Design:
The HTC EVO 4G is very similar in design to the HD2, but when you have a 4.3” screen there isn’t much else you can do with the phone. Instead of physical buttons as on the HD2, the HTC EVO 4G has four flush capacitive buttons: Home, Menu, Back and Search. These buttons work flawlessly, unlike the Nexus One which gave us problems and had to be touched just so. At the top is the silver earpiece grill, and to the right of that is the small front-facing 1.3MP camera. The rest of the phone is equally simplistic: a volume rocker resides on the right side, the top houses the 3.5mm headphone jack and power button and the bottom features the microUSB and HDMI ports. The side buttons all offer good travel, and while the volume rocker raises more prominently from the housing both it and the power button are easy to operate on feel alone.
BUY FROM AMAZON:
We've been rumoring a WiMAX "HTC Supersonic" for a while now, and Sprint just dropped the hard news: the phone will be dubbed the HTC EVO 4G, will be released this Summer and it's easily the best specced phone we've ever witnessed. The hardware is of quite obvious HD2 descent, but with Android onboard and some nice aesthetic tweaks, the EVO 4G takes on a life of its own. The handset is centered around a 480 x 800 4.3-inch TFT LCD, with a Snapdragon QSD8650 1GHz processor under the hood (the CDMA version of the QSD8250 in the HD2 and Nexus One), and even a helpful 1GB of built-in memory and 512MB of RAM -- hello app storage! Even the battery is bigger than the HD2, and the camera is an 8 megapixel monstrosity with flash, that's capable of 720p video, and is augmented by a 1.3 megapixel front facing camera for good measure. The phone features HDMI out (though you'll need an adapter for turning it into a TV-familiar HDMI plug), 802.11b/g WiFi, and an 8GB microSD card. There's that still-rare Android 2.1 underneath an updated version of HTC's Sense UI. But... despite all these wild features, what actually sets the EVO 4G apart is the fact that it's Sprint's first 4G phone. The handset runs a combo of EV-DO Rev. A and WiMAX, with calls still being made over CDMA and the EV-DO / WiMAX options for data. Interestingly, it sounds like concurrent data and voice use might be possible for the first time on CDMA carrier in this way (killing AT&T's well-advertised differentiator), though Sprint says that's still in the testing phase. One other new feature is the Sprint hotspot app, another MiFi-style connection sharing number, which is obviously aided greatly by the WiMAX on board and can support up to eight concurrent users. Follow after the break for our hands-on impressions and videos of the phone in action, including an up-close-and-personal test of the touchscreen keyboard. Below you'll find galleries of the phone by its lonesome and up against the Nexus One and iPhone 3G.
Then there is the 4.3” capacitive display, which absolutely takes over the HTC EVO 4G. It is bright and crisp and reading text on the EVO 4G is a dream. While it has received some flack for not being AMOLED we didn’t notice a real difference from the Nexus One, and the EVO’s TFT display was more usable in direct sunlight. Our complaint is that HTC continues to only use 65K color displays. With devices like the iPhone, Pre and DROID sporting 16M colors we don’t think that at least 262K is too much to ask for. You won’t look at the HTC EVO 4G and lament the display, but we’d bet if shoppers put it side-by-side with the Pre the difference would be noticeable to a discerning eye.
At 6 ounces the EVO 4G is undoubtedly on the heavy side, but feels surprisingly good in the hand. The weight is well distributed and it feels more solid than the Nexus One did when holding it one-handed, though the EVO feels most comfortable when held two-handed. The size will obviously be a drawback for those with petite hands, but the phone didn’t overwhelm our medium-sized mitts. It is thinner than Sprint’s Hero and feels surprisingly similar in the pocket. The build quality is top notch, and with no moving parts the EVO 4G is definitely one of the most well put-together phones we’ve ever reviewed. There is no brushed aluminum or unibody, but the EVO is without a doubt a premium device.
