Check out our Samsung Epix review, as we take a look at what happens when AT&T's BlackJack grows up and gets a real job.
Review summary of the Samsung Epix:
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 The Samsung Epix is a good, powerful phone, but we can't help but feel like somewhere along the way, Samsung lost their way with their Windows Mobile concept. The original Samsung BlackJack was slim, light, perhaps underpowered but easy to use. The Samsung Epix is thick, powerful, chock full of innovative features and a bit of strain where it should be much more convenient. Sure, the phone adds a touchscreen and the first optical mouse we've seen on a U.S. phone, but was anyone clamoring for these features? Surely not us, as the Windows Mobile Pro operating system isn't as sleek and efficient as the WinMo Standard OS on the BlackJack II, and we're not sure about the need for a mouse on a smartphone. If the size and the complex OS don't bug you, there's plenty to recommend this phone, including great connectivity options and a lightly polished theme that gives the interface some pinstripe class and loads of features. There are some cool bonus apps like a Wikipedia reference and all the multimedia features AT&T can muster. But even with all that good stuff, we remember when Samsung was the undisputed king of thin phones, and we wish the company had gone in that direction instead. Release: October 2008. Price: $200.
Pros: Powerful phone with loads of features, including Wi-Fi, GPS, 3G networking and some nice 3rd-party apps. Excellent battery life.
Cons: Optical mouse didn't improve navigation. Phone is very thick compared to previous models. Internet Explorer was buggy on our review unit.
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Full Samsung Epix Review:
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Design - Good
The Samsung Epix looks a lot like the Samsung BlackJack, but please don't call it that (BlackBerry's RIM might sue). It's a slab QWERTY phone, but the updated Samsung Epix adds some hardware features to the mix of which the BlackJack never dreamed. Instead of a navigation button in the center of the phone, the Samsung Epix uses an optical mouse. In our tests, the mouse, which looks like a simple black button, worked very well. It was quite sensitive and tracked our movements smoothly, without stuttering. The question is whether Windows Mobile Professional actually needs a mouse. The Epix uses the Professional version of WinMo 6.1 and not the Standard edition, as the BlackJack II did, because it also includes a touchscreen. In our experience, the optical mouse and the touchscreen in effect cancelled each other out. Windows Mobile Pro needs an interface boost, for sure, because it isn't a very finger-friendly interface on its own, but the optical mouse simply added a pointer into the mix, and this occasionally made the system even more difficult to use.
Scrolling, for example, was a chore. On the Samsung BlackJack II, we clamored for the return of the clickwheel to help with scrolling. The optical mouse on the Samsung Epix is even worse, as you have to move the pointer to the cursor on the scroll bar, click and hold the mouse, then move your finger. Menu items now needed to be pointed and clicked. The optical mouse adds an extra level of necessary precision that Windows Mobile could do without. The system won't accept close call; if you click near a check box in Windows Vista, the system will understand and highlight your choice. Not so on Windows Mobile, where you have to have perfect aim.
The touchscreen on the device seemed similarly unnecessary because it didn't help us do anything the pointer couldn't. We could move the mouse to our selection or peck at it with our fingernail, but either way it was an unfriendly option. Please, Samsung, bring back the clickwheel. Just because RIM uses a pointer on their BlackBerry phones doesn't mean it's the best option.
The Samsung Epix is also now a considerably thick phone, where the older BlackJack was impressively thin. We think this is the wrong direction for Samsung's Windows Mobile family. While the Epix is considerably more powerful, with Wi-Fi, a touchscreen and that optical mouse, we'd sacrifice all those features if Samsung would return to its old stomping ground making record-shattering thin phones. To their credit, Samsung has also polished up the standard WinMo OS just a bit, adding some pinstripes and some nice theme elements to a few of the apps. But we miss the thin slabs, as even Motorola has abandoned this attribute as a priority on their Motorola Q phones.
Calling - Very good
Calls on the Samsung Epix didn't sound great, not as good as they did on the older Samsung BlackJack II, but the phone makes up for the problematic call quality with some impressive calling features. In our tests, the phone received fairly good reception, a consistent 4 bars on AT&T's 3G HSDPA network in lower Manhattan and our suburban home office. Still, calls had a mechanical, brassy quality to them that added a steady buzz as callers listened to us. Things sounded better on our end while using the phone, though. Despite it's 3G radio, Samsung has packed an extra-large 1800mAh battery into the device, which gives it a whopping 7 hours of battery life. That's among the longest call times we've seen on a smartphone, again rivaling RIM's BlackBerry devices, though the premium battery comes with a dramatic size and weight gain.
The Windows Mobile address book on the Samsung Epix gets a subtle bit of visual polish. Just enough to make the contact list look a bit more clean on this phone, but nothing as dramatic as what you'll find on HTC's phones. Windows Mobile is our favorite device for calling lists, both because it synchronizes so perfectly with our Exchange server and because the phone starts searching your contacts the minute you start typing a name, even on the Today screen. Conference calling was easy enough, the standard Windows Mobile fare, with just a bit of menu drilling involved. The phone uses Microsoft's Voice Commands app for speaker-independent voice dialing, but we had siginificant trouble getting the app to dial numbers for us. The Voice Commands shares the tiny MediaNET key at the bottom of the keyboard as a dedicated key, while we prefer this feature tied to the "Send" key. When we asked it to dial a number, it usually just timed out and made no attempt. When we had to choose between mobile and work numbers, it timed out again. We couldn't get the phone to dial a number as we spoke, but it was able to jump directly to a song in Windows Media Player when we spoke the song title, so at least there's that.
Messaging - Very good
The Samsung Epix gets a simple, yet effective blend of messaging apps. Nothing special, and not much beyond the standard Windows Mobile setup except for AT&T's Xpress Mail app, which was helpful for setting up POP and IMAP accounts, in addition to our Exchange account. For Instant Messaging fans, the phone has a basic, dated-looking client for AOL, MSN and Yahoo support. SMS and MMS were easy to use, but included a wireframe interface and no extra frills. The dedicated messaging key is also hidden at the bottom of the keyboard, a tiny little mailbox icon in the lower right corner. We think these dedicated keys would be easier to remember, and therefore more convenient to use, if they were up top, near the screen.
Otherwise, the keyboard was very comfortable. Each key is its own discrete, raised bubble, and we had no trouble typing on the keypad. The keys may be a bit stiff, but we actually liked their resilience, as it made us less likely to accidentally press the wrong letter. We wish the keyboard would learn some new tricks, though. We like when a messaging app automatically inserts a period and capitalizes the next word after we press the space bar twice, and we especially like when the keyboard activates a symbol key when we hold down a letter, instead of repeating the letter on screen, which we find to be a useless feature on a phone. The Samsung Epix does neither of these, but we'll take a solid keyboard over tricks any day.
Scheduling and productivity - Very good
Samsung and AT&T have loaded the Samsung Epix with productivity software, and while some of these may be more gimmicky or limited in scope, the companies definitely get an "A" for effort. The standard Windows Mobile Office suite is there, and Excel may be the only app on the phone that actually benefits from the optical mouse over a clickwheel, since the mouse makes selecting specific cells easier. Otherwise, the phone also comes loaded with a Mobile Banking app, though our bank, a popular national institution, doesn't participate so we couldn't test it out. The Samsung Epix also gets a dedicated Weather Channel app, which was a nice looking bit of software, though we wish it could use the GPS sensor to find our location. A barebones Wikipedia app called WikiMobile also provides text-heavy Wiki-access on the go. For scheduling, the Samsung Epix doesn't improve much on the standard Windows Mobile calendar, adding a bit of color here and there. It's still impressively effective and robust, but it could be much prettier.
Multimedia - Good
Samsung has included their own skin for the Windows Media Player app on the Samsung Epix, and it looks just a bit like the media player we saw on the Samsung Omnia. It seemed a bit out of place, considering the beige theme didn't match the blue pinstripes we saw elsewhere on the phone, and we were also disappointed that the skin didn't add any advanced functionality to the Windows Media player. Playback options were still woefully limited, and the phone did a poor job finding our media in the first place, forcing us to manually switch between the phone's built-in memory and our microSD card. Windows Mobile should just search everywhere for music, pictures and videos, instead of leaving us confused. Though our cards were synchronized with Windows Media Player, none of our album artwork came through on this phone.
We also need to chide Samsung yet again for their choice of a proprietary adapter instead of a standard port. The proprietary port takes the place of the phone's power adapter and USB port, and the Samsung Epix comes with a dongle to attach headphones. We obviously prefer a standard 3.5mm jack built right onto the phone, and wish that, at the very least, Samsung would abandon this adapter and move to a USB variety, like everyone else on the market.
Besides the music playback, the Samsung Epix had trouble with the videos we sideloaded onto the device. It could only play our basic WMV files, excluding a few MP4 videos, 3GP videos and QuickTime .mov files. For streaming video, AT&T's cellular video looked good when reception was strong, but not so much when the bars took a momentary dip. Videos were still pixilated and blocky, a far cry from AT&T's much more advanced Mobile TV service, and content was limited to short clips from the likes of CNN, ESPN and others.
Web browsing - Mediocre
The Internet Explorer app on the Samsung Epix gave us a load of trouble, and not just because the browser is lagging way behind the times. Often, pages simply wouldn't load, wouldn't even start to load, when the browser gave up and blanked out on us. Whether we were under Wi-Fi or 3G reception, we had this problem frequently, though a restart of the phone would usually solve the issue. We can't speak to every Samsung Epix on the market, but our review unit had problems with this browser. This would have been more disappointing if we actually enjoyed using Internet Explorer, but it has never been our favorite option, even on Windows Mobile phones, where we prefer the Opera Mini browser.
GPS navigation - Good
The Samsung Epix uses AT&T Navigator for turn-by-turn navigation, and in our tests the app worked nice and smoothly. The phone managed to find us wherever we were hidden, including in our sea-of-cubicles office space. The AT&T Navigator app wasn't as polished or feature-rich as similar offerings on Verizon Wireless, and it should take better advantage of the touch screen. When we dragged the map, instead of seeing the map pan under our finger, we found ourselves dragging a blank wire frame that needed to refresh to show us more information. Also, we miss the traffic updates and route suggestions we've seen on VZ Navigator.
Camera - Good
Samsung has made some nice improvements to the standard camera interface on Windows Mobile, adding plenty of easy-to-use touchable buttons to the screen. The settings menu gets the most improvements, and it's now much more touch-friendly. The 2-megapixel camera on the Samsung Epix was mediocre, but no worse than an average cameraphone. We saw loads of purple fringing around objects, and noise caused serious pollution in fine details.
Decorated pole
Things get off to a fine start, as the camera keeps up with all the colors, though the reds are definitely oversaturated. Purple fringing also starts to show up where objects intersect with the sky on the right side of the frame.
Street scene
Lots of fringing against the sky, and most of the details are lost on the New Yorkers in black clothing. Still, on this overcast day, colors looked accurate to real life.
Self portrait
Perhaps this editor looks so perturbed because the camera is making his face look like he has a skin condition on the left cheek (I do not, by the way).
Graffiti van
Fringing aside, the camera did a fine job here, and this picture would be plenty detailed to send to the police to report the crime of too many paint drips on this graffiti.
Price and availability
The Samsung Epix is available now for $200, after a $100 mail-in rebate.
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