Evo 4G Review
06/12/10 01:24 AM Filed in: Reviews
So I ended up getting an Evo 4G and overall I really like this smart phone. While it isn’t perfect I find the positives outweigh the negatives. For the last few years I have been on ATT and for the most part the wireless service has been decent, but the last couple months the service seemed to have been getting worse, giving me a perfect excuse to look elsewhere :) While on ATT I have been a heavy Blackberry user and have grown to really like the platform Research in Motion provides through the Blackberry, but the weakness of the multimedia and browsing capabilities made me anxious in wanting to try out a different phone and platform altogether.
When I first read about the HTC Evo 4G I quickly realized that it was the perfect phone to try out, the phone that had exactly the capabilities I was hampering for. So on release I bought one and so far I don’t regret switching over.
Form Factor/Feel
A lot of people are saying that the phone is large, but imo its actually a little smaller then I would like. I would have preferred a 4.5 inch screen, which I think would have been perfect for my hand. I really like the soft plastic HTC used on the back, it gives a great tactile feel and I like to eat this type of plastic :) I do wish the borders around the screen was a little larger because I find my hand wrapping around the phone and inadvertently touching the screen. But the overall feel and size is great for browsing and media viewing.
Battery
I have been getting around 12-14 hours pretty consistently. This has been with 3 email clients running, 3G enabled, bluetooth enabled, a lot of texting, and around 20 min avg. worth of phone calls. This is about what I was getting with my Blackberry Bold so I am pretty happy with it. While this might not be enough for some people, I find it enough for me since I am used to charging from my Bold.
Screen
The first thing anyone notices about this phone is the screen because of its size and clarity. The screen is big and I like the colors presented by the screen. I do wish the screen was a little larger, but I guess this is a good start :)
Texting
I feel this is one of the greatest weaknesses of this phone. I really don’t like the on screen keyboard, part of it because I am so used to the excellent Blackberry keyboards, I find myself hitting the wrong key all the time even after using it constantly for over a week. The speed at which I can text has decreased by at least half. The texting app that comes with the phone works well for me and I find it easy to follow conversations on it.
Email
I use three email clients on the Evo vs 1 email client on the Blackberry Bold. I have one for exchange support, Touchdown, because the Exchange server I need to connect to doesn’t support activesync. I have use the gmail client for my gmail addresses and finally I use the default mail client for my non gmail addresses. Also like texting, I find myself typing a lot slower because of the on screen keyboard. At first I really hated that I had to use 3 email clients, but Android has an excellent notification feature. Whenever you get a notification you can pull down the top menu and view the notification summary and select it to view the details. This effectively makes my 3 email clients into 1 since when I touch the notification it automatically sends me to the message.
Browsing
This phone is the best browsing experience I have had on any mobile device including the iPhone. The larger screen makes a big difference when reading web pages. I got this phone primarily for it's browsing capabilities and I have not been disappointed at all. In comparison to my Blackberry its night and day and in comparison to an iPhone I find its a natural upgrade. Even though I am on 3G I find most web pages to load quickly and correctly. Some of the flash heavy websites do load slower which makes me sad since its because of the flash ads and not flash content.
Multimedia
Videos play great on this large screen and at first I thought the kick stand would be gimmicky, but I actually have found it useful. I have watched a lot of youtube videos on this phone and even though I only have 3G I prefer watching YouTube videos over HD because it is so much clearer than the standard quality. Pandora works great and I use it all the time. Because I primarily use Pandora I haven’t used the music player much, but from my limited experiences it seems lacking especially in comparison to Apple’s offering.
Phone/Voice
I find the voice capabilities a little lacking, people seem to have a harder time understanding me and I have a harder time understanding other people. The speaker phone is great though and works well especially when the speaker is against a hard surface to resonate. I do get good reception across San Diego so I haven’t had problems with dropped calls or poor reception.
Build Quality
I do have say I am a bit disappointed in the build quality of the phone. I was expecting a phone of high quality rivaling that of Apple’s phones, but there are at least a few glaring issues that definitely prevent the Evo from reaching that bar. First I am experiencing the bottom of my screen lifting from the body. There has been a lot of discussion about this on the various android and htc forums and it seems as though it is because of the quality of the glue. Next I am also experiencing problems with my touch screen where if I use it on a cloth or any non grounded surface the Evo seems to have a difficult time registering slides across the screen. Finally the body doesn’t fit together well, the seem feels uneven across the body.
Conclusion
I am glad I got the Evo even with all of its faults. The Evo gives the Android platform a good device to differentiate itself from the Apple devices. I find the Evo to be a good fit for me and the way I use smart phones, but it definitely is not for everyone. I really hope that the Evo kicks off more manufacturers producing smart phones in the 4.3+ inch range and it looks like it already has with Motorola’s new 4.4 inch Droid. I find the name Evo very appropriate for this phone since it is the next natural evolution in smart phones.
When I first read about the HTC Evo 4G I quickly realized that it was the perfect phone to try out, the phone that had exactly the capabilities I was hampering for. So on release I bought one and so far I don’t regret switching over.
Form Factor/Feel
A lot of people are saying that the phone is large, but imo its actually a little smaller then I would like. I would have preferred a 4.5 inch screen, which I think would have been perfect for my hand. I really like the soft plastic HTC used on the back, it gives a great tactile feel and I like to eat this type of plastic :) I do wish the borders around the screen was a little larger because I find my hand wrapping around the phone and inadvertently touching the screen. But the overall feel and size is great for browsing and media viewing.
Battery
I have been getting around 12-14 hours pretty consistently. This has been with 3 email clients running, 3G enabled, bluetooth enabled, a lot of texting, and around 20 min avg. worth of phone calls. This is about what I was getting with my Blackberry Bold so I am pretty happy with it. While this might not be enough for some people, I find it enough for me since I am used to charging from my Bold.
Screen
The first thing anyone notices about this phone is the screen because of its size and clarity. The screen is big and I like the colors presented by the screen. I do wish the screen was a little larger, but I guess this is a good start :)
Texting
I feel this is one of the greatest weaknesses of this phone. I really don’t like the on screen keyboard, part of it because I am so used to the excellent Blackberry keyboards, I find myself hitting the wrong key all the time even after using it constantly for over a week. The speed at which I can text has decreased by at least half. The texting app that comes with the phone works well for me and I find it easy to follow conversations on it.
I use three email clients on the Evo vs 1 email client on the Blackberry Bold. I have one for exchange support, Touchdown, because the Exchange server I need to connect to doesn’t support activesync. I have use the gmail client for my gmail addresses and finally I use the default mail client for my non gmail addresses. Also like texting, I find myself typing a lot slower because of the on screen keyboard. At first I really hated that I had to use 3 email clients, but Android has an excellent notification feature. Whenever you get a notification you can pull down the top menu and view the notification summary and select it to view the details. This effectively makes my 3 email clients into 1 since when I touch the notification it automatically sends me to the message.
Browsing
This phone is the best browsing experience I have had on any mobile device including the iPhone. The larger screen makes a big difference when reading web pages. I got this phone primarily for it's browsing capabilities and I have not been disappointed at all. In comparison to my Blackberry its night and day and in comparison to an iPhone I find its a natural upgrade. Even though I am on 3G I find most web pages to load quickly and correctly. Some of the flash heavy websites do load slower which makes me sad since its because of the flash ads and not flash content.
Multimedia
Videos play great on this large screen and at first I thought the kick stand would be gimmicky, but I actually have found it useful. I have watched a lot of youtube videos on this phone and even though I only have 3G I prefer watching YouTube videos over HD because it is so much clearer than the standard quality. Pandora works great and I use it all the time. Because I primarily use Pandora I haven’t used the music player much, but from my limited experiences it seems lacking especially in comparison to Apple’s offering.
Phone/Voice
I find the voice capabilities a little lacking, people seem to have a harder time understanding me and I have a harder time understanding other people. The speaker phone is great though and works well especially when the speaker is against a hard surface to resonate. I do get good reception across San Diego so I haven’t had problems with dropped calls or poor reception.
Build Quality
I do have say I am a bit disappointed in the build quality of the phone. I was expecting a phone of high quality rivaling that of Apple’s phones, but there are at least a few glaring issues that definitely prevent the Evo from reaching that bar. First I am experiencing the bottom of my screen lifting from the body. There has been a lot of discussion about this on the various android and htc forums and it seems as though it is because of the quality of the glue. Next I am also experiencing problems with my touch screen where if I use it on a cloth or any non grounded surface the Evo seems to have a difficult time registering slides across the screen. Finally the body doesn’t fit together well, the seem feels uneven across the body.
Conclusion
I am glad I got the Evo even with all of its faults. The Evo gives the Android platform a good device to differentiate itself from the Apple devices. I find the Evo to be a good fit for me and the way I use smart phones, but it definitely is not for everyone. I really hope that the Evo kicks off more manufacturers producing smart phones in the 4.3+ inch range and it looks like it already has with Motorola’s new 4.4 inch Droid. I find the name Evo very appropriate for this phone since it is the next natural evolution in smart phones.
Finally Site Up
06/10/10 12:10 AM Filed in: Site
I finally got around to creating my site. Originally wanted to do everything in rails, but going to use that for one of my other webapps.