My with the Evo's 4G Coverage, Navigation, Camera and Battery Life

[Caloy]

We planned a trip to Kemah Boardwalk and I thought this would be a perfect time to do a small review of the Evo. So here is what I experienced with the Evo 4G. Please bear in mind that my focus was to have fun and not make this as an in-depth review of the phone.

1. 4G Coverage: Although Sprint's maps says that on our area (Sugar Land, Missouri, and Stafford) it has almost complete 4G coverage. My tests from different part of the vicinity only shows mostly 3G connectivity. And if it does show 4G, I don't notice any major change in speed, then again, I haven't timed it so please bear in mind the word - "notice".

2. Navigation was excellent! I prefer Google Navigation then Sprint's because of the satellite viewing while navigating... Even full-fledged navigation devices do not have this capability! There were a few times that google navigation would give a longer/slower route, but so does all other GPS devices. Over all, I'm pretty impressed with Google Navigation!

3. For a phone's camera, this thing is impressive! It won't replace a regular point and shoot camera. But this camera is excellent for internet viewing. Reduce the size to 25% of it's original size and almost all it's image quality issues will be greatly reduced. Here are some pictures I took at Kemah (Please take note, the pictures have been reduced 25%):

4. Lastly - Battery life... The battery didn't last long for me, yes I did put brightness to auto-brightness, turned off 4G, GPS (When I wasn't using it) and wifi. It barely lasted 3 hours, good thing I got my Seidio 1750 mAh extended battery, and no, I didn't notice any major difference between the OEM battery and the extended battery. Again no scientific and in-depth review here. My focus is not to review this phone, but to have fun. My second battery pretty much held out till we got back home, with me posting on FB on transit.

Overall, I have not too much to complain about, I just found some solutions to my issues. The only solution I haven't found yet, is the 4G coverage. From Sprint's map, it says we're fully covered, but as I go from place to place, the 4G coverage was spotty at best.

EDIT: Forgot the word "Experience" on the title.

 

[anthonylokrn]

Nice. Haven't been to Kemah in a while. Loved riding that speedboat with the dancing chicks.

 

[Caloy]

Nice. Haven't been to Kemah in a while. Loved riding that speedboat with the dancing chicks.

You mean this speed boat? (The white one on the right, not the sailboat... LOL)

 

[cary328is]

2. Navigation was excellent! I prefer Google Navigation then Sprint's because of the satellite viewing while navigating... Even full-fledged navigation devices do not have this capability! There were a few times that google navigation would give a longer/slower route, but so does all other GPS devices. Over all, I'm pretty impressed with Google Navigation!

Thanks for sharing this part about the navigation Caloy! This is one of the features I'm most excited about with the phone. I didn't have a reason to stop using my Garmin until now.

 

[Caloy]

Thanks for sharing this part about the navigation Caloy! This is one of the features I'm most excited about with the phone. I didn't have a reason to stop using my Garmin until now.

You're more than welcome. Just remember to hook up your car charger. With satellite layer on, it sucks up juice like you wouldn't believe.

 

[SurplusGadgets]

Have had the EVO 4G for 3 days now. My experience is it sometimes takes 3-5 minutes before it recognizes the 4G when I enter into an area near the antennae. Sometimes I get 2-3 bars of 4G in my house; sometimes zero. But we are still in "initial install and testing" stage here in Silicon Valley, CA. Speed tests with speedtest.net and dslreports.com show about a 2x improvement with 4G. But still often better picking up the Google WiFi when available to get better speed

I also enjoyed Google Maps / Navigation better but found it took much more time to load map data. Often the phone reported being out of memory and shut off traffic info though as well. But being able to switch between car, bus, bicycle or walking; and map, satellite or street view is way cool.

 

[cooper1010]

My with the Evo's 4G Coverage, Navigation, Camera and Battery Life

your what?! did you just a whole bottle of coke!?!

just kidding. those pics look great.

i must be a crappy photographer; i keep seeing others pics then try to take some of all the beer cans laying around here and they're all fuzzy (hmmmm...maybe i see what the problem is...)

 

[cmanbrazil]

Nice review. I think battery life varies, and while there is speculation, I don't know if we really understand why some people get more than others. I get better battery life than you, but I haven't taken a lot of pictures. I live on the internet all day on it, play with apps from games to layars, and watch movies.

 

[misterzeno]

O Snap....I was at Kemah Saturday, my battery was red when we were leaving.....although I was playing with the darn phone the whole time. Also I think the speed boat with the chicks dancing would be the Boardwalk Beast.

 

[Funksultan]

Same area (Sugar Land) here. 4G coverage is intermittent at best, but anywhere within Houston, coverage is great. No problems, as 3g is pretty zippy in the outlying areas.

On the north side of Houston, 4g coverage is blazing, and even in an office with 1 bar on the 4g signal, it still manages 2-3 mbps. That's more than enough to stream Pandora while surfing.

Echoing the OP, battery life is pretty abyssal. That's been my only complaint thus far. Switching off 4g, GPS, etc when they aren't being used is some help, but not enough to make the constant fiddling with the phone worth it.

Ok, I'll be the first one to say it. I prefer Sprint Navigation. Don't get me wrong, Google's Nav has more, and better toys, and hey, if we didn't LOVE toys, we wouldn't have the EVO, right?

However, when the chips are down, I use a nav app to show me how to get somewhere, and I don't know the way. In that regard, Sprint's course corrections, and it's location mapping is more accurate than Google's, at least on the 10 or so times I've used it. I like hearing it say I'm at my destination, right as I pull into the parking lot or driveway. Google will often keep barking directions (wrong ones) at those points.

Maybe I'm just in areas Google mapping isn't as accurate. I'll try it in some of the downtown Houston areas this weekend.

 

[anthonylokrn]

You mean this speed boat? (The white one on the right, not the sailboat... LOL)

No, the one in your first picture lol.

 

[Fryday]

Great Pics!

I'm in the Pearland area and I get pretty good 3G coverage, but 4G has been fairly non-existent. The longest it's stayed connected for me was a couple of minutes.

I'm not much of a photographer, so I really didn't want to be fiddling with settings to get good pics. Just bascially want to point and shoot. With so little effort on my part, I didn't really expect to get decent pics via a cell phone. But gotta say, I've been pleasantly surprised by how good my photos have turned out.

Here's a couple of shots of my Collies: