[Merged] HTC Evo 4G / Supersonic / Sprint Evo

[thetexan]

I got my girlfriend one and I can't put it down. This thing is awesome in my opinion. Of course it's all opinion, different people like different things. It's very similar to my incredible except with a bigger screen and 4G.

Things I was able to setup without jailbreaking / rooting that I could never do on my iPhone without at least jailbreaking.

-SMS Backup. It sends all my SMS messages in real-time to my Gmail account for archiving. I love, love, love this program as I always get snippets of information via text and it's so easy to use the Gmail system to search.

-Gentle Alarm. This application begins waking me up about 20 minutes earlier than I want and instead of Snooze the alarm gradually gets louder and louder. I like this because instead of a sudden, loud noise that jolts me awake I'm gradually awoken. Might sound lame to some but it really is nice to me.

-Zedge. Ringtone/Wallpaper search engine with automatic ringtone downloader. I can setup ringtones and notification sounds (ahem, Apple?) without having to sync my phone with anything.

-Last.fm scrobbling native to the phone. It scrobbles in real time and not when I sync with iTunes.

-MP3 downloader. Not sure on the legality of this one but it uses search engines to find specific MP3 files and downloads them straight to my media library. It works great finding that latest song, and I own it without paying $1.29. Actually I'm quiet sure about the legality now that I think about it.

I'm sure you can do many of the things above on the iPhone after jailbreaking but I'd rather not. Besides, nobody knows the status of JB after 4.x, it might not even be possible for a while.

 

[plinden]

... there is a HUGE JB/SSH community.

Really? In comparison to the 50million iPhones that have been sold?

Just about everyone I know has an iPhone and only one of them has JB'ed his iPhone. He has a whole circle of friends I don't personally know, but who have JB'ed, so if you're a JB'er, it looks like you're part of a group that knows each other. So it looks like the community is huge.

Whereas it's really vanishingly small when taken as a fraction of iPhone owners.

 

[XciteMe]

Early Evo4G adopters, can you let us know your initial impressions with the battery life? I want to know if it's as bad as people say, or if it's fair, and the issue is overblown.

 

[iPadztr]

got the evo as this morning and only lag that I'm currently experiencing is the default browser of the EVO when pinching. But this thing scream... it's fast and very responsive even if i have 10+ applications running in the background already. I have 30 days to play this thing before i decide to which one to keep. EVO or the new iPhone. We'll see on monday what apple got in their sleeves.

 

[drew0020]

Early Evo4G adopters, can you let us know your initial impressions with the battery life? I want to know if it's as bad as people say, or if it's fair, and the issue is overblown.

It's bad about equal to my 3gs. Just have a car and desk charger. That's how I made my iPhone work.

 

[A MacBook lover]

The camera has to be the best I have seen on any phone. I liked the way it tracked the face and the way it smoothly adjusted brightness. Then of course the great picture quality - it's something that could truly replace a digital camera.

 

[Dammit Cubs]

I just got the EVO this morning. Yes, even though i'm a APPLE FANBOY. I will always try other gadgets because thats what true techie's do.

Overall. I like it but the battery drains really fast.....

My battery is dead from trickle charge and i'm charging it now. LOVE THE NOTIFICATIONS.

I'll write a comprehensive review soon.

 

[XciteMe]

It's bad about equal to my 3gs. Just have a car and desk charger. That's how I made my iPhone work.

Are you running 4G? Turning off unnecessary apps and processes? IMHO iPhone 3GS had good battery life, except for 3D games and large downloading.

 

[bidwalj]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 1.6; en-us; Archos5 Build/Donut) AppleWebKit/528.5+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.2 Mobile Safari/525.20.1)



Why didn't you root the nexus and install a desire rom on the thing to try out HTC Sense UI?

I take it you will be able to return the evo within 30 days? That will be good for you at least. Plenty off time to get the next iPhone.

I didnt root it since I wanted to return it. I know i have enough time. This was just a trial for me anyway. Just incase it blew me away and plus I have a 3g iPad. I like it a bit better than the nexus but its still the same overall experience.

 

[iPadztr]

Early Evo4G adopters, can you let us know your initial impressions with the battery life? I want to know if it's as bad as people say, or if it's fair, and the issue is overblown.

battery life suck on this thing just like any other smartphone out there. almost the same as the iPhone 3G-3Gs. dont believe the reviews that gives high praise on battery life of this thing. Those who give high praises are the same of who turns off all the good features of the EVO and make it look like crap.

 

[drew0020]

Are you running 4G? Turning off unnecessary apps and processes? IMHO iPhone 3GS had good battery life, except for 3D games and large downloading.

My 3gs burns through the battery when using 3g. I have 4g turned off but am using gps and wifi.

 

[thetexan]

Early Evo4G adopters, can you let us know your initial impressions with the battery life? I want to know if it's as bad as people say, or if it's fair, and the issue is overblown.

A lot of people complained about the Incredible, but I thought it wasn't bad.

I honestly believe a lot of people complaining are coming from dumbphones and are used to not charging their phone for 3+ days. My Incredible was similar to my 3GS, and I expect the EVO to be as well.

 

[drew0020]

A lot of people complained about the Incredible, but I thought it wasn't bad.

I honestly believe a lot of people complaining are coming from dumbphones and are used to not charging their phone for 3+ days. My Incredible was similar to my 3GS, and I expect the EVO to be as well.

If youre used to the 3GS battery the Evo will be fine. Suposedly they have a battery coming out thats the same size but has more juice as well.

Anyway, the battery is really a non-issue. Im sure coming from an iPhone there are many more major issues to deal with. For me its iTunes integration.

 

[greemie]

The EVO looks promising according to this thread. Can you in fact return it within 30 days? I wanted to see how it compared with my iPhone.

 

[drew0020]

The EVO looks promising according to this thread. Can you in fact return it within 30 days? I wanted to see how it compared with my iPhone.

Yes you can. That's my plan as well.

 

[thetexan]

The EVO looks promising according to this thread. Can you in fact return it within 30 days? I wanted to see how it compared with my iPhone.

If you are a new Sprint customer then you can trial Sprint for 30 days. As long as you return the equipment in mint condition they will credit back all fees, taxes, and service charges for the time you were using the phone. You would still be responsible to pay for anything above their normal stuff such as international roaming, premium services purchased, and so on.

 

[kdarling]

Early Evo4G adopters, can you let us know your initial impressions with the battery life? I want to know if it's as bad as people say, or if it's fair, and the issue is overblown.

THe first week or so of any smartphone is a terrible source of information on battery life.

The battery hasn't been cycled nicely yet to get calibrated. You're playing with the phone constantly. You're keeping the screen on. You're downloading stuff. You haven't figured out yet how to maximize battery life.

It was no different with the iPhone. Think of all the threads dedicated to battery life, with answers about turning off Bluetooth, WiFi, 3G, backlight, push email, and so forth.

It also takes time to figure out all the UI tricks and the best way to operate everything. You also need to set up all the homepages and widgets. And even that changes rapidly as you download more widgets and apps.

As in all good things, patience is the key.

 

[Geckotek]

I just got the EVO this morning. Yes, even though i'm a APPLE FANBOY. I will always try other gadgets because thats what true techie's do.

Overall. I like it but the battery drains really fast.....

My battery is dead from trickle charge and i'm charging it now. LOVE THE NOTIFICATIONS.

I'll write a comprehensive review soon.

Keep in mind that those batteries take a few cycles to hit their true capacity. I find mine gets better and better for the first 3-4 days at least.

 

[A MacBook lover]

My final thoughts as OP, I think that the EVO was overrated, it just feels like another android phone. Nothing really pops out as amazing other than the camera. Yet still to this day I have yet to see a phone that compares to the iPhone's speed/accuracy/smoothness of touch screen still three years after it's release.

 

[FX120]

Quick update, I picked my phone up at 7AM this morning and it had about a 60% charge out of the box, I've put about 3 hours of use on it and several more hours of standby with mixed 3G/4G useage, and I still have 20% left.

It's 3PM now.

 

[ucfgrad93]

Just saw one at a Sprint store. It is a pretty amazing device. The screen is wonderful. There was no lag in scrolling, websites came up fast, etc. If I wasn't on a family plan with at&t I'd seriously consider getting it.

 

[McGiord]

Do the EVO and Droid can do the following:
- keep downloading the photos even you receive a phone call, and you answer the call and talk?
- properly add the right orientation to automatically rotate the photos taken by them, so when you have them in your computer you don't need to rotate them?

Well, any single day I use my iPhone I find out more cool features that are not specified anywhere, nor advertised.

Sincerely, I wish you the best of luck with Android.

 

[Apollo 13]

of course the battery is going to die quick if you haven't fully charged the phone. Then on top of that you're constantly playing with the phone because it's new.

 

[brendu]

I also went into a sprint store today to check it out.. my thoughts:

Pros: -HUGE screen, some might not like it but I love it.
-great camera
-speech to text for messaging (and other things I believe)
-seemed perfectly fine and responsive to me
-good notification system (not as good as webOS but better than iPhoneOS

Cons: -I live about 30 miles from washington DC which is one of sprints 4G cities and the demo phone had 1 bar of 4G service and even that went out while I was using it and fell back to 3G
-Android is not as simple as webOS or iPhone OS
-when browsing online, double tapping to resize the screen to a specific block of text wasn't great, it would often crop too much.

I didnt have a ton of time to play with it, and overall it seemed like a pretty nice phone. I have a pre with sprint and another year on the contract and im really disappointed, I LOVE webOS more than any other platform but the hardware is the worst I have ever used in a phone. If apple brings the iPhone to sprint I will buy it in a heartbeat even though I have some issues with it; I do believe overall its the best phone available. However, if apple does not release the iPhone for sprint I will probably go ahead and pick up an EVO this summer unless palm can get with the program soon and release a phone with hardware that works.

 

[JustLeft]

I have both and my experience is exactly the same as yours. Right down to the point about getting Froyo before I consider selling it. May hold on to it for tethering though - still on the fence.

I have the complete opposite experience. Put an iPhone and an N1 next to each other and click on an icon or a link. The iPhone is more accurate, gives you better visual feedback, and has less jerkiness when opening something. The N1 is powerful spec wise, but for me it just doesn't translate into smooth scrolling and good visual feedback from the UI. I also hate how it highlights stuff when you're initiating a scrolling motion. Bugs the hell out of me. I do hope get froyo before I sell it and get the new iPhone; I'd like to feel the speed improvements.