The Sprint HTC EVO 4G Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 28, 2010 6:04 PM ESTFinal Words
I really wanted to love the EVO 4G, but as I just described to a colleague of mine the experience is very bipolar. It ranges from wonderful when watching movies or reading a webpage, to frustrating when it comes to battery life or performance.
Where the EVO shines is in its screen. I can’t help but feel that all of those pixels are put to waste on smaller displays. The 4.3” screen is a great balance of pixel density and physical size. Throw in great contrast ratio and you’ve got the makings of a wonderful display. It’s still a bit oversaturated for my tastes but compared to most LCDs on the market you’ll fall in love.
It’s not pushing the limits of resolution nor is it great in direct sunlight, but the screen is awesome for watching videos. In fact the screen size makes the EVO 4G the ideal video playback smartphone. Including the kickstand was a wonderful design decision on HTC’s part, it really makes this phone perfect for movies. If you want a smaller alternative to carrying a large tablet for video playback I’d say the EVO 4G could work.
The large screen size also makes the EVO 4G great for reading websites. I’d argue that it’s even better than the iPhone 4’s screen for browsing the “regular” web simply because of its size. It’s also better at interacting with websites. Posting comments or using web administration tools is far easier on the EVO than on any of the smaller phones. Typing on the EVO is also better than on any other Android phone I’ve used thanks again to its screen.
The OS is extremely flexible and HTC’s Sense adds enough functionality to genuinely improve it. The EVO feels solid and is well designed. I appreciate that HTC ditched the trackball/optical sensor from previous designs and kept it simple this time around.
Both Sprint and HTC were forward looking enough to pair such a powerful phone with a (potentially) very quick network. The 4G support is nice on paper however in practice it didn’t work out so well for me in Raleigh, NC.
Sprint’s 4G network is nice where there’s coverage, but at least around Raleigh most of the time you’re better off sticking to 3G. The performance on WiMAX simply ranges from horrible to great while Sprint’s 3G coverage is far more consistent. However Sprint’s 3G is far from speedy, usually delivering well below 1Mbps on the EVO in my testing. If you do have spectacular 4G coverage and speeds where you live, this may end up being more of a positive than it was for me.
For travelers, the EVO 4G simply doesn’t have long enough battery life to be used as a truly mobile device. In my opinion even 5 hours of battery life isn’t enough and the EVO comes in well below that for anything you’d do with the phone. If you travel for work and have to be away from a power outlet for the majority of the day this is going to be a problem. If you’re in school or work from home and can top off the battery every couple of hours then the problem is less severe. Luckily the EVO 4G does have a removable battery, so if you are dedicated you can make this thing work. Just carry an extra battery or two, keep them charged, and you'll be fine. If you don't like that idea, then look elsewhere - the EVO 4G won't cut it.
The EVO 4G is also slower (from an OS/UI standpoint) in day to day use compared to the Incredible or even the Nexus One. I’m not sure what’s going on here but HTC went from a highly optimized software stack with the Incredible, to something that’s arguably worse than the Nexus One. Scrolling and animations are both laggy and choppy. Then there’s the occasional inexplicable slowdown - something I haven’t encountered on either the Nexus One or the HTC Incredible. There’s a lot of optimization work that has to be done.
I believe we’re seeing the beginnings of real divergence here. While there’s an argument that can be made for smaller devices, it’s just as valid to push for the creation of larger screen devices like the EVO 4G. The interest in sub-10” web tablets alone indicates that users want the features of a smartphone but paired with a more user friendly screen size. The EVO 4G attempts to go after that crowd and does reasonably well for a first attempt.
While I believe the best overall Android phone is still the HTC Incredible, if you're willing to put up with the EVO 4G's issues then it can be a good alternative. It really boils down to what you want to do with your smartphone. If you’re going to be watching movies and need to do a lot of productive/interactive web browsing, then the EVO is at a definite advantage. You can overlook the battery problems if you carry around a spare and you can get used to the performance if the screen size matters enough to you. And if you happen to be in an area with good 4G coverage, that sweetens the pot considerably. It's like driving an SUV. Sometimes the added space helps, but it's up to you to determine whether or not the gas mileage and sheer size are worth it to you.
Personally, I'm still searching. I like the EVO's screen, the Incredible's smoothness and the Nexus One's build quality. While I'd be willing to carry something the size of the EVO, I'd need it to be perfect in order to make that tradeoff.
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Mr Perfect - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link
Ah, ok, that's fair then. Looking forward to the coming reviews.Thanks for the reply,
MP
mikephenix - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link
Most of the choppyness can be attributed to the 30 fps cap imposed on the OS. Both 2d and 3d framerates are capped at 30 fps on this phone. It's unusual that HTC would cap this device, when the nexus one and incredible do not have this cap in place:http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=6...
AmbroseAthan - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link
One thing I feel like you overlooked is the Sprint TV.I own the EVO also and one of the things I have absolutely loved is the Sprint TV, and this is mainly right now for ESPN. Every single World Cup game is streaming live, so if I am for some reason away from the TV, I can watch. Even in only 3 bars of 3G service, it comes through very clean. With the kickstand, I set it up on a kitchen counter and a group of us watched Brazil play (grandpa had commandeered the TV for the US Open). Battery live looks to be in the vicinity of 3.5+ hours of TV.
I admittedly need to explore it more, but there are multiple live stations and several stations of older material.
ale087 - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link
I do see a degree of choppiness when compared to the iPhone and as you said it can be attributed to the lack of GPU acceleration in the UI... You should, however, mention in your review that there are optimized home replacements like ADW launcher and Launcher Pro that offer very smooth scrolling and better responsiveness, and excellent task manager/killer apps and widgets that help with memory management....Your browsing speed tests puzzle me, however. In real life tests on the same wifi network after clearing all cache, I consistently see the EVO and the Incredible render webpages faster than the iPhone 4 and 3Gs.... Also, the nexus one with the FRF83 froyo renders pages noticeably faster than even the iPad (with flash 10.1 set to on-demand or off), and its Java script performance far excells that of the other handsets and the iPad from what I have seen from other sources....
mongo lloyd - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link
Looking forward to a Samsung Galaxy S (A.K.A. Captivate, GT-I9000) review. Maybe that'll be the device Anand's searching for.ale087 - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link
Hi Anand,I remember you previewed the Galaxy S and left us all excited about its release, any chance you've received one to review? The international unlocked version is out and I would really like to see an in-depth hardware review to decide if I want to spend the big bucks for it. It would also be fantastic if you do an iPhone 4 vs. Galaxy S review since they have such similar hardware :D. BTW I think it's great that you're doing phone reviews! nobody else goes as in-depth into the hardware as you do, and it's great to get a better understanding of what's ticking inside of these devices...
Thanks!
Alejandro
spathotan - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link
Glad I went with the Incredible instead. Had it for about 3 weeks and I love it. Ive tortured it a bit and its passed with flying colors. Was downloading/converting 2 songs and 2 videos off YouTube while playing a 3D game (ZENONIA) all at once with ZERO performance lags. I was quite suprised.juampavalverde - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link
I will like to see the improvement of this evo4g with android 2.2, i have the feeling that with some time this android phones will just get better (also in battery life). Anyway looks great!Impulses - Tuesday, June 29, 2010 - link
Many of them have already seen a steady improvement thanks to the user community of devs... If you're the sort that doesn't mind tweaking and messing with your device a little bit anyway. Personally I've never been big on any of that w/electronics outside of my PC (I want my phone, DVR, MP3 player, etc. to just "work")... But I've delved into the world of custom Android ROMs and whatnot and it really is quite amazing what some of these guys can accomplish, it certainly puts Google/HTC's stock builds to shame.Sprint has also issued two OTA patches for the EVO already (review was probably written before the 2nd one), the last one corrected some scrolling issues when the phone was not handheld (grounding issue I believe, personally I rarely encountered it even tho I read w/the phone laying on the table a lot) and made some other small improvements to the radio (which in turn should help w/battery).
Frankly I haven't been bothered by any performance issues w/my EVO, but my only real basis for comparison is a 2nd gen (slower) iPod touch so YMMV. Battery life was somewhat disappointing w/the stock ROM but has improved a lot w/custom ROMs and/or some tweaking of the default sync settings. By default it's set to sync several different accounts (FB, Gmail, News, etc. etc.) at different intervals, some as often as 2-3 hours. Anand made no mention of this, I wonder if he looked into that at all when testing...
The last thing I'll mention is that Swype blows any other touch keyboard out of the water, by a longshot... You really have to experience it first-hand to know what all the hype is about. It's still in beta (not hard to find leaked .apk's on the message boards) and I believe they're even gonna try selling it on the iPhone app market eventually (also available for WM).
Regardless, it's a joy to use, 'specially on such a large screen, I can type faster w/one hand and Swype (AND more accurate) than I can with two hands on a Samsung Impression (which has one of the better landscape/slider keyboards amongst feature phones out there). The freedom to try all these things out (w/o waiting for Apple or anyone's approval) is what I really love about Android.
smsmith - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link
Hey Anand,Thanks for the great review! Your iPhone 3GS sunspider time seems a bit high though. Just now I ran it on my 3GS and got 13771ms.