Leak photos of the rumored Samsung slider phone coming to Verizon Wireless show striking similarities to Sprint’s Samsung Epic 4G. The photos were emailed by a tipster to the folks at AndroidCentral.

On first glance, the front does look like the Samsung Epic 4G, except for a few differences in the keyboard layout. For instance, the Shift and FN buttons on the Samsung Epic 4G exchange their places on the Verizon phone. Dedicated email and Internet buttons have been added beside the space bar, and the emoticons button has been made a secondary function of the space bar. The home and back buttons for navigation also switched places on Verizon’s version.

The photo also shows what appears to be an icon for 4G LTE on the status bar, which means that the device is (possibly) 4G/LTE-capable. And, if so, it would be Verizon’s first 4G/LTE-capable QWERTY slider Android smartphone.

A third photo shows a partial shot of the phone info screen and reveals Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread onboard. Most Gingerbread smartphones are still at version 2.3.3.

For reference, here’s a front view of the Samsung Epic 4G:

The photos’ source described the slider phone’s screen as “awesome” and “better than the [Fascinate's],” which makes us presume it’s Super AMOLED Plus. Further, the source said that the phone’s rear camera is 5-megapixel–pretty much like that on the Samsung Epic 4G. The front camera is 1.3-megapixel.

Could this be the rumored Samsung Galaxy Function, Verizon’s rebrand of the global blockbuster Samsung Galaxy S II?

Image credit: AndroidCentral