Gadgetory

this is David with a verge and this is the HTC EVO 4G LTE for Sprint it's the successor to the Evo 4G which was one of the best phones Sprint's ever had and when it came out in 2010 was one of the best Android phones on the market period this phone's basically the One X just with some new styling and slight tweaks for Sprint the back of the phone is what's most noticeably different there are two different ports to the back there's a matte black piece on the bottom which is really smooth and feels really nice and up top there's a glossy finish with the red ringed camera lens inside it and it's a really nice look when you first take it out of the box but after about five minutes of using it the top part starts to pick up a lot of fingerprints and just really doesn't look as good and you'll find yourself wiping it off constantly trying to get it back to a clean finish in between the two pieces there's a red stripe which actually houses a kickstand sprint really loves kick stands for some reason and this one's a pretty good one it'll actually hold up the phone in a couple of different positions and orientations and it's totally unobtrusive so you really won't even see it if you don't actually want to use it it's kind of hard to get out but is a nice feature to have if you want to watch videos or use your phone at your bedside table other than that this is a really well-built phone just like the One X and the one s before it it's really solid and sturdy and has kind of a metallic feel thanks to a metal ring around the edges it's a really nice phone and just really good to hold in your hand even though it's enormous other than the look the Evo 4G LTE is basically the same phone as the One X it has a 4.7 inch 720p Super LCD display which is just fantastic it has amazing viewing angles it and Kretz incredibly accurate and it's just one of the best displays we've ever seen on a smartphone there's also an 8 megapixel camera in the back along with HCC's image sense chip which makes the whole app experience really fast the camera can actually shoot in a burst mode up to 200 shots all at once which is pretty crazy for a smartphone the app itself is really good and it works really well there's a ton of options for shooting photos but the photos that come out are good but not anything to write home about there's some dynamic range issues and in low-light it's not great so it's good for a smartphone but you'll definitely know you're taking pictures with a phone there's also a 1.3 megapixel front camera which is fine it's totally average for a smartphone and the camera will shoot 1080p video which is pretty much the same story it's good and the app is great but the results are not exactly mind-blowing also like the 1x the Evo 4G LTE is running Android 4.0 with Sense 4.0 the latest version of HTC is UI skin it's the best version of sense we've seen yet but it's still kind of an overwrought skin that causes some problems on Android 4.0 and really just disrupts the design language that Android and Google have worked really hard to build and it's not a huge problem and it's definitely not as bad or a drag on the phone as it's been in the past but it's not as good as just pure stock Android the performance on all of the HTC One series phones that we've tested has been pretty amazing and the Evo 4G LTE is definitely no exception it runs games really well if the browser performance is great it's just a really solid phone that I had almost no issues using reception call Claudia are both pretty much what you'd expect from a sprint phone though thanks to a new technology called HD voice it's about to get a lot better HD voice basically makes phone calls sound like Skype calls much clearer and richer and fuller but you'll need both a network and a phone that supports it and those aren't really rolled out yet and that that same it's coming mantra is a common theme with the Evo 4G LTE right now it's network performance isn't all that good you're on Sprint's slower 3G network but Sprint's in the process of upgrading its network to LTE so what you're buying now is a phone that should be great and fast a year from now but right now is definitely lacking in data speeds even without LTE killing the battery the battery life on the Evo isn't really that great we've got about 8 hours of moderate use with pushing email and Twitter and some web browsing and video watching and the huge culprit is obviously the enormous display you should be able to get a full day out of it but you're gonna want to be careful the evo 4G LTE is absolutely the best Android phone available on Sprint right now it's also maybe the smartest buy since its future proof and will be able to be on Sprint's LTE network when it's finally ready the only problem is we're not really sure when that's gonna be and the rollout is likely to be slow over the next couple of years if you're committed to Sprint you should absolutely buy this phone now but if you have your choice for right now you're probably better off with a phone like the One X which is a really similar phone and can already connect to 18 T's LTE network