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HTC EVO 4G: USA’s first 4G phone

Pros:
Nice design, beautiful screen, WiMax speeds, fast, Android 2.2 around the corner, multimedia powerhouse

Cons: Huge, only comes with 8GB microSD card, Battery Life, 4G isn’t available everywhere, comes with a month $10 charge for 4G no matter where you live.

Summary: If you don’t mind carrying a charger around, or its large size, this is the best Android phone on the market right now. If not, check out the Droid Incredible.

Quite possibly the most hyped Android device in recent history—the HTC EVO 4G—has finally arrived. Sporting a massive 4.3-inch capacitive screen, and the ability to utilize Sprint’s WiMax (4G) network, the phone is marked technological advancement in the Android camp. The phone also includes a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 8-MP camera, Bluetooth, 1.3-MP front-facing camera, and the ability to act as a 3G/4G hotspot.

Design and Hardware:

Just like the HTC HD2, the EVO 4G is a sight to behold, with a beautiful 4.3-inch screen and shockingly thin profile. Measuring in at 4.8 inches tall by 2.6 inches wide by 0.5 inch thick and weighing 6 ounces this is quite a big piece of tech. While the phone is large, it isn’t too heavy and can comfortably be held by hand. The overall design is relatively sleek and modern, with a mostly black face and slight silver/red accents on various parts of the phone. The four buttons at the bottom of the phone are touch sensitive, so there are no physical keys on the face of the phone. On the back of the phone you will find a kickstand, which deserves special mention as it is one the first phones I have ever seen to include one. This is a great addition for those who wish to watch TV shows or movies while on-the-go.

The 4.3-inch WVGA touchscreen on the EVO 4G is beautiful to say the least. Although, the screen is not an AMOLED screen such as those seen on Samsung models, its quality is still impeccable. Colors are rich and vibrant, and everything just simply looks good. The large screen ensures that reading emails and watching movies is an enjoyable and unique experience. The touch screen is responsive and does not seem to have any major lags. However, I must note that there have been reports that when the phone is not held in one’s hand and is lying flat (i.e. on a couch cushion) the screen loses responsiveness. For me, this is not a huge issue, but it would be nice if it could be fixed by a software upgrade.

Although the EVO 4G doesn’t have a physical keyboard it is still relatively easy to type on because of its large screen. Since everything is more spread out you can easily type with two thumbs even in portrait mode. The keyboard also comes standard with word completion software, which is nice addition given the extra screen real estate.

The phone also includes a 3.5mm headphone jack, charge/sync port, HDMI video-out port, volume controls, microSD card slot with included 8 GB card, front and rear facing cameras.

Software and Features:

The phone comes installed with Android 2.1 and HTC Sense. This is the latest version of Android currently available, so aside from the standard apps, you also get features like Google Maps, Navigation, voice-to-text entry, and moving wallpapers. And if that wasn’t good enough, Android 2.2—Froyo—is soon to be released bringing faster processing speeds and Flash 10.1 support.

The EVO 4G also runs the latest version of HTC Sense, with new and improved applications such as email, agenda, weather, group contacts, and more. One neat feature of the Sense interface is its ability to aggregate all of your contacts information into one location. For example, if your friend updates his Facebook status it will appear right next to their picture along with all their text messages, calls, emails, etc. In addition, Sense has a new feature called Friend Stream which provides a single location for all your social-networking updates. Another great feature of the Sense UI, is the Leap screen which allows a user to pinch his or her home screen (or hold the home button) to bring up a view of all seven of their home screen panels. In addition to these seven screens the user can also access seven different “scenes”, which bring up themed panels such as Social, Work, Entertainment, etc.

Multimedia is where the EVO 4G can really shine. It is one the first phones to come packaged with YouTube’s high quality player, SprintTV, a fully featured music player, and the performance specifications necessary to play high-quality mobile games. Further, the phone will also come packaged with Qik video chat application. This will allow all EVO 4G users to make video phone calls over Wi-Fi and WiMax networks. Another benefit of Qik over the iPhone 4′s video chat feature is that it does not require the other person to have an EVO 4G. Qik can be downloaded to any computer, which means users can chat with their friends on their phone while they sit in front of their laptop or desktop.

Performance:

The EVO 4G comes with an 8-MP camera that is quite amazing. It takes great pictures and it will definitely come in handy should you need to take any spur of the moment pictures. While it doesn’t hold a candle to a standard point-and-shoot let alone and SLR, it takes great pictures for a cell phone. While in use the camera is continually reacting to the surrounding environment by auto focusing and adjusting exposure as necessary. At 100% resolution the pictures can appear somewhat grainy, but if shrunken or uploaded to Facebook, they should be more than satisfactory. The camera allows you to control brightness, contrast, saturation, and sharpness. You also have the option of geo tagging your photos.

Video recording was also very good with HD quality (720p). Videos can be recorded using either the front or rear-facing camera.

Top image is 100% crop, while bottom image is resized. As you can see quality is very good for a phone.

Philadelphia is lucky enough to be one the few spots in the country with comprehensive 4G coverage. Surfing the internet with the phone was great and speeds were noticeably faster. The 4G signal did seem to vary from strong to weak somewhat randomly, but when it was good, it worked really well. Phone calls were great; although there have been reports that when outdoors EVO 4G users can sound fuzzy and often be drowned out by the surrounding noise.

The EVO 4G is outfitted with a 1GHz Snapdragon processor (that can be over-clocked to 1.2GHz) and 512MB of RAM. This was more than enough to keep the phone running quickly and smoothly. It did not seem quite as fast other phones I have used with the same processor, but they were likely less graphics heavy. Just like with any Android phone, apps occasionally crashed and the phone lagged here and there but overall using the phone is a pleasant experience.

The biggest downfall of this device is its battery life which is atrocious to say the least. With every power saving feature turned on you may be able to squeeze a day’s worth of life out of the phone. However, most people have reported that under normal usage the phone will last about 4 to 5 hours before needing to be recharged. No matter how amazing the phone, it isn’t worth much if you can’t use it for more than a couple hours. If you buy this phone, buy an extra battery if not two.

Design and Hardware Rating: 8.5/10

Software and Features Rating: 9.5/10

Performance Rating: 8.0/10

Overall Rating: 8.7/10 – Very Good

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