, not a right
@War Ensemble
I have a feeling the people reviewing these Galaxy S phones haven't even figured out how to change the tray icons to their most used apps.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xm2a0nSaGo
It seems needlessly complicated, but you can change the tray icons to anything you want. Every review I've seen so far is done using the tray icons that are there by default.
@Mike10010100
> Love the Epic, don't understand the 8/10 vs. 6/10 for the Droid 2...
Expecting anything quantitative out of Engadget is unrealistic. They shouldn't even bother. You want real reviews, go to anandtech or something. Go to engadet for "It's pretty good, I like it."
@Chris Ziegler
I find that ridiculous and ironic since I have seen MANY comments where people would go a lot farther into that and start cursing and being more rude than he was to both Engadget and other viewers. You can't deny how the score of the Epic isn't on target with the score of the Droid 2 with some of the comments you made about the Epic compared to the Droid 2. I don't think it's at all fair to react that way, especially with the response you made about the commenting. We're doing nothing but giving you guys and AOL money by going on your page, indirectly viewing the ads, perhaps accidentally clicking on an ad to give you some extra dough. We the commenters are indirectly paying you so you should at least be a bit more respectful towards us.
Though I can't see his comment right now, I did see it earlier in the evening when I first saw the review and he made some very valid points. Maybe if the Droid got a 7/10 or the same 8/10 score it wouldn't be as strange, but the comparisons you made with the Droid 2 made it seem like the Droid 2 was a far superior phone. You didn't even mention any ways the Epic does things better yet the Epic is apparently a better phone according to its score. I can understand your feeling about it being less of a revolutionary phone and more of a 2.0 version as supposed to something like the Omnia 1 and Omnia 2 which are two completely different phones, but you gave the Droid the same rating as the Blackberry Torch, the Dell Streak, and the HTC Wildfire which have some serious bugs and aren't anywhere near the Moto Droid 2's league in regards to specs and performance.
If you want to get upset with the service/reception issues on the Droid 2, go onto any other review site and you'll see none of them had the issues you guys had. Whether you guys were unlucky or something just happened, it isn't at all fair to deduct points for that when I doubt ANY other site had those issues. I don't know about other commenters and viewers but that's a pretty harsh deduction and you should at least consider re-evaluating the Droid 2's overall review score.
But besides my feelings on the Droid 2's review, it's not as much about the rating that upsets me as the attitude you gave us with that comment. It's so defensive that in some ways it makes me wonder if it really is true. We the viewers and commenters are more than viewers to you so quit treating us like we're slaves, doing the work by commenting and viewing the ads on your site to give you a portion of your paycheck. I really enjoy Engadget and I comment on here a lot and would love to be an editor for Engadget if given the chance but that was completely uncalled for Chris and extremely disrespectful for the people who view the site daily and comment daily.
I can understand why Engadget would be upset about the comments in regards to the iPhone 4 vs. Evo since they both got the same score yet they're two completely different phones with different operating systems and designs. I know people talk trash about Engadget's "bias" towards Apple and the iPhone but at least you gave them the same score and made fair comparisons. The iPhone 4 and Epic 4G are just so very different and more preference based so it's not as clear cut as two physical keyboard Android phones that have very similar designs (at least more similar than the iPhone vs. Evo). But the Droid 2 is a great phone and you could've at least been the smarter and more reasonable admin and said, "The reason the Droid 2 got a bad score was because of the reception and call quality issues Engadget got." or "The reason the Epic got a much higher rating was because Sprint and Samsung really worked their butts off to get the 4G galaxy phone released and though the phone isn't perfect, it's a very good alternative to the Evo." With great power comes great responsibility and I personally feel that was some unnecessary power abuse right there.
Though I will continue to go on Engadget on a daily basis and make comments, this left quite a bad taste in my mouth and I am extremely disappointed. Go Samsung Epic, go Evo, go Moto Droid 2, go iPhone 4, go Droid X, go every phone that satisfies people and I hope this doesn't happen again with another review.
@Bobo
It is strange how they give this an 8. Heck, the GPS doesn't even work.
@UptownDonkey The sense Keyboard makes up for it...
@Chris Ziegler
While you may not be directly paid off by a manufacturer to influence a review, we all know that bias exists.
The iphone, Torch, and even the Pre get the star treatment. The top editor even reviews these, goes on late night talk shows with them, etc.
Sure, it's probably not much fun reviewing the same android OS over and freaking over, but take pride and be consistent with reviews.
@War Ensemble you can still install launcher pro without rooting your phone, its not like you're stuck with touchwiz