S II Front View

This is the front view of the AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II and Sprint Epic 4G Touch, which we reviewed here, side-by-side. You can see the jet-black styles of the phones are very similar, though AT&T made sure to wear its brand on its face. Both phones are powered by dual-core, 1.2GHz processors.

Sprint boasts its brand on its back, though both handsets share 8-megapixel cameras with flash that records videos in 1080p high-definition.

At 0.35 inches, AT&T’s model is thinner than the 0.38 inches of the Epic 4G Touch, and T-Mobile’s model, which measures 0.37 inches thin.

We compared holding each phone for comfort. Why? Sprint’s model is wider. Thanks to the 4.52-inch screen, it was much harder to get our hand around the Epic 4G Touch.

AT&T’s S II felt much more comfortable in our palm. It wasnt a stretch to wrap our fingers around it.

Heres the AT&T S II and Sprint Epic 4G Touch, powered on, side-by-side. Both offer Samsung’s TouchWiz interface. Note theres no puzzle piece to move from the landing screen to the 7 customizable home screens.

Note the search boxes for both handsets. Interestingly, Sprint hid its camera in the App launcher, while AT&T placed its own on one of the home screens.

AT&T included Facebook for Android in its build. Sprint did not. You have to download it.

One thing both AT&T and Sprint made sure to do was house their own proprietary apps on their respective handsets.

Now, for a quick run-through of AT&T’s S II, which goes on sale this Sunday at AT&T stores and online.

We mentioned Samsung’s TouchWiz earlier. The UI looms larger on AT&T’s model, including this Live Panel, which makes widgets and other tools accessible by pressing and holding any home screen.

Note here how we easily dragged and dropped live widgets for one-touch access to weather, news, bookmarks and social contacts on one home screen.

The S II has Motion UX sensors, enabling users to do such things as mute calls by turning over the device. Users, who can also reduce or boost screen size by tilting the phone, or pan to move icons, can enable this from the settings tab.

One motion-enabled gesture, a double tap on a home screen, allows users to access their Vlingo Voice Talk speech recognition app, which is also a staple on the Sprint phone.

Unlike the Epic 4G Touch, AT&T’s S II comes with the Qik Lite video chat app preloaded. That’s good news for users who want to conduct visual chats over WiFi with the camera’s solid 2MP front-facing shutter.

TouchWiz also boasts a Notifications Panel that allows easy management of WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and Flight Mode settings.??í