The Sprint HTC EVO 4G Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 28, 2010 6:04 PM ESTThe Best Smartphone for Video Playback
I’m always surprised when I see someone watching a movie on an iPhone. The screen seems too small and you have to either hold the phone or hunch over it to watch. On top of that you need to transcode your content into an iPhone friendly format to get it to work.
While you still need to do the latter to watch videos on the EVO 4G, the screen and the kickstand make it a much better experience. The display is great for watching movies or TV show. It’s large enough that you can actually get into whatever you’re watching without squinting to see what’s going on. The contrast ratio of the EVO’s display comes in handy here more than anywhere else.
The kickstand is perfect for propping the EVO 4G on a desk or a tray table in a plane. The combination of the two really make this the ideal movie playback platform. Better than any other smartphone I’ve used. While no Apple, Google or Palm phone made me want to transcode my movie library, the EVO 4G does.
The phone supports .mp4 files with stereo audio. You need to stick to simple profile H.264 for encoding and lower bitrates. I found that ~800Kbps was a great balance of file size and image quality.
The biggest problem with video playback on the EVO is simply battery life. On a single charge in airplane mode I could only get 3 hours and 38 minutes out of the device. Granted I had the brightness all the way up but you're simply not going to be able to watch more than two movies on the EVO 4G. It's comparable to a laptop in that sense but unlike your laptop, walking around with a dead phone tends to be even more inconvenient. At least if people are trying to get ahold of you. Thankfully the EVO does have a removable battery, so just plan on carrying at least one spare.
To get videos onto the phone just connect it via USB to your computer and copy the files over. The Videos app will find the movies on the drive regardless of folder, you can just stick them in the root of the microSD card.
The app only works in landscape mode and isn’t heavy on controls. You can pause, scrub and stretch your content to fit the odd aspect ratio display. The Videos app also lets you view videos taken with the EVO’s camera and browse photos on Flickr/Facebook. Duplication of features is prevalent throughout HTC’s Sense enabled version of Android.
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JimmiG - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link
Amazing how expensive plans are over there compared to where I live.I have unlimited data at 6Mb/s and make calls for the equivalent of 5 cents a minute. That costs $26 a month (plus the cost for any calls or texts). There are cheaper alternatives if you only need 1GB or 5GB of data month. Sure, there's no subsidized phone included, but I just bought an unlocked HTC Desire (~Nexus One), it costs about the same as a high-end netbook.
Over 24 months I pay maybe half of the quoted prices, one-time cost of phone included.
chriscusano - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link
Where is there?DigitalFreak - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link
Considering he's getting 6Mb/s, I'd have to assume somewhere in Europe. :-)JimmiG - Thursday, July 1, 2010 - link
I'm in Sweden which is why I was even more surprised. Everything tends to be more expensive here, not cheaper.Another operator offers 1GB/month at 6Mb/s for $9 a month and 5GB/month at 10Mb/s for $16 a month. But I choose unlimited data over the higher speed since stuff like HD video is kind of pointless on a 3.7" screen.
Of course you don't always get those speeds. Some 3G areas, especially in rural areas, don't support HSDPA so you only get 384Kb/s. But most built-up areas have at least 2Mb speeds and the entire city where I live offers the full bandwidth.
strikeback03 - Tuesday, June 29, 2010 - link
So what would it cost for about 1500 minutes, 6000 SMS, and 200 MMS?Gamingphreek - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link
Anand,I have found SIGNIFICANT performance and battery improvements in using LauncherPro by Federico Carnales on my HTC Hero <www.launcherpro.com>. I would be interested to hear if you notice the same thing.
Additionally, while it is only for root users, Autokiller is a terrific application for modifying the Android's preset memory limits.
Finally, regarding internet use, Dolphin Browser HD 2 is head and shoulders above the stock browser in every aspect. You may consider trying and seeing if that makes a difference in the browsing tests.
Great review regardless, but as a long time Android user, I have found these to make a significant positive impact on my overall experience with the device.
I know adding different applications to review can get out of hand very quickly, but is there any chance we might hear about your experience with some of these aforementioned applications?
Thanks,
-Kevin
chriscusano - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link
Hey great thoughts. Well I don't have an android myself, but maybe you guys might want to consider writing up an article (after official 2.2 release I'm thinking) with a phone "fully optimized" using some of the best (and cheapeast/free) apps out there. I think a phone with these apps will be sigificantly better than a stock phone. It's *almost* like comparing an oem computer out of the box to a customized computer (with a few performance tweaks). All serious computer users as well have their own customized setups that make their experience much, much better than a standard one (choice of web browser w/ addons/extensions, cutomized start bar, useful desktop gadgets, etc). Truly the experience can be totally different when things are customized. I'd image the same is the case with a phone like this.Also, man I've been looking for some VOIP 4G tests. Help me out guys! I may try to downsize to one internet carrier for home and phone but my major concern is I NEED VOIP for work. Can 4G cut it if the signal strength is strong (from a static location)? Does tethering via USB to the computer affect internet speeds? If so, how is VOIP from the computer when tethering via USB? Anyone? Anand ? :)
-Chris
Gamingphreek - Tuesday, June 29, 2010 - link
I have an HTC Hero, so I'll have to run all the tests over before I do it with the apps, but I would be more than happy to run a couple tests and send in a short little article for Anand's consideration. I can post it in the forums too just for general knowledge.My undergraduate research prior to my graduation this past May was on the Android OS (More specifically how secure it was from an IT Security perspective).
Impulses - Tuesday, June 29, 2010 - link
There's a ton of things you can do to optimize battery life, from alternate launchers, to custom ROMs, to simply configuring the stock sync settings for the various accounts. Something Anand made no mention of, and it's one of the more obvious tweaks, the stock settings are actually pretty poor if you wanna preserve battery life but they're easy to change from 2-4 hours to 8 hours or daily or w/e.The latter alone made a difference for me, but some of the custom ROMs and such make a very very noticeable difference as well. It's really quite amazing what some of the user devs come up with, it puts Google/HTC's stock builds to shame. I've no idea if the iPhone jailbreak community delves into that kind of low-level optimization but the stuff they're doing on Android's end is awesome.
misaki - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link
Froyo is now getting rolled out officially, so I hope you guys will include it in your browsing comparisons since the speed gains are so drastic ;)