There’s competition coming the way of the HTC EVO 4G – with Samsung having recently introduced its first 4G smartphone, the ‘Samsung Epic,’ on Sprint, which, incidentally, is also the carrier on which the EVO was launched earlier this month.

The key features of the newly-released Samsung Epic include: a 4-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen; a slide-out keyboard; a 1-GHz Hummingbird processor from Samsung; and two cameras - a 5-megapixel camera for shooting movies and photos, and a 0.3-megapixel front-facing VGA camera for video conferencing.

The forthcoming Samsung Epic – the price of which still remains undisclosed - will run version 2.1 of the Google Android OS. However, according to the information forwarded by both Samsung and Sprint, the handset will be upgraded to the latest version of Android - Android 2.2 ‘Froyo.’

To appeal to corporate users in particular, the Samsung Epic handset features supports push e-mail, integrated calendar and Exchange ActiveSync. In addition, the smartphone also has a service called ‘AllShare’, which will enable users, in general, to wirelessly exchange music, pictures and video with other devices.

The Epic forms a part of Samsung’s new line of the Android-based ‘Galaxy S’ handsets, which basically feature 4-inch screens, run Android, and boast the integration of social networking feeds from Facebook and Twitter - along with e-mail messages, contacts and calendars - a single screen.