The Sprint HTC EVO 4G Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 28, 2010 6:04 PM ESTThe FM Radio
The EVO 4G ships with an FM radio app. The phone uses your headset as an antenna so you need to have one plugged in for this to work. Once running however you can manually turn on the external speaker so you don’t have to listen to the radio over earbuds if you don’t want to.
There’s one large slider to select your frequency and two buttons to move the tuner in smaller increments. You can also create presets. Unfortunately there’s no way to record audio in the app.
Reception was surprisingly good indoors, but it did depend on where I had my earbuds. If I left them on my desk I’d get a lot of noise in the audio, but in my ears it worked very well for the stations I could tune to. It didn’t work as well as a car stereo for obvious reasons. There were some stations that would come in easily in a car that I couldn’t get at all on the EVO, while others worked perfectly. No surprise there.
It’s an iPo...Android Music Player, Too
As with all other Android devices legal music purchases are supported through an Amazon MP3 Store app. If you want to get your existing music library onto the EVO 4G you do it the old fashioned way: copy it over USB.
HTC’s Sync application doesn’t support music syncing so you’ve got three options to get music and photos onto your phone.
Plugging a USB cable directly into your computer will let you treat the EVO’s microSD card as a USB storage device. Put your MP3s in the Music folder and throw whatever videos you want on the device and you’re good to go.
You can also physically remove the microSD card and stick in a card reader attached to your PC. This is a bit more irritating of a solution as you need to remove the battery to gain access to the card.
The third option is the best but it requires an additional expenditure. The Missing Sync for Android is an application that allows you to sync your movies, photos and music over WiFi or Bluetooth with your Mac or PC.
The music player app is pretty straightforward. It just plays music. You do get a healthy amount of functionality in the app however. The usual shuffle and repeat modes are there, but you can also create ringtones while you’re listing to a song. Hit the menu button, hit create a ringtone and then you have the option of using the whole song or trimming it down to the portion you want. You can then go ahead and assign the ringtone to your phone or an individual contact.
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thesafetyisoff - Thursday, July 1, 2010 - link
This article needs to be re-written after the system fix for the Evo that occurred yesterday. The over-the-air system update released on June 30, 2010 fixes the battery life issue. Really.After buying my Evo, I initially had the same problem with battery life: Even using task killer aps, the phone would drain at least 15-20% of battery power EVERY HOUR. I'd plug it in overnight and it was half dead by the time I got to my office, completely dead by lunch time. I had to get an extra charging cable for the car and the office, and it would still run out of juice if I had to be in a meeting for an extended time. And forget about airline trips entirely. To make matters worse, my phone started hanging up and spontaneously rebooting, so I couldn't even use it when it had battery life. I was about to return it when I heard that a system upgrade was pending.
The update fixed EVERYTHING. No hang-ups, no reboots, and a full charge went over 14 hours with moderate use. I don't know why htc initially shipped the phones without this fix, but the problem is now gone.
Long live the Evo - on a single charge!
worldbfree4me - Thursday, July 1, 2010 - link
Great to see a non-biased and impartial article! However, I do wonder that if this review would have been done post Sprint update, would the results have been slightly better with regards to the battery test. Battery life for me personally has not been a problem for me due to me having a charger at the Office, in the Car, at Home and a Battery pack that is used when traveling that can power 2 USB devices. Also, it is a well known fact that the Stock Android UI weighs less than the HTC Sense UI. This could be why the N1 is consistently faster then the Incredible and the EVO. I suspect FROZEN YOGURT aka 2.2 should close this gap somewhat. Overall, I feel that each of the aforementioned phones is very close in terms of overall performance.rf40928 - Friday, July 2, 2010 - link
Maybe the review for the iPhone 4 wasn't complete yet..but its funny how the Iphone 4 review that Anand did proves
Iphone 4 on a "slower" 3g network is consistantly faster then the Droid on a 4G network when it comes to the web .. I guess 4G's Peak performance is theoretically better.. but are Sprints 4G average 4g Speed numbers better then ATT's avg 3g speeds??
it would seem not..
topgun966 - Saturday, July 3, 2010 - link
I noticed you said that there is a 5gb cap on 3g. That's incorrect with the Evo. Evo plan has a $10 premium which nulls that cap. The Evo is true unlimited both 3g and 4g. Great review otherwise.OzzieGT - Friday, July 9, 2010 - link
Thanks for the honest and detailed review. It's because of this review I feel better about waiting for the Samsung Epic. A little smaller, also a good screen and the Swype keyboard are making for a very interesting package...VIDYA - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link
Samsung and nokia will remain in the future with the mature platforms and technology while the USA based companies will be eager to run and fall down before learning to walk or simply take stride....... 4G by HTC and SPRINT is a joke or a watered down format war.Announcer - Saturday, October 9, 2010 - link
My business partner and I travel between Dallas/Fort Worth and the SF bay area. I have the Sprint HTC Evo and he had the At&t Iphone 4g, The Evo 4G blows away the Iphone in the Dallas metroplex area and holds its own in the SF bay area. When I am in the Dallas tethered to my Evo with my laptop I get 6 Mbps and just surfing with the Evo everything loads faster than the Iphone on At&t. Sprint 4G rules! I did have At&t a few years ago and the customer service was horrific. I got a sprint air card and was grandfathered in on the unlimited usage. I did have a At&T HTC Tilt phone and tethered it to my laptop. The speeds on At&t were abysmal then I got the sprint aircard and went from 400kbps with At&t to 1700 kbps with sprint. Needless to say my partner paid off his At&t contract, sold his Iphone and now has a Sprint Evo 4G.