Proud New Owner of an EVO

[lordofthereef]

So anyone that has read some of my threads probably knows that I had been bouncing back and forth about which phone to get and what network to go with. I settled on Sprint, then I switched to Verizon because of plan prices, then back to Sprint now (based on reception at my work). Anyway, here are my frist impressions (coming from iPhone 4).

Screen Size - thought I would hate it, but I LOVE it. I was ripping on how "giant" this phone is. Really it is a non-issue

Screen Quality - I was sad that I wasn't getting an AMOLED. This is no longer the case. I LOVE it. I also thought the screen quality would be a big downgrade from the iPhone 4. While it is marginally noticable (if I have the phone less than 6 inches from my face), it is not something that bothers me in the slightest.

Reception - Reception with ATT was pretty good for me. There were some places (basement levels) where I would get 0 bars with ATT. With Sprint, every place like this I have checked I had at least 1 bar but usually 2-3 on Sprint.

Call Quality - I never understood why people thought calls didn't sound good on the iPhone. Now I know! Calls sound much clearer and crisper without popping. Too soon to report about dropped calls with Sprint, but they happened frequently.

Data - Data seems about the same as far as speed is concerned. I do, however, have a much larger 3G map with Sprint than I did with ATT (although this is not tested).

Currently I am on a dead stock phone running HTC's Sense and FroYo, and compared to a heavily modified jailbroken iPhone the difference is night and day. Android is simply amazing!

The biggest drawback about Sprint is the 4G data plan addition, but with my girlfriend's contract this is basically free (I pay another 2 bucks). With how few areas 4G is available, I really think they could and SHOULD only charge you that extra $10 when you actually pull 4G data. When you aren't pulling any data, I don't see how they justify charging you the extra fee. That said, I was in the same situation with 3G and ATT (we didn;t get 3G until about 6 months ago in my area). So, it is not something that only Sprint is doing to their customers, but I still don;t really find it to be all that fair.

 

[Frisco]

Congratulations on your new device.

 

[toomuchgame441]

Glad you made the jump. You will love your Evo more and more everyday. From the browsing, to the apps, to the camera/camcorder. Had my Evo for over a month and I've been in phone heaven. From this point it can only be better too.

 

[alextop30]

Welcome to the Evo fan club. I am glad your experience with the phone has been as good as or better than the fruit made products. I have to also say you will like your phone more as time goes on or if you decide to root it. With that said one of my favorite features is actually the big screen and the kickstand

 

[lordofthereef]

Thanks and I agree. Looking into rooting and tweeking now. Best part is I can do it at work!

 

[lordofthereef]

Forogt to add that I LOVE LOVE LOVE the notifier light. Had these on blackberry years ago and missed them dearly.

 

[dan330]

for the $10 charge...
even if you dont get 4g speeds....

for the premium ...
you get uncapped 3g speeds...
and get a higher priority on your data requests, that means you get your response before others.

 

[Maluko]

Grats. Now root. Myn's 2.2 rom. And you'll get the most out of it.

 

[Maluko]

Battery life has been awesome since ive done that to mine. Love it!

 

[ovrrdrive]

Thanks for the review. I'm in the decision process too.

 

[Rigmaster]

Congrats. I'm still running stock Sense + Froyo, and all's fine. I know rooting offers more control, but I don't have that much interest or free time on my hands. Sprint network has been better for me. No dropped calls, and the combined 3G + 4G give me speeds and availability AT&T won't likely see for a while. At a much better price.

I just met with friends in NYC who are happy about their new iPhone4s. I let them be, but they really couldn't stop gawking at how much more I could do and faster than they're used to. They tried "we can call and surf" bit on me. All I did was surf on 4G and do a call. Asked them if they wanted to do a video call but laughed knowing they'd have to find wifi. I don't videocall anyway, but I thought it was funny to watch them ponder where they could do it.

Best part was the complaints about the size of Evo all seemed to go away when we did head-to-head comparisons. The extra screen size makes a difference. As to clarity, the retina display was a bit clearer, but while mobile and on such a small screen it hardly makes a difference.

Watched college football on SprintTV when the energy and conversation reached a lull. Loved being able to tune in, get score updates while watching a game, and shut down without anyone even knowing.

 

[lordofthereef]

I will say that video calling over 3H on ATT works very well so long as you jailbreak and install the right apps. I do miss not being able to browse the net while talking as I did get used to this on my iPhone. The vast majority of the use doesn't have wimax, so IMO it isn't a really good argument FOR using Sprint's network. At this point, that is really the only thing I miss anymore. To be quite honest, anyplace I talk and browse simultaneously has wifi anyway... I bet I could just use that. I guess at the end of the day it is just the principle. Anyway, I am much happier with the phone and the network as a whole overall. Can;t have everything I guess, but with the EVO I seem to have a whole lot more!

 

[wallyy]

I currently have the Hero, BUT GUESS WHAT? I ordered the Evo 2 days ago, can't wait till it gets here!!! The suspense is killing me. I'll try to remember to post here after using it for a while

 

[toomuchgame441]

I currently have the Hero, BUT GUESS WHAT? I ordered the Evo 2 days ago, can't wait till it gets here!!! The suspense is killing me. I'll try to remember to post here after using it for a while

Haha, I look forward to seeing that post. I'm still as incredibly happy with my Evo as i was back when i got it in October. Solid device, can't for some new updates like gingerbread and sense 2.0

 

[wallyy]

I'm here! Got the phone today. Holy crap it's such an upgrade from the Hero. Soooo much faster. HOWEVER, there are a couple of things that are bugging me.

First, on my Hero, Sense used to crash every now and then, very often actually, and I thought maybe with the Evo this would be resolved, however it still does it. HTC needs to fix this issue. Another thing is album art! I use Winamp, and on the Hero album art displayed just fine, on the Evo it refuses to display any. Well maybe not any, but 90% of the songs aren't showing album art. I don't know if this is a Winamp thing, but the Hero shows the art just fine. Finally, this must just be my luck, but it seems like there's a dead pixel on the screen. It's barely noticeable, usually when there's a black background, but it's still frustrating being it's a new phone. I'm going to Radioshack first thing tomorrow morning and see what they're going to say. I'm pretty sure since I ordered it online they're going to make me call.

Otherwise, this thing is pretty awesome. The screen is amazing, and I don't care that it's huge! 4g is definitely a rip off I feel like because it keeps dropping. And yes, my area is covered with 4g. I'm not totally happy about the extra $10 monthly fee, but oh well. Sorry this post is long and is filled with negativity!

 

[Palmetto Fellow]

I'm here! Got the phone today. Holy crap it's such an upgrade from the Hero. Soooo much faster. HOWEVER, there are a couple of things that are bugging me.

First, on my Hero, Sense used to crash every now and then, very often actually, and I thought maybe with the Evo this would be resolved, however it still does it. HTC needs to fix this issue. Another thing is album art! I use Winamp, and on the Hero album art displayed just fine, on the Evo it refuses to display any. Well maybe not any, but 90% of the songs aren't showing album art. I don't know if this is a Winamp thing, but the Hero shows the art just fine. Finally, this must just be my luck, but it seems like there's a dead pixel on the screen. It's barely noticeable, usually when there's a black background, but it's still frustrating being it's a new phone. I'm going to Radioshack first thing tomorrow morning and see what they're going to say. I'm pretty sure since I ordered it online they're going to make me call.

Otherwise, this thing is pretty awesome. The screen is amazing, and I don't care that it's huge! 4g is definitely a rip off I feel like because it keeps dropping. And yes, my area is covered with 4g. I'm not totally happy about the extra $10 monthly fee, but oh well. Sorry this post is long and is filled with negativity!

Hmmmm...that's interesting. I never had any Sense crashes while I was using it. Within a month, I switched over to Launcher Pro and it's been VERY sweet since I made the switch.

 

[dan330]

no.. sense should not crash... maybe some app you loaded that is messing with it.
your album art should show.. maybe you had some other app that helped it log everything.

get that phone replaced if you have a dead pix.

hoping you get it worked out.. I upgraded form hero to evo too... loving HTC!

 

[wallyy]

Maybe I got a defective Evo? lol Just my luck! Either way, I called up Radioshack and told them that I'm not willing to ship my phone and wait for the new to come in, so they said they'll send me the new one but also put a $250 hold on my credit card until they receive the one I've got now. Not surprising of course. BTW, when I say Sense crashes, this is what I meant: lets say I'm in an app, and I've been using extensively (a game), when I exit by hitting the Home button, instead of going right back to the home screen, it shows "HTC" on a white background, just like it does when you first power up the phone, then that changes to a "Loading ..." screen with the home screen in the background, then finally loads the home page. This was VERY common with my Hero, but it's only happened once until now on the Evo. *shrugs*

On a more positive note, I received the extended battery I ordered from Amazon and I'm excited to try it! Now I need to find a nice case that'll fit on the phone with the extended battery in it.