HTC Evo 4G for Sprint (1 Viewer)

I have been with HTC and Windows Mobile since 2007, having gone through the Mogul, the Touch Diamond, and the Touch Pro 2. I have always liked the way HTC designs their phone other than the lack of memory. And after using Palm devices for two years, I really, really loved the developer community for WinMo. There was no app store, but there were thousands of bright people who made the programs (almost always for free) that made WinMo so customizable. I just assumed my next phone would be from HTC running WP7, but alas, MS decided to adopt Apple's walled garden approach with zero backwards compatability, and that pretty much killed any enthusiasm I had for WP7. Which is how I found myself jumping head first into Android. I had never been that impressed with Android, but the ugly design of the G1 made me cringe enough to not even bother delving into it. I didn't keep up with the updates, and was actually surprised and a bit impressed when I played around with 2.1. It did a lot more than I thought (escpecially Exchange activesync), but the browser -- wow! The browser was incredible! Full web pages loaded in the same time or faster than Opera Mini did on my TP2. Flash lite supported video in many pages. When someone released an all purpose media player for Android that played avi files without the need for conversion, I was sold. And I didn't even need to shop around for a phone -- the Evo was calling, whispering, beckoning me to own it. I'm gonna be honest -- I pretty much bought the Evo based on the screen size alone. If I were on Verizon I would have gotten the Droid X for the same reason, but I've experienced all four carriers, and while T-Mobile is actually a easy to deal with, their coverage sucks. Sprint has been the best carrier I've worked with, so I was very happy go with the Evo. Note that Samsung is releasing the Epic later this year for Sprint (and variants for all carriers are coming with the AT&T version already out). Spec-wise, the Evo cannot hold a candle to it except for the screen size (4.3" vs 4"). But 4" is not gonna cut it for me. Not when there's a 4.3" monster out there. The box seriously looks like a container of instant noodles. It's very conspicuously environmentally friendly -- it looks like it was recycled from egg cartons. Sprint is seriously, seriously cheap with the accessories as of late. My Touch Pro 2 only came with a wall charger, cable, and battery. The Evo is no different -- only those four items, no holster, not even headphones. But that's a slick looking transformer for the wall adapter. It looks like I have to finally move from mini to micro USB. And just when I had all the mini USB cables I would ever need... I am going to baby this thing by trickle charging via PC before turning it on. This process will take hours, but I still have a working phone and I can be patient for today. One hour later and it's fully charged from the PC! This is unheard of! I know it was half charged out of the box, but I thought this would take a few hours at least. The Evo is wider but thinner than my previous Touch Pro 2, but that had a slide out keyboard. I can reach all four corners with my thumb without needing to readjust my grip on the Evo. While I don't have very big hands, I think I have the minimum hand size for one-handed operation. The screen is absoutely beautiful. Compared to my TP2 screen, it is brighter and whiter, very sharp and so freakin' HUGE! Love it! The keyboard is a easier to use in portrait after getting used to the smaller keyboard on the TP2, but there are weird things that slow me down like pausing in between if you hit a letter twice. I suppose this was done to prevent typos, but it's actually causing some for me. However, the landscape keyboard is amazing. It's huge, the virtual keys are luxuriously big, and I think I'm about as fast with it as I was with the TP2 slide out keyboard -- it's that great. And the screen rotation lag is a fraction of the time WinMo took to right itself, so I may be using the landscape kayboard a lot more than I ever used the slider. After four hours of solid use (downloading and installing programs, transferring 6GB of music and videos, surfing the net, and taking phjone calls), the battery needs a recharge. I am not too concerned at this point since a) many users report significantly better battery life after a few weeks, b) I was doing a lot of transferring and downloading as a part of intial setup and won't be hitting as hard with normal use, and c) as it turns out, the battery from my TP2 is interchangeable with the Evo. So it looks like I have a spare battery after all. Internet performance is not as impressive as it was on my co-worker's phone, although I am in NYC today whereas my co-worker is in Harrison NJ. I think the network is much less congested in NJ, so the speeds are that much faster. I ended up downloading Opera Mini again for quick web surfing in NYC. Also, I am annoyed that some websites force me into the ghetto of mobile sites. I really want to surf the desktop site. The great thing? There are other browsers I can install until I find one that does what I want. Speaking of which -- LOVE the app store. Found every program I needed for free. And can I tell you how happy I am to ditch the buggy crap that was Beyondpod for WinMo? That sucked so hard on the TP2. And it was the best thing I could find! GBA and SNES emulation run beautifully on Evo, and the on-screen controls work surprisingly well. Rockplayer friggin' rocks! It plays all of the avi and flv files on my memory card. I'll have to feed it some mkv files when I get home. Now for the downsides. Videos that scaled to full screen on the TP2 look fuzzier and washed out on the Evo when scaled to full screen. This is mostly because the source file is lower resolution compared to the screen, but the video artifacts were invisible on the 3.6" TP2 are easily seen on the Evo. And I think that Coreplayer for WinMo simply produced a better picture than Rockplayer to begin with. This is nowhere near a dealbreaker for me, but it's the same kind of GIGO problem that large screen TV adopters faced with SD cable material. If I want some reference material, it looks like I'm going to have to convert some files closer to the native screen resolution. Fingerprints galore! After a few minutes of usage, it looks like the Evo was hosting a snail orgy! I hope the glass is as tough as they say, because I'm going to be cleaning it off on my shirt a lot. A LOT. The battery cover is kind of dodgy for me. You have to insert your fingernail in a gap and then work off the cover bit by bit. I'm used to sliding off the back covers in one motion with my previous HTC phones, so this design is a big thumbs down for me. It's one of those things where I feel like I might break something the entire time. Remote desktop without a HW keyboard and stylus is NOT pretty. I'm going to have to play around with this a lot. Best feature -- The Screen! Worst feature -- Hmm... it would seem that the battery life would be a no-brainer, but I will revisit that in a few weeks after the battery "breaks in" (if in fact that's an actual thing). For now, I'm going with difficult to use RDP, since I use that a lot. This may be the most painful thing in the long run.

So I found my new favorite app for Android! It's called Dolphin HD, a free browser that supports multi-touch and more. For starters, it's wicked fast. While the stock browser was fast in my NJ office, it choked a bit in the more congested NYC area. And the one downside with flash support (which can be toggled off) is that flash enabled pages, especially ones that are flash heavy, tend to take longer to load. As I mentioned in my first impressions, I loaded Opera Mini as my lite browser. But I can uninstall that now, because Dolphin is just as fast but -- and I cannot stress how amazing this is -- it loads full featured pages instead of mobile only sites. For flash, it downloads placeholders that will redirect to the HTC flash player or the Youtube player. But wait, as they say, there's more! Dolphin supports gesture commands -- draw a "V" and the browser jumps to the bottom of the page. "^" and you go back to the top. There are default gestures for back and forward, as well as bookmarks and refresh. And you can create your own gestures that map to other commands or to open web pages. So I can create a gesture that looks like a TV with bunny ears, and Dolphin will open HTF. This is so clever, it deserved its own paragraph. Dolphin supports multi-touch, so you can grow and shrink the page. But wait -- there's more! When you grow or shrink, the broswer re-formats the page so the text appears as columns. And as a bonus gift, when you open Dolphin HD, it remaps the volume rocker to page up and down. So once you browse to a page and then pinch to the size you want, it reformats the text into a column, and you can use the rocker to scroll up and down. This is closer to the one handed browsing experience I've missed since HTC decided DPads were radioactive. My other new favorite program is RemoteDroid. I believe there's a similar application on the iPhone, but basically, it turns your Evo into a mouse pad and keyboard. I love this feature because although I have a lot of HTPC transport functions mapped to my IR remote, I can open folders to switch between screens without having to reach for the keyboard now. "You mean you watch TV with a phone in your hand?" Yep. My wife hates it, but... yep. It's a networked virtual keyboard, so the PC has to be on the same subnet, and it only works via wifi. So it won't work if you have an non-networked PC. The voice to text feature is amazing. Amazing. I've never seen anything like it. Apart from capitalization, I barely have to edit anything I write (and since that's not really a sin in texting, I don't need to type texts anymore). The biggest drawback is that you can't do it in public. Partly because of the ambient noise and mostly because people will think you're insane. "this entire passage has been composed with voice to text without any editing. if it did come up with capital letters it would be perfect." Voice to text won't break any speed records going up against the Evo keyboard in landscape mode, but sometimes I just don't feel like typing, and this works way better than I imagined. If you have a smaller Android phone and have problems with the keyboard, you should check it out. I have to pull Remote Desktop off of the con list. While it is true that RDP is a rather clunky endeavor sans physical keyboard, I downloaded WYSE, another free, full featured app that does RDP. WYSE has a translucent "flower" you can drag around the screen. Touching the middle is a left mouse click. One of the petals is a virtual mouse pointer (this is great if you are in a small view and need to click on a precise point). Another petal is left click. There are two keyboard petals, one which brings up the stock keyboard, and another than brings up a keyboard with Alt, Ctrl, and F keys. The real drawback is that WYSE does not support multi-touch, so you have to click on a magnification bar to grow and shrink the screen. I'm going to play with it more before I decide if its usable, so for now, I will rescind the "con" status. But two new cons enter the list, one that is new and one that is more annoying than I thought it would be. The new one is voice dialing. This has nothing to do with Bluetooth (which is another matter altogether). I have no idea how a company that got voice to text working so beautifully could so royally screw up voice dialing. It's such a clusterf*ck that I'm going to stop using it since it's nothing but frustration. You hit the voicedial program. You speak the name. Then it sits there for another five or six seconds waiting for you to finish. What kind of time out period is that? It should be one or two seconds. By the time voice dial concludes that you're finished, you could have dialed the number yourself. Plus any ambient noise or cough sets it off in the wrong direction. And then it finally thinks. And then gives you the wrong choices. I could not get it to recognize my wife's name. Now granted, it's spelled Cecile but pronounced Cecily, so I would pronounce it as suh-SEEL on the TP2 without a hitch. But on the Evo, no matter how I pronounced it, it refused to link to my wife's name. But that's not even the worst part. The worst part is that after it fetches what it thinks you were looking for, you have to confirm by tapping the screen. So in short, this is NOT hands-free dialing. I can't use it if the phone is in my holster or if I'm driving since I can't confirm the choice. It's basically useless. Which is why not working with bluetooth is the least of its problems. The other one is the aforementioned battery cover. Since I have a spare battery and since spare batteries actually cost

I rooted my EVO, and removed the Sprint Bloatware. no more Sprint NASCAR, Sprint Football Live, or a number of other programs. This improved greatly on the battery. One thing that I recently learned was that the charging system of the phone "learns" so if you are a frequent charger, or just out of the box, you may not be getting a full charge.

Straight from the HTC Tech Support: Charge the phone all the way up, unplug it, turn the phone off and plug it back in and it should charge another 20% or so, then when the light turns green again, unplug the phone again, turn it on again, plug it back in again and it should charge another 5-10%. I noticed a big improvement just with that.



My favorite apps:


Handcent SMS - Messaging with SMS and MMS capabilities.

Astro File Manager - Browse and move files on the SD Card. Also has app manager software capability.

Shapewriter - A swipe type keyboard for the phone. No more typing, just swipe the words. No longer available unless you get it elsewhere.

Dolphin Browser HD - You mentioned this one already.

Twidroid Full - Twitter app with multiple account capabilites, much more complete than even twitter's own app.

Documents to go Full - Full editing of PDF, Word, Excel, and Powerpoint on the go.

Google Sky Map - Great for looking at star constellations

Trapster - Speed traps, updated live by other drivers

Google Earth - On the phone!!! So cool

Incredilight - Flashlight app tha ttakes control of your camera's LED Flash, this one needs a rooted phone

No Lock - Also needs a rooted phone, but it eliminates the lock screen. When you hit the wake button, your phone wakes and is ready to use.

Wireless Tether - No need for Sprint Hotspot feature to tether, needs root access.

SwiFTP - FTP access to your phone. No more plugging the phone up to move files to the SD card.

PicMe - Screen Cap your phone to show people your layouts, needs root access.

ConnectBot - terminal access while phone is booted, no need to be in recovery. needs root


There are a number of home screen replacements (Launchers). On my previous Android phones I used them but I haven't really done it with the EVO, it's working great. But if you want to get into more customization then Launcher pro or HelixLauncher are two very good ones.


Customizing your EVO is at least half the fun! I love Android and the access they give you.

Astro File manager is great -- I had no idea that Android has no native file manager. Astro also lets you attach any file, not just the ones the email program deems attachable.


There's an SMB module for Astro File Manager that allows it to connect to Windows Shares. If the FTP is any faster, I'll try it.

SNESoid and Gameboid are fantastic.

Since we are listing favorite apps, here are some on my Droid Eris that you may find useful, Hanson. All are free.


1. Places Directory -- lists nearby points of interest, such as restaurants, hotels, entertainment, etc.


2.Amazon -- manage your Amazon.com account, place orders, etc.


3. Movies -- shows what's new in theaters, on DVD and Blu-ray. Read reviews, watch trailers, etc.


4. Wifinder -- shows you what 802.11 wifi networks are in range.


5. Password keeper -- keep track of userids and passwords


6. Dazzle widget -- quick buttons for turning on/off gps, wifi, putting into airplane mode, etc.


7. A Online Radio -- free radio streaming. I picked this one because it streams the local radio station that carries Plymouth Whalers hockey games (we are season ticket holders).


8. Video player -- works better for me than the stock video player


9. Daily Strip -- read your favorite daily cartoon strips. I can keep up with Dilbert this way.


10. SportsTap -- get score and news updates from the major sports -- NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, college football/bball, golf, auto racing


11. NFL Mobile -- ties into NFL.com and The NFL Network. Can watch NFL Network content.


12. Call Log trimmer -- automatically cleans your calling logs based on how many instances you set.


13. Astro File Manager -- already mentioned above


14. Weather Bug -- more useful widget than the stock HTC clock / weather widget.

15. Ring Droid -- create your own ring tones from mp3 files.


16. My Verizon -- manage my Verizon account. Maybe there is a similar app for Sprint.

I had a nerdgasm this morning on my way from Penn Station to the office. I was listening to stuff on Pandora, and just for shits and giggles, I opened my web browser and was able too surf the net as I was streaming music. Now, I understand that this is basic Android OS multi-tasking, but coming from the WinMo world, where and app that used the data connection locked all access to it, this was a revelation. This means I can download an app and surf the net at the same time or receive emails while on remote desktop. Fantastic.


Scott, I will check out NFL Mobile app. My new habit is to go to YouTube and listen to comedians and whatnot while driving, so listening to NFL news and programs fits in with that. I also installed Google Listen for podcasts. I haven't used it yet, but I assume it will work well.


And coming from WinMo, the big thing I noticed with Android is that all the apps I've installed so far work. In WinMo, something like 80% of the programs I installed were buggy -- they crashed, hung, or required babying to work correctly. Most of the programs I used on a daily basis were chosen because they were the least buggy or offered me functionality that I could not get anywhere else. I justified this because a) I didn't have to pay for these apps, and b) whatever inconveniences I encountered were the price I paid for being able to control and customize everything. With Android, I have the best of both worlds. But I have to keep in mind that the Evo has much higher specs than the Touch Pro 2, so it's possible that some or many of these issues were HW rather than OS issues. Truthfully though, I still think it's mostly the latter.


Oh, and I finally worked out the optimal settings for WYSE RDP. I can more than get by now, and although it's still slower than using RDP with a HW keyboard, I can do everything I need to do, albeit with a couple of extra steps. But the ability to pull up alt, ctrl, and F keys has actually increased some functionality, so that's taken some of the sting out of the inconveniences. And with the way I'm using RDP, I don't actually need to grow and shrink at all. I just wish it were optimized for 800 X 480 screens -- none of the default resolutions stretch full screen (all of them are 4:3 AR resolutions).

Just a heads up, RockPlayer has left beta stage and is now available in the app store (launching the beta now just forwards you to the developer's site, so you must reinstall the program from the app store).

Not sure if they made any improvements, but it plays everything it used to play and still can't handle the lone mkv file I tested before. The free version has ads and a nag screen, but the nag screen is just a confirmation at launch, and the ads only show up when the transport controls are on screen. I'm not sure if the logo in the upper left hand corner goes away or not if you upgrade, but I'm willing to fork out the $10 just as a thank you.


A question for the Android pros -- I side-loaded the beta version and I don't know how to uninstall it. It's not going to kill me to have it sit there, but it's an OCD thing, you know?

Originally Posted by Hanson Yoo


A question for the Android pros -- I side-loaded the beta version and I don't know how to uninstall it. It's not going to kill me to have it sit there, but it's an OCD thing, you know?

Click to expand...

Open the Market Place, press "Menu", select "Downloads". If you long press on any of the listed downloaded applications, one of the pop-up items is "Uninstall".


I think you can do it from the main settings screen too, somewhere under applications management.

32GB microSG card for $50 shipped!


Verizon is selling it. It's class 2, but it's 32GB!


http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/accessory?action=accessoryDetails&archetypeId=12214


ETA: Scott, the program wasn't downloaded, so it's not showing up in the app store app.


ETA: I found it. It's under Manage Applications.

Too late! Price is back up to $99.

I got in on that deal myself. Now the question is will they honor it or give a refund.... Ha.

By the way a fast way to backup or batch remove apps is in Astro File Manager, it's great. When it loads, hit Menu > Tools > Backup or remove apps. That way you can quickly uninstall or reinstall multiple apps.

I'm just hoping that since they were offering same day overnight shipping, there was nothing they could do in distribution to stop the order. The only thing that might screw me is that they ran out of stock!


Thanks for the Astro manager tip. I don't know if you've used the SMB plugin (assuming you use windows or linux), but it's really so much better than what I used on WinMo, and the batch select feature is great.


After playing around with SNESoid and Gameboid, I will have to retract my high marks. While it worked great with Super Punch Out, the on screen controls are pretty dodgy. The Dpad is too sensitive for starters, making Bust a Move or Tetris Attack impossible to play as you overshoot your target in a spastic orgy of fail. And I don't think the multi-touch feature allows for more than two touches at a time, which means any platformer that requires you to push the Dpad, hold down run, and then jump at the same time (like DKC) does not work. So unless you're playing RPG's, it's not a viable gaming platform. And Gameboid crashes on me all the time. That's simply unplayable. In the future, I will try to test out the software a features for more than a few minutes before declaring them awesome.

Well I got a tracking number and it shows that it's left Verizon and is at the Fedex shipping facility, that's good right?


I just flashed a new ROM tonight that is complete with all the latest Radio, WiMax etc. Kept my root access too. It's very very nice. With my heavy talking and data, I only got 8-9 hrs a battery charge and with the last ROM I was getting 13-15 and this is supposed to improve on that.

Got my tracking number too, so it looks like I'm free and clear.


Wow. 32GB for $50? That means my Evo with 32GB (well, technically 33GB including the on board memory) cost $250 instead of $300.


"I want the one with the geebees".

First off. Lucky bastards. I am still waiting for my local Best Buy to get these in.


The apps that I found that I love so far are.


First off get the app for App Brain. Then go to http://www.appbrain.com which will allow you to get all the apps in one location to download them to you phone. Then get the Fast Web Installer that goes with it. Then you can go to the web site, pick the app you want and it instantly downloads and installs to your phone.


I just found Dolphin Browser HD this morning before reading this thread. I love the gesture function and it comes with an option to view a site using Google GWT so you can view sites like HTF in a mobile view without all the text. Works great.


Love Uninstaller to remove apps from the phone. It does a great job.

Touch to Talk is a cool app that allows you to use your phone with someone else that has Touch to Talk as a walkie-talkie. Move over Nextel.

AIM

Amazon

Barcode Scanner

Bump

Paypal

Cleanoid

Advanced Task Killer

Dropbox

ES File Explorer

iSyncr Lite (for connection to your iTunes files)

Kindle

SlideIT Keyboard - Works great and has a mic input.

SwiftKey Beta (I am waiting on Swipe to get out of Beta)

Urbanspoon

I still haven't been able to find anyone that has one. I am really waiting on Best Buy as I can get it through them at the price that Sprint lists it for

as well as use my BB credit card. I have to pay the full price as I don't have the upgrade option yet with my contract.


I have also been looking at the Samsung Epic and want to see it in comparison to the EVO. The AMOLED screen looks great. The main feature

that it has is the slide out keyboard which I doubt I would ever use. I am hoping since it will be a few months before it shows up at Sprint that

it will have Froyo already installed. I doubt it will but hears to be hopefully it does.

I just tried Swype (it's the Droid version that's been modified to work on the Evo) and I tell ya, it's goddamn MAGIC. I'm sure ShapeWriter and SlideIT do the same thing, but I was really blown away at how well it worked. Three problems though:


1) There aren't any arrow keys on the main keyboard or even in the symbols keyboard, and that makes editing rather cumbersome.


2) There is no button for voice entry like the stock keyboard has


3) It won't work in Remote Desktop or Remote Droid.


If there were a fast way to switch keyboards, I would go with Swype as my main and switch to stock if I needed to edit text. But right now, it's too much of a pain in the ass to swap around.


But the technology is amazing. My jaw dropped more and more as it selected the correct word time after time.

If you think the Evo is too big...


http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/20/dell-streak-review-redux-thoughts-from-the-new-world/

You would think that Dell would hold off on releasing it until the can put it on the market with Froyo and not v. 1.6 of Android. Poor choice in my mind.

Sure, froyo would have been nice, but they couldn't get 2.1 at least?