The years have taken their toll on the EVO 4G, as the processor, screen size, and operating system become dated: but the call for a successor grows stronger. With the original EVO 4G dominating the market of late 2010 and most of 2011, the hype for the successor grew weekly as new devices emerged with dual core processors and superior screens. Nearly a year and a half after the release of the original flagship device, HTC followed through with the announcement and quick release of the EVO 4G LTE only for it to be plagued by various delays. With the EVO landing in customer’s hands early, here’s our take on the new EVO branded device.
Hardware
Following some of the original design traits of the Evo 4G, the LTE sports a solid construction with a black and red color scheme, touched up by the new addition of the brushed aluminum trim. The device brings back the kickstand of the original with a new sleeker and more integrated design, leaving people who cut their fingernails stranded as they attempt to use it. The rest of the device follows the new guidelines of the HTC One series: bringing you three buttons up front instead of four, relocated charging port, and the removed HDMI output.
With the improved design of the device, HTC aims to make the EVO 4G LTE as simple to use for the user as possible. While this includes a new Ice Cream Sandwich optimized hardware and interface, I can’t help but feel a few ideas and features were left out of the process. With the button layout similar to the One series, the EVO 4G LTE takes on the new three button look consisting of a back, home, and multitasking button; The three buttons make navigating ICS applications easy and great for the users, but creates an unbelievably frustrating experience when using dated applications (we’ll bring that up again later). The newly added camera button brought from the EVO 3D adds a quick shortcut and a more natural experience to taking photos with the 8 megapixel camera. Users can simply long press on the camera button at any time while the device is unlocked (or pull and drag to the shortcut from the lockscreen) to immediately open up the camera to grab a quick picture instead of having to navigate throughout the device.
Alongside the screen, the processor is the by far one of the most important features of any Android device nowadays as it provides the powerhouse needed to run these devices with utmost speed and efficiency. The 1.5Ghz dual core Snapdragon processor provides the power and performance that not only consumers are seeking, but tech geeks such as ourselves. With speeds and benchmark tests close to that of the Tegra 3, don’t be fooled by the device only have half of the cores. The device outplays and outruns many of the dual core handhelds we see today including the recent Galaxy Note and Galaxy Nexus, as well as coming in a close second the Tegra 3 (screenshots provided below). Games run at full speed without any hiccups, and allow users to switch between multiple tasks at once without waiting for the device to catch up.
As a thing of notable beauty, the 720×1280 resolution 4.7inch screen offers high resolution views of any task, video, or game that you throw at it. Icons, fonts, and general UI look seamless and straight up awesome as the screen magnifies colors and provides the utmost quality for media viewing. Even in direct sunlight the full brightness on the devices provides the ability to text and check email, without any issue. Provided to support the device, the kickstand creates excellent viewing angles and convenience for any user.
The overall feel of the device brings back the feeling of a job well done from HTC, seen from their many previous devices. The device feels good, and looks even better in your hand: the back of the device provides a smooth grip thanks to the soft touch coating on the bottom, and the glossy top with the sole purpose of attracting fingerprints.
Although I rarely use the camera for photo taking or video recording, it’s worth noting that the device sports a decent camera. The 8MP camera provides higher quality photos than the average, but doesn’t impress over some other devices that we’ve used around here. The lighting and auto-brightness/contrast is very touchy and took a moderately overcast day and made it look far too dark, but no cell phone camera is perfect. However, the few other images we took once the sky cleared up turned out a bit better.
Camera shots
The OS
HTC’s newest device is running Android’s second latest operating system, Ice Cream Sandwich, and it does so without as much as a hiccup. The stock firmware on the device shows you just how optimization should be with the loads of included features and custom applications to replace the AOSP ones we know and love. Many of the applications provide welcomed custom settings and tweaks to the already powerful stock applications. Sense is by no means my favorite, especially with the default look and appeal of ICS; however, sense over the years has drastically improved and provides power, customization, and most importantly speed. In the past Sense has clogged up the system and drained the ability for the users to multitask thanks to it holding so much RAM. The new system seems to not only provide a remedy, but remove the issue completely to make browsing and switching between tasks easy and lag-free. I can say without a doubt that you won’t be disappointed.
While the HTC applications are expected and mostly welcome, any additional bloatware from the provider is not. The LTE keeps it slim as the only additional “bloatware” that is included is Sprint Music Plus, Sprint Tethering, and Sprint zone (which can’t be disabled, even through ICS standards). These apps do not interfere with the speed and accessibility of the device in general and Music Plus and Tethering can both be disabled and replaced with your favorite of each. A few other applications built in are Dropbox, Facebook, Google Plus, Shopper, and Google Wallet; all of these applications can be disabled through the ICS settings menu in storage to allow you full access over your device.
As the largest annoyance of the device, I feel that the 3 buttons that HTC chose are limiting to it. With the back, home, and multitasking button built around ICS applications, the missing menu buttons makes an appearance where you would least want and expect it: on the bottom of the screen. So instead of going with the software buttons like the Galaxy Nexus, they replace it with a software bar (the same size as the Nexus’s) which looks tacky and eats up a little bit of real estate. Personally I believe that they should have gone the Samsung route and have used a home, back, and menu button which allows for the home button to double as a multitasking button when long pressed. Thus saving the screen space and leaving the user with the hardware buttons that they have been forced into anyway.
The Price
The EVO 4G LTE can be found on Amazon for $130 and through sprint for $200, or bought straight out for $549.99. At those prices (specifically the on contract) I wouldn’t hesitate upgrading my phone for the EVO 4G LTE for a second.
Device Gallery
OS |
Hardware |
Size
|
Price
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Worth it? | |||
 |
 |
||
