The Sprint HTC EVO 4G Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 28, 2010 6:04 PM ESTSprint Mobile Hotspot
True story. I was in line waiting for my iPhone 4 pre-order (for 6 hours) and we were too far from the Apple store to use Apple’s WiFi. Everyone instead had to rely on AT&T’s 3G. Everyone except me of course.
I pulled out the EVO 4G and with a couple of taps created a WiFi hotspot sharing my 4G connection with anyone who wanted it. The process was not only ridiculously simple but also made me feel like a benevolent ISP. It rocked.
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You get full visibility of how many users are connected to your hotspot along with their MAC and IP addresses. You don’t have the ability to kick off specific users although you can always shut down the hotspot. There’s a timeout option that will automatically turn the hotspot off after 10 minutes of no activity.
It’s actually amazingly simple and works very well. You can host up to 8 simultaneous users on your hotspot although given the limited bandwidth I’m not sure you’d want to.
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The obvious downside is the feature costs $29.99 per month, it needs to be added to your plan by Sprint. This is actually the most expensive tethering plan out of all of the major carriers. It is also the most capable. With this plan you get unlimited downloads over the 4G network and up to 5GB/mo of data transfers on Sprint’s 3G network. If you happen to venture on to a non-Sprint network you’re limited to 300MB/mo of transfers.
Sprint’s Apps
Sprint subsidizes the cost of the EVO 4G, dropping it to $299.99 with a new 2 year agreement. There’s also a $100 mail in rebate that will drop the total cost of the phone to $199.99. In exchange for the subsidy you’re required to pay your monthly fee for two years. As an added bonus, you also get a handful of Sprint apps installed.
The apps themselves aren’t very useful and honestly just take up space on the device by default. While I understand the desire of a carrier to be more than a pipe to the Internet, the right way to go about that is to acquire companies that are making killer apps and bundle those with your phones.
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Belard - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link
I'm not on Sprint... but a friend has this phone and its very nice.... and huge.If they come out with an unlocked version, I may consider it... but the size is both plus and minus. Yeah, the kick stand is handy. And doing TEXTING by voice without actually using keys is handy... he says it freaks people out because his responses are so fast :)
But with this being a "google" phone, the OS feature set should be the same on any other.
Belard - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link
needed to add...Using the keyboard in LANDSCAPE mode is very easy, plenty of room... I never understood why the Apple iPhone didn't include this ability considering it knows how its orientated.
I was a bit shocked how well I can work with some webpages without having to ZOOM in (but more scrolling) while in landscape.
kmmatney - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link
The iPhone has a landscape keyboard - I'm using it to type this post...Belard - Tuesday, June 29, 2010 - link
When the iPhones first came out, it didn't.It was an after thought... common sense would be Landscape.
henrybravo - Tuesday, June 29, 2010 - link
You'll have to change/clarify your comment one more time. The original iPhone had a landscape keyboard in Safari.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_ZToHMUb7k
I suppose now you'll say "The original iPhone didn't have a landscape keyboard in everything else except Safari", which would be accurate. But 3 years later it's kind of a moot point. Not sure what you're getting at.
Acanthus - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link
I would hope for some kind of FroYo revisit to the EVO.Google claims 200-500% increases in performance.
chriscusano - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link
Yes, please! maybe this can help the scrolling problem?Also, what if you kill all those apps running? Does it improve any? (personally I'm more of a kill the app when done using it type guy anyway)
strikeback03 - Tuesday, June 29, 2010 - link
That would require rooting, which they may or may not want to get into as plenty of users wouldn't. Plus the performance increases are in 3rd party programs that run in the VM, so I doubt the basic interface would see the kind of performance gains mentioned.chriscusano - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Spring $69.99 + $10 4G for unlimited everything?(see: http://anymobileanytime.sprint.com/?id9=SEM_Google...
DigitalFreak - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link
No. It's unlimited calling to any mobile user, but you only get 450 minutes for land-line, roaming, etc.