Got a chance to briefly check out the EVO. Due to the perspective of the post and the fact that some EVO fanboys are even blinder than some Inc fanboys here, I am not posting this on the EVO board.
1. I have medium hands and using the EVO one-handed is a chore for the thumb. My guess is a silicon case on it would make me pop a ligament
2. Hot swapping my 16gb mp3 card with my 16gb video card would be lame with the EVO. Battery has to be removed and then the card is awkward to remove. The combination of both issues makes it lame, IMO. Seems ironic the smaller Inc does not have these design issues. I would expect the opposite.
3. Enough reports in (EDIT) to suggest the battery lasts even less than the Inc. In both device's defense, I think HTC went mega-cheap on stock batteries. Seido works great in Inc.
4. Speedwise, it seems the same as Inc, which is great.
5. The main saving grace of the device ( I assumed) was the sweet screen and on it's own it looks good, but just like the Gizmodo review from yesterday, the display looks pinkish and less sharp compared to the Inc. IMO, the Inc's display is better. In fact, the Moto Droid's looks better as well and it is also an LCD display. The Gizmodo review compares the Nexus, but I compared with the Inc.
6. Another issue that is cropping up is the touted 4G. Besides the now infamous battery drain the tech has, the actual utility is weaker than the LTE tech that Verizon will launch. Sprint's uses a very high band that has serious signal penetration problems working in buildings beyond the outer areas. The LTE tech that VZW will use is a much lower band so inherently will not have these problems. It should function as good as 3G, from a signal regard.
7. One final point is the contract rate plans to get the EVO. In spite of what (EDIT) some say, Sprint is not always the cheaper between VZW. In my case, I only need 700 family minutes, but unlike Tmo or VZW, Sprint forces you into a 1500 minute famlily plan, plus the $10 EVO premium and each new line after the first two is $20 each.
If you want mulitple unlimited data plans, Sprint seems a better deal, but if not, they are actually more expensive, due to their stealth manner of forcing data costs on you. I said "seems" a better deal. since I would rather pay $30 more a month and have 3G everywhere, than only have it in pockets, like Sprint. Most of my area would be roaming 1X data speed.
In summary, the EVO is still a good device, but my ten minute comparison makes me feel very good about getting the Inc
I still wish the dang thing had a keyboard though, or at least USB host function
added:
One other issue is app space. The test unit EVO's only have 304mb and the retail units have 358mb free. This is less than half the free app space of the Inc. Yes, apps2sd is coming, but that is down the road awhile and as Nexus owners are finding out, apps need significant revisions to install or be imported to the microsd. Besides, it is nice to have the app space built-in, in case you like to swap cards like I do.
Strange the way HTC mapped the 1gb rom in the EVO. You would think it would have more free space than it actually has. Also, when 2.2 is released, there will likely be even less free built-in space. Inc does not use the 512mb rom for market apps (just for OS and stock apps). It uses 748mb of allocated flash memory, hence why only 6.6gb is free of the built-in 8gb. As a result of the way app space is allocated in the Inc, 2.2 will not impact the amount of built-in third party app space.
1. I have medium hands and using the EVO one-handed is a chore for the thumb. My guess is a silicon case on it would make me pop a ligament
2. Hot swapping my 16gb mp3 card with my 16gb video card would be lame with the EVO. Battery has to be removed and then the card is awkward to remove. The combination of both issues makes it lame, IMO. Seems ironic the smaller Inc does not have these design issues. I would expect the opposite.
3. Enough reports in (EDIT) to suggest the battery lasts even less than the Inc. In both device's defense, I think HTC went mega-cheap on stock batteries. Seido works great in Inc.
4. Speedwise, it seems the same as Inc, which is great.
5. The main saving grace of the device ( I assumed) was the sweet screen and on it's own it looks good, but just like the Gizmodo review from yesterday, the display looks pinkish and less sharp compared to the Inc. IMO, the Inc's display is better. In fact, the Moto Droid's looks better as well and it is also an LCD display. The Gizmodo review compares the Nexus, but I compared with the Inc.
6. Another issue that is cropping up is the touted 4G. Besides the now infamous battery drain the tech has, the actual utility is weaker than the LTE tech that Verizon will launch. Sprint's uses a very high band that has serious signal penetration problems working in buildings beyond the outer areas. The LTE tech that VZW will use is a much lower band so inherently will not have these problems. It should function as good as 3G, from a signal regard.
7. One final point is the contract rate plans to get the EVO. In spite of what (EDIT) some say, Sprint is not always the cheaper between VZW. In my case, I only need 700 family minutes, but unlike Tmo or VZW, Sprint forces you into a 1500 minute famlily plan, plus the $10 EVO premium and each new line after the first two is $20 each.
If you want mulitple unlimited data plans, Sprint seems a better deal, but if not, they are actually more expensive, due to their stealth manner of forcing data costs on you. I said "seems" a better deal. since I would rather pay $30 more a month and have 3G everywhere, than only have it in pockets, like Sprint. Most of my area would be roaming 1X data speed.
In summary, the EVO is still a good device, but my ten minute comparison makes me feel very good about getting the Inc
I still wish the dang thing had a keyboard though, or at least USB host function added:
One other issue is app space. The test unit EVO's only have 304mb and the retail units have 358mb free. This is less than half the free app space of the Inc. Yes, apps2sd is coming, but that is down the road awhile and as Nexus owners are finding out, apps need significant revisions to install or be imported to the microsd. Besides, it is nice to have the app space built-in, in case you like to swap cards like I do.
Strange the way HTC mapped the 1gb rom in the EVO. You would think it would have more free space than it actually has. Also, when 2.2 is released, there will likely be even less free built-in space. Inc does not use the 512mb rom for market apps (just for OS and stock apps). It uses 748mb of allocated flash memory, hence why only 6.6gb is free of the built-in 8gb. As a result of the way app space is allocated in the Inc, 2.2 will not impact the amount of built-in third party app space.
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