Gadgetory

everybody its Joe with pocketnow.com if you've been over to Sprint's website anytime in the last little bit you'll probably notice there's an awful lot of phones available to choose from about forty to four of them however our iPhones and you thought that he only had one but 19 19 of them are Androids what's the Android that's on top it's the HTC EVO 4G LTE we got a chance to review it let's go take a look so when you pick up your HTC EVO 4G LTE from your nearest Sprint store from the website you'll notice it comes in this kind of a understated brown box so when you open the box you're gonna notice your phone sitting there right on top after the manuals you'll notice that we've got a really nice microUSB cable you've also got a nice HTC branded wall wart there just a two-prong this is a u.s. one after all you will not find a micro SD card anywhere in there it's not there you're not gonna find a GSM card because you don't need it not even for LTE which is unusual you're also going to notice that although the phone has Beats Audio included in it it does not include any Beats Audio certified headphones in fact there are no headphones let's talk a little bit about the design HTC got a black guy because all of their phones in the past were kind of a cookie cutter they all looked the same it was all just essentially the same phone with different guts with the HTC One family HTC is changing all of that the evil 4G LTE though named differently than the one series is most certainly one of the family the Evo is a beautiful device although the edges of the 4.7 inch display don't employ the same infinity edges that the One X does the black aluminium surrounding it makes the edges all but disappear the front of the device holds an elegant earpiece with a hidden notification LED a subtle HTC logo and three capacitive buttons at the bottom of the screen the Sprint and HTC logos are on the back they're very subtle and they help to emphasize the phone rather than the carrier and the manufacturer the back of the phone is mostly a matte aluminum giving the Evo 4G LTE a durable feel oddly the top of the phone is a high-gloss material it's a removable plastic piece that's probably the best surface for attracting fingerprints and smudges that I've ever seen hiding under this glossy panel is an empty microSD card slot which will accept up to 32 gig cards to supplement its internal 16 gig of storage separating the two materials on the back of the phone is a red strip of aluminum that can be pulled out and used as a kickstand I keep asking myself why this ridiculously useful component isn't available on every smartphone and tablet made today the Evo 4G LTE feels great in the hand the anat eyes de luminance pace frame as they call it has just the right amount of grip without sacrificing style combined with the device is lightweight only 134 grams which is four point seven two ounces the evo 4G LTE feels light but not cheap along the sides of the device are the usual components a headphone jack noise cancelling mic and a power or standby button on the top which doubles as a panel removal notch the volume up and down rocker and a camera button appear on the right side and the primary microphone is on the bottom on the left side is the microUSB connector and nothing else made from durable materials with high quality workmanship with its elegant lines and chiseled edges the evil 4G LTE doesn't disappoint and it's gonna help put HTC back on top when the phone's only negative element is its glossy top you know you've got something pretty good in hand the Evo runs a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon s4 clocked at 1.5 gigahertz and featuring one gig of ddr2 ram we've seen phones with more cores but with these scores I don't think you're gonna notice much of a difference with this combination this isn't the Tegra 3 quad core that we've seen in some other phones but even the HTC One X had noticeable lag in some elements of the UI this evil 4G LTE has the same noticeable lag and in the same places this leads me to believe that the lag isn't hardware related and can likely be addressed in future updates and optimizations to Sense 4.0 honestly I don't miss the beefier processor storage is more limited than I liked but you can add your own microSD card to this phone and it comes with 25 gig of Dropbox cloud storage as well team that up with Google music and your music library is close by it when you want it the massive 4.7 inch 720p HD Super LCD display is beautiful even in sunlight the screen was clear usable and even comfortably readable I'm not often surprised by a screen but this screen is the bee's knees let's move on to software and talked about HTC Sense with Sense 4.0 HTC has improved in almost every area it's lighter it's faster and it adds a level of finesse that other launchers just don't have subtle animations are everywhere but not over-the-top the translucent menu bar opens up the screen and makes it appear larger and I don't know how I'll be able to live without the sense 4.0 walk screen when I have to send this phone back like we mentioned before some of these niceties come at a cost that cost is noticeable lag in areas where speed is most important like opening the running apps list and the app drawer not necessarily part of sense the soft keyboard on the Evo 4G LTE also falls short the speed and accuracy of HTC's keyboard still isn't competing with even the stock ICS keyboard let alone third-party alternatives luckily swapping the keyboard or IME isn't difficult to do it's just something that you shouldn't have to do so how much bloatware does the evil 4G LTE have there are 19 apps on there that you might consider to be bloatware although Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich allows you to disable apps that you want displayed in your app drawer the apps are still there they're still taking up space they're still slowing down your phone and they're still opening you up to potential security holes so what about the Sprint network is it any good and how about that LTE that we keep saying in the name of the phone unless you're in one of only a couple urban areas in the country your fancy sprint LTE phone will only get 3G even if you live right next door to a WiMAX umbrella like I do the only reason I bring this up is because without WiMAX AT&T and t-mobile HSPA+ network make the Evo 4G LTE look snail slow let's not even talk about LTE speeds on Verizon and AT&T that comparison it'll only make you cry voice on the other hand was reliable though not remarkable calls sounded ok but not spectacular I was able to get clearer calls to Tony in Romania using Skype than I was using Sprint's voice Network Beats Audio is nothing short of amazing you owe it to yourself to try it out for its primary shooter that evil has an 8 megapixel camera on the back with a relatively small LED flash with an F 2.0 lens and autofocus the pictures that are taken on the device looked really good after dumping them over to my computer they turned out to be only average the reason for this appears to be the super LCD screen which makes average shots look way better than they actually are brightly lit subjects tend to be overexposed and low-light images are still a bit grainy the camera app on the other hand is quite nice its beauty is in its simplicity want a still shot tap the shutter button want a video press the video button that's it simple elegant no swapping between modes pressing the right button does it for you the 2 thousand milliamp hour battery isn't removable but it's appropriately sized for the phone and for your normal tasks I've been amazed at the runtime I've gotten out of this phone all is the realest however I have to wonder how much LTE when it's finally available will impact the battery in the meantime under Wi-Fi or 3G the evo 4G LTE has the best battery life of any phone I've ever tested so how did the evo 4G LTE finally score after having to dock at a point here and there we ended up with a solid seven point seven if you're already on the Sprint network or looking at changing carriers you can pick up a new HTC EVO 4G LTE for one $99.99 if you sign up for a two-year contract or five 49.99 if you don't now it's not available just quite yet but it should be available soon though they did close down the pre-orders at least at the time of this video we think you'll really like this phone and if you want to know more about it head on over to the article at pocketnow.com for pocket now shown off brand new phones I'm Joe Levi