[discodave]

Thought I would add my experience to this thread.

I was originally an iPhone user. Upgraded to the iPhone 4 - but generally speaking wasn't impressed with the changes. It felt too similar to the iPhone 3GS and I wasn't willing to be locked into 2 more years with AT&T. Sure, the screen was nice but the rumor was the iPod would get it eventually and of course did.

I decided to jump to Sprint and get the Epic. Reserved the thing at both Sprint and Best Buy. Needless to say I was very excited for the phone to come out. Based on the specs, it looked like the perfect Android device with one exception - I had no need for the keyboard. Also, the lack of battery details was a concern.

My first impressions of the phone were great. I didn't mind the TouchWiz as much as people claimed I would. Android was proving to be more capable really than iOS is. The display was fantastic. However, it did feel cheap. It's probably the weight of the device. And, on the second day - it broke. The screen began to have a constant green hue similar to back in the day a vga cable being halfway plugged into your computer. I was able to easily exchange for a replacement.

I continued to use the new device without hardware issue. It does, however, have a lot of little problems. The GPS works, but it is slow. The keyboard ended up being very annoying to me. For the most part that was due to having no real use for it. I was getting a thicker phone for a feature I had no interest in. Second, holding it in your hand the top half slides open just a tiny bit every time you press your fingers against the sides. The charging base on the top and power button on the side are both misses for me. The SD card every once in awhile would "not be found" and you'd have to take it out and re-seat it. The front facing camera is embarrassingly bad. More or less unusable. The Samsung "Media Hub" is a joke as well. Perhaps it will get better one day -but what they launched with is silly.

I decided to take another look at the EVO. The major negative initially to me on the Evo was device size (it seemed like a tank next to the iPhone) and battery life. As the Epic battery life is terrible, that became a moot point. The device size suddenly didn't bother me. Where the size increase from iPhone to Evo seemed significant to me, suddenly from Epic to Evo it was not. Others have discussed in great technical details how the Epic is faster. It probably is. However, the Evo did not feel slow to me. I'm not primarily concerned with games on the device, so some type of lower FPS was not a concern. And really coming from the iPhone...the games in the Android store benefiting from a higher frame rate is close to non existant. What would have worried me was a lagging interface. That did not seem to be the case. It also feels like a build is just of a higher quality. Again, I think this might be due to weight.

So, on day 29 with my Epic I exchanged it for an Evo. Just a few days in with the Evo it seems like it really is a flagship device. The Epic is nice but it feels...cheap. It feels like corners were cut. For me, if you don't need a keyboard - no brainer, get the Evo.