[EVO 4G General] oblivion0:
Hey Everyone,

I was asked today by a friend what my thoughts were on the Evo after two weeks of ownership, and was inspired to write up a first-hand review which I want to share with you.

What are your thoughts of the Evo after your first two weeks, what do you find to be it's strengths and weaknesses...and how would you compare it to other smart phones like the iPhone 4, Droid Incredible, and upcoming Droid X. Anyone with buyer's remorse?

Please try to keep fanboy/fangirl-ism to a minimum, if possible...as I'm really looking for unbiased feedback.

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Friend's question: So how's that new phone treating you?

My thoughts:

Very good, but until it has "Froyo" 2.2 I have to bite my tongue on a final judgement.

On paper and in RL, the hardware specs are impressive.

Build quality is good (but not great) mostly due to issues I've read about with users experiencing a "glass separation" and grounding woes (resolved? as of the latest HTC firmware)... or maybe just plain separation anxiety from my G1 and a tactile keyboard...ok, bad joke. I haven't had any of the issues reported, but will say there is some minor light-leaking on the lower bezel of the phone, where the glass meets the plastic casing. Other than that, it'srock solid. No random crashes, no overheating, no dead pixels, no battery charging problems, no issues with mounting the phone to a PC or swapping the microSD card. Everything just works, as expected (which if you're shelling out 300 bucks for a phone, that's the minimum expectation). I also like the fact that there's a warranty option available for the purchase, unlike the iPhone.

The updated HTC Rosie/Sense UI is beautiful nearly flawless. Navigation is straight-forward, but I fear for a slightly older generation of users (e.g. anyone born before the 80s) it may seem too "busy" and overwhelming. HTC has done a lot to outperform Android's stock UI. Integrated multitouch (limited) for the home screen along with the Live Wallpapers integration (which are both fun and cheesy) is a pleasure to use. HTC's widgets are great (but not the best for application specific platforms like Twitter - use Seesmic instead, blows Twidroid out of the water). The HTC keyboard also blows the stock Android keyboard away.. I just wish the bloody thing integrated multi-touch interface (mostly for copy-pasting and capitalizing).

Sprint's network is impressive, but their 3G speeds seem a bit slower than my experience with T-Mobile. Until we have 4G here in FL, the jury's still out. In contrast, I also haven't had random network outages or call dropping as I was prone to with my G1 on T-Mobile. Over WiFi, YouTube and even embedded Flash videos (yes, I got the 2.1 flash pre-release) FLY like the wind and look stunning in HD. I'll also add....thanks to some savvy bargaining, my Sprint bill is 13% less than what I was paying T-Mobile. As a business, their customer service has been excellent, but it would help their sales if their sales associates had more tech knowledge. AT&T wins on that point, as their reps tend to know the iPhones inside-out, or at least talk the talk of "power users".

Camera takes great daytime photos and the recording in HD is impressive (albeit slight under-performance on frame rate capping, thanks to HTC...of course there's a hack to change that). Nighttime camera-work leaves some things to be desired (i.e. its grainy), but the built-in flash is decent and doubly effective for applications that use it as a LED flashlight.

Battery life, on the other hand, totally sucks. I'm a power user, so I frequently mass kill background apps to make phone resources available, but I still have to say there's no easy way to manage power for Android phones. I blame this on the Dalvik compiler, and I'm hoping 2.2 changes energy management....or at least gives app builders a better way to scale resource use for their applications (both background and foreground services).

Apps are still a major point of contention for me and Android...mostly because they're just not there (and are the ultimate deal breaker or maker for most Smartphone buyers). I initially blamed JAVA; but now I'm going to raise the bar and blame the often fragmented (and frustrating) Android framework and lack of developer marketing by Google AND the various carriers (which I think is just about all of 'em) selling Android-powered phones, save Verizon. You have to be a real cowboy to want to develop for Android mostly because it requires a cavalier attitude, since the code source requires a LOT of research. Apple has done a lot to enforce product standard for the iPhone apps out there, and I think it's time Google's marketplace stepped up to expect the same level of product quality. There's nothing more frustrating than downloading what one would expect to be a polished app (or even a clone for something iPhoney like Doodle jump) to find it bug ridden, unpolished or simply feel like a BETA release. This isn't to say that they all suck...but most unfortunately do. Again, hopefully the new VM will change this.

Oh, I forgot to mention Google Voice and integrated search/speech-to-text capabilities - they're amazing.