The EVO 4G is a great phone with the notable drawback of its short battery life. But apparently a lot of you don’t care judging by the comments on my full review. Fine by me. Even though it doesn’t have the battery strength to make it through a day of moderate to heavy usage, there are still some serious advantages to this phone over others. Enough so that some buyers are probably going to camp out their Sprint Store this Friday. Here’s my top five favorite features so far, including a few I didn’t touch on at all in my review.
1. The screen
4.3-inches just feels right. I can’t believe we’ve been living with puny 3.5-inch cell phone screens for so long. Damn does it feel good using Android on this gigantic screen. It opens up so many new doors. Windshield mounting the phone for navigation is finally a viable option. There’s finally no need to balance the phone on your leg to see the directions with the large 4.3-inch screen. Even web browsing is a new experience with a bit of help from Dolphin HD browser. The larger screen makes gaming and reading ebooks more enjoyable, and showing off photos and videos easier. The Droid and iPhone just feels small after using an EVO 4G for a bit.
2. Form factor
You wouldn’t know this looking at press shots and hands-on videos, but the EVO 4G isn’t that much physically larger than a Droid or iPhone. In fact, it’s just slightly wider and longer than both. It’s actually about the same thickness meaning it’s truly pocktable. Don’t think for a minute that it won’t fit in your tight hipster jeans. I actually think it fits better in tighter pants than the Droid because of the EVO 4G’s rounded back.
3. Sprint Mobile Hotspot
I love things that just work and that’s really describes the Sprint Mobile Hotspot. It takes only two button presses in the app to launch the hotspot, but there’s a home screen widget that can cut that down to one. It’s that easy to allow eight devices access to the EVO 4G’s 4G/3G connection. It’s just as easy to set up WEP, WPA, or WPA2 security, too. It just works and that’s awesome. Too bad Sprint is charging $30 a month for the feature.
4. The speaker (and kickstand)
I’ll bet $10 that the EVO 4G has a better sounding speaker than your notebook — maybe even than your desktop radio. The kickstand helps a lot. Flip it out, turn on Pandora, and you’ll be surprised at just how loud and clear the speaker pumps out the Chili Peppers.
5. Sprint TV
I had no idea Sprint TV was actually sweet. The app is preloaded on the EVO 4G and the Sprint Everything Data package gives users unlimited access to the streaming library, which has a ton of content. There’s a couple dozen on demand channels loaded with programs from FOX, ABC, CBS, NBC, ESPN, Nickelodeon, The Disney Channel and more — it’s like Hulu on your phone. There’s even live content from the major networks and ESPN. The only slight issue is that it only works off of a cellular connection and not WiFi so you kind of need a halfway decent signal to stream.
So yeah, I’m standing by my statement that the battery life is a deal breaker for me, but I can totally understand if you feel otherwise. The EVO 4G is an awesome phone and will only improve as Android matures.
Why not just buy a bigger battery? Seidio will be offering a 3500 mAh battery (and the back panel to cover it). Sure it will increase the thickness of the phone but I am guessing it will alleviate this issue. Given all the positives of the EVO, I just don’t see how battery life is a deal breaker when there are solutions to the problem.
http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/04/21/are-third-party-cell-phone-battery-manufacturers-deceiving-their-customers/
I wouldnt pay for a menial % jump, I threw down on a 2600mAh for the Tour and it delivers. I havent put it through the rigors of testing but if anyone is going the 3rd party battery route, go large or save your money.
Good article and website. Nonetheless, the 3500 mAh battery will still likely be a big improvement even if it is only 3000 mAh (which would be double what is sent with the EVO). I agree that you may be overpaying for the extra power on a per mAh basis, but it would still fix the only real problem that the reviewer has with the EVO.
Because this is Not i-phone,.. the battery can be replaced,.. so to carry spare bat. should double usage time,.. ??
you can also play pacman on it. optionally you can buy the same feature from the iphone store for 2.99 – if you find the right one.
http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/06/02/evo-4g-best-features-review/
you forgot once it gets froyo.. hulu and all flash games. Major win.
Hulu is blocked on mobile phones dum dum.
actually if you look for the website and learn how to bypass it u can watch hulu. go to youtube and it shows you how.
Right dum dum,
This won’t last once Froyo is public… good God sheeple.
Hulu has already blocked that workaround.
Flash is good and bad feature in it’s own right. I wouldn’t call it a top 5 best though. Know I’m gonna get flamed or call some kinda name for saying that.
If the short battery life is the only huge issue, I may start regretting getting my Incredible and not dumping Verizon in favor of Sprint.
Well, thanks to AT&T you can also now add that with the $10 4G fee it adds UNLIMITED 4G AND 3G data.
Also, coincidentally I just posted the 5 Myths about the Evo, and battery life being myth number 2. http://bit.ly/9OKESr
Is there any chance a software fix could extend battery life or is this a hardware limitation?
That is my hope. People are saying that a huge amount of juice is being sucked up in ‘standby’ mode. If that’s the case, then it seems to me that it should be fixable with software. I think I’m to hold off and see if that happens.
Supposedly 2.2 does bring a good bump in battery life for all the Android phones.
2.2 helped my N1 with the idle battery life significantly, but not too much when I use the phone heavily.
I also have wondered about this. It would be great if MobileCrunch would do a review of Evo battery life Eclair vs. Froyo (once its available).
I’m very much hoping Froyo helps this issue.
2.2 should help battery life. If you looked at Google’s reports, the metrics they used to show the increase was MFLOPS, or Million Floating Poing Operations Per Second. Very basically, computers are designed to work with integers. An example would be the standard 0/1. Floating points would be the decimals in between, which are a lot tougher on the computers. It seems like Google found a way to make the OS much more efficient at working with floating points, meaning battery life should increase as a result. It won’t be a huge increase, but it’ll still be there.
You forgot number 6: The all new WordPress proofreader/editor function, to review your posts before hitting “publish”! Where the f*** is number 3?
I wouldnt be so excited about Flash on froyo
Check out ZDNets reality check
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/why-theres-no-flash-on-the-iphoneipad-and-why-there-shouldnt-be-flash-on-android/8455
hmmm, i might just dump verizon for this phone. not sure though. contract is up in 3 months. i will see then if anything else pops up by then but for the time being i will be very closely looking at this.
I know this is the wrong place to leave this, but could you fix it so when I come to a story from Google Reader it takes me to the full story and not the blurb? Then I have to click again to read the story. It should be a simple update to your news feed.
Lifehacker was very forthcoming in that this was a new trend for most blogs, in fact Lifehacker offered two feeds; one that had the blurb and the other that had the full post because they were a shortcut/best practice blog. The point of the blurb is to get people to come to TC or MC, get the pageviews and stats. It may be simple to update but it seems to be the standard now for blogs to give a taste and have readers come to their site for the full dish.
I support this change too.
Why would you not list your five favorite features in your full review? So don’t blame us if we’re underwhelmed.
Is it too big to sit comfortably in your pocket though?
Where are you going to find a device packed with this many features and as compact yet on the larger side as the EVO that doesn’t have battery issues? Most smart phones have battery issues anyway. That’s why you buy an extra higher capacity battery and keep one charged at all time. At least that’s what I plan to do with me new EVO!
Thanks for your great reviews!
Nokia smart phones generally do not have problems with battery life (cf. N8).
when did Nokia start making smartphones?
I guess It was worth for HTC\Google to give 5000 Evo’s at the developers-conference.
The buzz is… everywhere…
I concur. I have an HD2. Its screen and form factor are just about perfect: fits in hand, a pleasure to read or watch video on… Even makes me wonder if I won’t go with a Dell Streak next time.
Hd2 is sorely missing a stand. I do get some free hotspots via my ISP, so I haven’t even subscribed to a data contract, I use HTTrack and other tools to pre-download web sites and ebooks, and carry a bunch of music and some TV episodes around (32gigs interchangeable SD cards FTW).
I’ve played with the Evo, it fits better in my pocket than the Samsung Moment. Not having a keypad saves a lot of weight. I can’t attest to battery life, but the description of a “mini-tablet” without being too large is pretty much accurate. Zips fairly well with flash lite, i tried NHL.com and it worked great.
Also, one thing to note is that, as a result of the processor, moving back and forth between the browser and youtube is seamless. It literally feels like you stay in the web browser and youtube is just going full screen. So video while web browsing is a huge plus.
FYI, it fits perfectly in a shirt pocket, it’s large but very flat, so unnoticeable… I wouldn’t carry it in my pants though, for fear of forgetting about it and sitting on it or bending it.
Dealbreaker for me.
I feel like the kickstand is the most impressive thing I have seen here, and maybe ever. When I listen to the radio on my Eris, I have to basically leave half of the phone hanging off an edge of a table, to get the sound to amplify. I would love a more efficient speaker and a kickstand. Kickstand, how incredible is that?
Does anyone know for sure if the Hot spot feature works while you’re making voice calls?
It will not work while on a phone call as sprint uses a CDMA network. I think you can disable the phone feature though so that you can run the device as a MIFI without interruption.
I thought that was only the case with 3G. I heard that Sprint’s 4G separates voice and data so you can make a call while using the device for data transmission.
Chris is correct. If the EVO 4G is connected to the WiiMax 4G Network, and the hotspot feature is enabled, it can still make voice calls. Also, as long as its on 4G for data, you can do both voice and data at the same time.
I’ve been on Sprint for coming up to 2 years and am on the ‘preferred customer’ list for a $99 upgrade to the Evo — and am considering it seriously.
As to the battery issue, Sprint should supply a second battery and USB charger like they did for my Samsung Instinct. Although with normal use, the Instinct battery will last for a couple of days, as soon as I start live TV streaming or use lots of web, the battery craps out in a few of hours. With Sprint having included the spare battery, running out of power has never been as issue for me.
No doubt, in time, HTC will improve power management through software/firmware upgrades. When working at ’3′ in the UK, prior to their network launch, I was involved with testing their Motorola videophone. Power use was prodigious, sometimes not even getting two hours (the phone got uncomfortably hot to touch). A series of tweaks, both by Motorola, and on the 3 network, soon had talk/standby times to real-world levels in time for the business launch.
$99 EVO?? How does one qualify for that? I am a ‘premier customer’, but I’m not aware of any offer like that.
I’m a premier customer too and have been eligible for a new contract for well over a year too. I’ve never heard of this “preferred” $99 offering.
Tell us more, please!
I received an e-mail about 4-6 weeks ago pre-announcing the Evo and with a ‘coupon’ to upgraded for $99 if I took a 2-year contract extension.
I just searched over on sprintusers and couldn’t find anything there about this offer either. Please give us some more info. Thanks!
Sorry everyone — I’m mixed up here.
I got two e-mails from Sprint
#1
Save the date: own the new HTC EVO 4G June 4 – $199
#2
Don’t miss out on your $50 reward
– the first requires a 2-year contract extension and the second comes in the form of a “service credit”.
That makes the effective EVO price $149. Sorry for the confusion and undue excitement!
:)
I preordered from Best Buy ($199 with 2 year contract, but no mail-in rebates to deal with) then called Sprint to see what, as a “premier” member and out of contract I could get from them.
What I was told was that I could get the EVO 4G for $199 AFTER $100 mail-in rebate. So same price, but the hassle of the rebate. They did offer to give me a $50 service credit if I renewed then even if I bought the phone at Best Buy. But the guy was a little hazy on if I’d end up paying the $18-$36 “phone switch” fee that’d eat into that $50 service credit.
A guy at a Sprint store later told me that, as a “premier” member, I didn’t have to pay phone switch fees.. But in the end, the whole thing was getting convoluted and annoying. So unless Sprint was going to give me $100+ off the EVO, I was just going to get it from Best Buy and save the hassle. Especially since the $199 at Best Buy was contingent on signing up for a 2 year contract. If I was already renewed, I feel like I was going to get screwed somehow.
So we’ll see how it goes on Friday at Best Buy.
Ditto
I’m also a premier with a contract up this month and my best offer from Sprint is $199 after rebate. Same as on the street and almost enough of an insult offer to put me in a Verizon droid
As a UK HTC Hero owner I could never recommended relying on HTC to release software/firmware upgrades.
The scrolling on it still sucks, just like all Android phones. I still don’t understand how Google can’t get Android to scroll as smooth as an iPhone.
I played around with one of these the other day and honestly, I am not wowed by it. Its lighter then a droid but way heavier then an iPhone. The big screen is kinda nice though.
Thanks for the review.
Thanks
One you couldn’t have written about until today is the fact that there is no cap on either 3G or 4G usage. Touche, AT&T. Three days of intensive Pandora (One) and you can blow through 2GB of data. Toss in a Hulu episode, and you see where value might actually be a differentiator. Buy an EVO with the Hotspot and run your iPad through it as opposed to paying AT&T for 2GB.
I think 10 hours of moderate use isn’t bad that’s a lot more than my pre’s 6 hour life with moderate use
It’s all about whether I can use it to watch video from SF to London (or at least NYC) and still have power left to make some calls when I land. That is my baseline qualifier for these kinds of phones.
You guys are trying to defend the battery without actually using it, which invalidates everything you say. Use the EVO first and THEN form your own opinion
I’ve had a G1 since my pre-order arrived and I use a Nexus One now. My G1 got around 5 hours of use when it came out, and with the current firmware goes all day with my wife and for a little bit into the next day if she forgets (and no, not much). These comments are inline with what I’m thinking. And since I’ve had FroYo on my N1, it’s been a bit easier still on the battery (stock 2.1 was pretty good) and idles at around 3% discharge per hour. Once this goes to FroYo and the newness of the device wears off, it will probably do 16 hours or so of use that most people see.
Other reviews of EVO praised it’s battery life, so people don’t really have to actually used it before defending it.
On the other hand, there’s no detailed testing on the battery life from Matt in his review, except a vague statement of ‘not being able to run through the whole day with moderate to heavy use’. Sorry but that just doesn’t cut it.
Damn this phone has a sharp screen. Want this phone now. Thanks for putting a review up about the EVO 4G Matt.
I picked up the display model yesterday at Best Buy – man, that thing is big. I just don’t see myself getting used to it. Have an Incredible now.
As a current iPhone user, does the EVO sync as well as the iphone?
All I know is I have the HTC HD2 & the battery life is not bad at all. Certainly better than any iphone’s. I do make it through a day if I turn down the screen brightness & dial in the settings to conserve battery life.
Personally I wouldn’t buy this phone & Not because I think there is anything wrong with its hardware but because the HTC HD II has more powerful software. There is no DivX support here
& future versions of WM phones will lack it as well. I will never buy any device that promises but lacks DivX period! The HD2 offers everything here except 4G which is not necessary. Its the jack of all trades while this is a one trick pony requiring that you convert videos to Mp4 not to mention all the other formats it doesn’t support. The newer generations are really getting dumber buying into these corporate strategies hook line & sinker. It looks nice & does nice things but the its just not as productive as it’s older brother which looks basically the same, works basically the same & thanks to touch sense is just as easy to use once you get it all set up. My wife even loves the Phone & finds it easy to use. Especially since you don’t need to learn how to use any new software on your PC. You just plug the phone in.
No itunes, No OVi or whatever the hell this uses. The HD2 is an extension of windows & if you haven’t figured out how to use it by now then you should buy a Mac
Congrats, you are officially the first person on the planet that actually likes WinMo.
At the end of the day everything you said is pointless due to the fact that your phone is running a inferior os thats soon to be obsolete….
Winmo is absolutely terrible bud…I.went through 26 HTC moguls and 18. HTC touch diamonds…in two damn years…and not because I broke them either…but because they get so slow…I’d b surprised if windows mobile is around when u upgrade next lol…I ordered my 4g today and have a rooted HTC hero running 2.1
I don’t get it. How can Sprint get away with charging $360/year for tethering, when it’s a feature of the phone itself and you’re already paying for the bandwidth? Setting a cap on monthly data usage when tethering makes sense, but not charging extra.
Of course, even this is way better than anything AT&T dreams up. Too bad Sprint doesn’t even work in my neck of the woods.
Because, the hotspost option can power up to 8 devices – that’s a lot of potiential data. You can still get an app like PDANet and tether the EVO to your laptop for no charge.
Also – the EVO with the hotspot is still about half of what the Overdrive cost – still a good deal.
A while ago, I got a deal on a Cradlepoint mobile hotspot off of Woot.com. It’s basically the Overdrive (and similar devices) without the built-in cell phone. You provide the data connection via any USB internet sharing. I’ve tethered my current cell phone to it and used my laptop through it.
I got it for under $100 off Woot.
Cradlepoint has a bunch of pucks that operate along those lines. No need for an Overdrive or even the built-in Froyo wifi hotspot stuff.
The nice thing about the Cradlepoint is that it has a built-in recharageable battery. The downside of this is that it tries to charge off my cell phone. Going to try doctoring a USB cable and see if it works with just the two data pins (disabling the two power pins) and see if that helps.
You might want to keep an eye out for battery extenders on Woot. They turn up every so often. I’ve bought http://www.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=9566 and http://www.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=7304 and liked them enough that I bought more of each as they reappeared. The XPals handle my Touch Pro2 very nicely.
I wish Google would make the 4 buttons under the screen as virtual ones. Then other phones like Evo would be as tall as a Nexus one or Droid, if not smaller.
It also feels kind of awkward to press the physical buttons after you press on the virtual ones for a while.
I suspect that battery life can be extended considerably in the same ways as it is with other smart phones. Turn off power consuming features like WiFi and Bluetooth when not in use. If there’s cloud services updating email and chats, set it to update at time intervals instead of “always on.” Even bringing down screen brightness can get you a few yours–especially on that monster screen.
Could i buy it in china?I like it very much!
Could i buy it in china?and how much it is?
It is indeed a tough decision whether or not to keep the phone for the features or dump it for the crappy battery life. I mean after all it is a MOBILE phone lol.. you should not have to be tethered to a place to plug it in and charge it. I guess it all comes down to how you use your phone. You can always get a car charger if you do a lot of music streaming from internet radio through you speakers. Or you can just plug it in if you happen to be close to an outlet. It is going to suck that ONE time that you happen to be out and about and your phone dies so fast. imho i wouldn’t really have a problem having this phone. I am usually always able to charge my electronic devices no matter where i go.
A Bowl Full of Technology
I think its kinda ridiculous for the battery life to be a dealbreaker. Its a smartphone, if ur looking for ultimate battery life, steer away from smartphones. they make smartphones to give a better mobile experience, not a longer one. thats where chargers and extended batteries come in. either way, id rather have a better experience, than a longer one. just like a life shouldnt be measured by the years, but by the moments that take your break away. this phone is sure to deliver at launch, and will only get better…
I like it very much its so beautiful looking i like to use it
“4.3-inches just feels right. I can’t believe we’ve been living with puny 3.5-inch cell phone screens for so long.”
Haha. You write for the onion, right? Come on, you’re among friends :)
haha Froyo is already on the evo: http://briefmobile.com/evo-4g-the-unofficial-guide
Woohoo! Not even out and froyo/root already
At a best buy as a premier customer or any customer signing a new 2 year contract you get the promotional price of the Evo at $200, but if your current contract is up sprint should give you $150 towards a new phone with them for resigning, thus the Evo only costing you $50 out-of-pocket, this is the same feature i used to buy my current Instict, and being a ‘premier’ customer now i get that same $150 towards a new phone w/new 2yr contract after only 1 year of service so basically you can get the newest $600 phone, which is the normal cost of the most current smart/super phones that sprint offers. Also works at Radio Shacks because thats where i actually got my Instinct, just an fyi
But if you go directly through Sprint then they sell the Evo for $200 also with a ‘hidden’ $100 mail-in rebate so it will cost you $150 out-of-pocket until you mail your rebate in, basically going through stores such as Best Buy, Radio Shack, etc, you can bypass the mail in rebate, they basically turn it into an instant rebate for you automatically.
Yeah this phone is amazing the only thing he forgot to mension on this page is the 8 mega pixle camra in the back (photographer status) and the 3 mega pixle camera in the front for skype or other video chat
I am leaving the Iphone after having all of them, except the one that isnt out yet obviously. Anyway one thing that I learned today from the AT&T people is that even tho I pay for “unlimited text messages” that data counts against my 2gb data plan? That is almost criminal in my mind AT&T SUCKS! Farewell and go F*** yourself AT&T
There are two kinds of tech-blogers:
1. The bloger that truely understands and loves the tech changes taking place and makes an effort at being objective.
2. The bombastic info-regurgitator, platform-aligned, tech emotionalist blogers who derive a thrill and think it is their duty to distort the facts.
Since the campaign to confuse and confound about this piece of hardware has started (The HTC EVO) you should be conscious of what you read so that you don’t waist your precious time.