Samsung Epix

The Samsung Epix is a mid-range Windows Mobile smartphone that debuted recently from AT&T.

This device includes both a touchscreen and an optical mouse. It also has a small QWERTY keyboard, 3G support, and Wi-Fi.

Design and Construction

The first thing that you notice about the Epix is that it bears a strong resemblance to Samsung's popular BlackJack smartphones, which has lead to some people referring to it as the BlackJack III. This dovetails nicely into my first major theme: appearances can be deceiving.

Despite the similarity, the Epix is not being marketed as a successor to the Samsung BlackJack and BlackJack II models. And for good reason: a lot of that look is skin deep. The most obvious difference is that the Epix has a touchscreen, and runs the more complex Windows Mobile Pro version of the platform.

It also looks black in the publicity photos, which led me to be surprised when I opened up the box and found that it's actually a hematite grey, like a glossy version of the color sported by the Samsung Ace. If you don't know what hematite looks like, think dark silver. It's a good look, being attractive but still businesslike. It's a little fingerprint-prone, but not so much that it becomes a distraction. I'm pretty hard to please about fingerprints, but the Epix does better than my relatively smudgable BlackJack II.

Speaking of deceptive photos, the first impression that people tend to get from looking at them is that the Epix is monstrously thick (an impression bolstered by online peanut-gallery commentators with more opinions than facts). But that's not really the case. The Epix measures out at just 0.51 inches thick, substantially less than the similarly specced AT&T Tilt and the same as the Palm Treo Pro. Both of those other devices, notably, have a smaller battery than the Epix.

Build quality is typical for Samsung, which is to say excellent. I've dropped my BlackJack II more than once onto a wood and even concrete floor without noticeable damage -- that should give you an idea how sturdily these things are built.
This brings me to the usability factor, where I have my first mixed note. The keyboard on the Epix is wonderful, as good as Samsung usually builds. But the 5-way directional control is rather questionable. The Epix has the same kind of optical-tracking pad that we first saw on the Samsung Omnia. Instead of actually moving or clicking it, you slide your finger over the sensor, and it reads the movement. You have the option of using it either as a standard 5-way directional pad, or as a kind of virtual mouse, with the optics controlling the mouse cursor.

I will say this, the optical controller works a lot better on the Epix than it did on the Omnia, if for no other reason than the fact that your finger is in a lot more natural spot to manipulate it. Still, it doesn't quite match up to a real directional pad. It's hard to move precisely when you're in 5-way mode, so much of the time you might as well just tap the screen to select menu options.
The mouse cursor is a lot more precise, and is actually surprisingly usable for day-to-day navigation. However, there's no quick and easy way to switch from directional controls to mouse and back, making navigation more difficult in apps like Opera Mini which really want a conventional directional pad. I'd much rather Samsung had combined the approaches: the optical sensor surrounded by a clickable 4-way control. That would give you the best of the classic style while still enabling the optical mouse for those times when it really is convenient.

Inside the box with the Epix you get the usual assortment of accessories -- mostly, anyway. Absent is the usual cheap headset or headphones. In its place, you get an adapter to connect standard 3.5 mm headphones to the Samsung proprietary audio jack. Better than nothing, I suppose. More and more these days the assumption seems to be that anyone serious about hands-free use will use a Bluetooth headset.