Sprint HTC EVO 4G LTE review

By Phil Nickinson | May 30 2012 | 2:27 pm | 132 COMMENTS

HTV EVO 4G LTE

The Sprint HTC EVO 4G LTE is a great phone on a less-than-great network.

There. We said it.

That’s not an easy way to start a review of a phone. Nor is it necessarily fun for us to say. It’s simply the way it is.

This should come as no surprise to Sprint aficionados. Heck, it pretty much mirrors what we just wrote about the Sprint Galaxy Nexus. Great phone, so long as you don’t need speedy mobile data. That’s going to change in the next month or so, at least for folks in a half-dozen cities, as Sprint fires up its 4G LTE network, and it’ll change for even more by the end of the year. And Sprint’s 3G data should get a boost, too, all part of its Network Vision initiative. But for now, you’ve got an EVO 4G LTE without the 4G LTE, and oft-slow 3G data.

But is that really fair to the phone? To the follow-up to arguably one of the greatest Android smartphones we’ve seen? To the phone that launched the 4G era? (Never mind that Wimax is going the way of the dinosaurs.) The original EVO 4G was an important phone, for damned sure the EVO 4G LTE is. At least for Sprint, if not for Android as a whole.

So that’s the question: Is the phone good enough to warrant a purchase even if the network’s not yet measuring up? Let’s get into it in our full EVO 4G LTE review.

Excellent hardware, with a fast processor, good battery life and a gorgeous display, as we’ve come to expect from HTC in recent months. The camera’s quality as well, and Sprint’s done well to not mess with HTC’s implementation of Sense 4, including laying off the bloatware.	As of the time of this writing, Sprint’s LTE network remains dark, and its current 3G network remains slow for many. That’s not the phone’s fault, but it’s the world in which it currently lives. That’ll change, of course — it’s just a matter of how soon.
		The EVO 4G LTE is every bit as good as we’ve expected it to be. Sure, it looks different than the HTC One X, which essentially is a fraternal twin. But it’s also gained expandable storage, which is a big feature for many folks. Once Sprint has its new 4G LTE network up and running, and its 3G network is retooled under the Network Vision initiative, there’s no reason you shouldn’t consider this phone. And if you’re happy with your current Sprint service, we’d recommend scooping it up now.