Sprint Unveils HTC Evo 4G Super Phone 284
adeelarshad82 writes "Sprint dropped a bombshell on the CTIA Wireless trade show by unveiling the most powerful Google Android smartphone ever seen in the USA, the WiMAX-powered Evo 4G. The phone runs Android 2.1 on a 1-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8650 chipset along with a helpful 1GB of built-in memory and 512MB of RAM, which is assisted by a MicroSD slot supporting up to 32GB cards. It swaps between EVDO Rev. A, WiMAX and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g on demand. The phone is dominated by a 4.3-inch, 800-by-480 65,000-color TFT LCD capacitive touch screen. There's an 8-megapixel camera on the back and a 1.3-megapixel unit on the front. The camera also records 720p, high-def video, which it can play through an HDMI out jack on the bottom. The Evo 4G weighs 170g and measures 120.5 mm by 67 mm by 13 mm. It's expected to hit the market in the summer."
Voice? (Score:3, Interesting)
"It swaps between EVDO Rev. A, WiMAX and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g on demand"
Does this apply to calls as well as data? If so it is even more awesome than I originally thought.
Re:Voice? (Score:5, Informative)
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Voice and data at the same time is nothing new. All flavors of GSM 3G can do it, and even EDGE can pause data transfers (while retaining connections) when on a voice call.
Simultaneous voice and data on cell networks has been around for 8 years. Does Sprint/Verizon not have this?
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Well, yes and no.
So then the answer is no. No, EVDO, WiMAX, and Wi-Fi do not apply to voice, since voice goes over CDMA. EVDO, WiMAX, and Wi-Fi are for transferring data, and EVDO will not run if you're using CDMA.
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"So you can use voice and data at the same time"
According to http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/23/htc-evo-4g-is-sprints-android-powered-knight-in-superphone-armo/ [engadget.com], Sprint says it is "still in the testing phase". Not sure what this means, but it sounds like they haven't proven it is possible in their current design (or just bad PR).
My guess is it will end up being a pretty high priority.
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Does this apply to calls as well as data?
From TFA: "it will make all voice calls over Sprint's CDMA 1X network". So no.
Probably no simultaneous voice and data either, as is generally the case with Sprint.
Probably won't work as a phone outside the USA because it's not GSM.
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"It swaps between EVDO Rev. A, WiMAX and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g on demand"
Does this apply to calls as well as data? If so it is even more awesome than I originally thought.
Well, android 2.1 and on (maybe earlier too?) does have the built-in capability to make calls with google voice, which would then be able to use the data connection.
I've got my Nexus One to use google voice only for voicemail and international calls. With the voicemail, it records the message, transcribes the voice to text, and can text or email you the text, or you can use the free google voice app to both see the text, click any phone numbers as links, and listen to the message a-la Visual Voicemail (by j
HDMI jack? (Score:5, Funny)
A phone that records 720p video and plays it out via an HDMI jack? WHY?
Re:HDMI jack? (Score:4, Insightful)
A phone that records 720p video and plays it out via an HDMI jack? WHY?
You seem to be complaining about the HDMI port. If your phone can record HD video, why WOULDN'T you want to be able to play that on a big display?
Re:HDMI jack? (Score:4, Interesting)
Along with the fact that if you can download at over 8Mb/s (I've seen 4G sprint wimax equipment do that) then why the heck not watch hulu on your big tv, using your phone...
Re:HDMI jack? (Score:4, Interesting)
Along with the fact that if you can download at over 8Mb/s (I've seen 4G sprint wimax equipment do that) then why the heck not watch hulu on your big tv, using your phone...
During the demo at the announcement yesterday, they used it as a Roku box. Crazy times we live in. I just wish the thing was shipping NOW. *sigh* 'summer'? Lame.
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This was my first thought also. Why bother keeping the analog hole closed on video that the user owns? HDMI is no person's friend.
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Using an HDMI jack doesn't mean all the video you take on your phone is automagically DRM'd. I'm not sure why you're objecting.
Do you suggest to fit a component jack onto a 4"x2" phone and then match it with an RCA stereo jack?
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Do you suggest to fit a component jack onto a 4"x2" phone and then match it with an RCA stereo jack?
What d'you mean, like on an iPhone [apple.com]? That's crazy talk!
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I would much rather have a small, standard connector than a larger, proprietary connector.
Still not sure why that's a better solution than putting an HDMI connector.
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It would be nifty if any devices actually had display port of any type. The biggest advantage over HDMI/DVI is that it supports higher resolutions, except that the phone is only outputting 720p.
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HDMI does not have to use HDCP. I am typing this on my media center PC running ubuntu 9.10 connected to my HDTV via HDMI. Having 1 less cable and not having to worry about ground loops on the audio is a real benefit.
HDMI is nothing more than DVI and digital audio in the same cable.
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Actually I am running 10.04, forgot I updated that last week.
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1) Porn & Sexting.
2) Policing the police state. How many photos/videos have we seen released in recent years of police abusing their power? Stuff that would have just been your word vs his in the past. Shoving kids off skate boards, body checking bicyclists, etc.
I was the last person that wanted a camera on my phone. I just wanted a (*&3@ phone. That camera phone saved my ass from insurance when someone ran a red light and made up a whole lot of false claims.
Even if 99.99% of the stuff generated on
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I almost never use the camera in my phone. Maybe 2-3 times a year - the quality is just not even remotely close to my standards.
However, sometimes you just have an "oh shit" situation where you REALLY wish you had a camera, even a shitty one.
(I'm lucky in that my company now permits cameraphones as long as you take an online training course from the company intranet, which basically says "don't use the camera function on company grounds")
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Sorry, I guess they should have included an Apple proprietary jack 2.0 to make it seem more cool!
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Because its a handheld computer/digital camcorder/phone combination unit for people who want to do lots of things, but don't want to carry lots of gadgets.
If the question is "why HDMI?", my guess is the reason is "because HDMI is what you can most count on being supported on HDTVs, which are the most likely thing people are going to want to plug in their phone to play their 720p videos on" (for computers, presumably, they'll just downloa
Battery life? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Don't worry, it's powered by Orbo.
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Don't worry, it's powered by Orbo.
And that just great until we run out of witches. Doesn't anyone think these things through? It's not scalable.
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Slow down Tex. We'll need a credit check and a sample of your DNA first.
important features? (Score:2)
Memory or storage? (Score:2)
That should read "1 GB of storage built-in and 512MB of RAM", shouldn't it?
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That should make you question the accuracy of the rest of the entire article.
Also.. (Score:5, Funny)
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> ...talk time to over 10 minutes.
Or two hours if you add a whip antenna, but no smartphoney would ever do that.
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I'm referring to a real antenna, of course. The shortened antennas used in most (if not all) cellphones are extremely inefficient compared to dipoles.
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Re:Also.. (Score:5, Informative)
Hopefully (though I can't say for certain as full specs have not yet been released), HTC also used our power management platform this time, rather than the third-party, battery-gulping solution they installed on their G1's. That was an embarrassment.
Game Changer! (Score:4, Interesting)
to put it simply, it's a game changer for Sprint.
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Only if you live in a large city and never want coverage when you are traveling.
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Yea, because dropping back to 3G coverage with a 100% roaming agreement with Verizon/Alltel and US Cellular is such a pain....
This device really makes the Nexus One on the Sprint network all but irrelevant, since it seems it will be available around the same time and has all the specs either equal or better.
Re:Game Changer! (Score:5, Funny)
This device really makes the iPhone on the Sprint network all but irrelevant, since it seems it will be available around the same time and has all the specs either equal or better.
Fixed that for you. Bring-it fanbois.
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As an iPhone user and an AT&T customer (Cingular at the time) for over a decade... I'm bloody tempted. This thing looks like the bomb. I'll want to play with it first, but if it does half of what it appears to do, I'll drop AT&T for it.
Two very important points missing: (Score:4, Interesting)
2. What is the price.
I'm slightly concerned that this will be like those Japanese or European phones that have a huge laundry list of features, but skimp out on basic usability and essentials like good radio paths and battery life; plus half of the features don't work properly (camera has a lot of pixels, but a worthless lens; screen is dim or difficult to read; interface requires 15 button presses to do anything; front camera can't be used for teleconferencing because the carrier disabled that feature, etc...). There's a definite concern that this will be priced at the "enthusiast" level as well, meaning almost nobody can afford it or the plan required to drive it.
The ball is in your court Sprint. What are you going to do with it?
Well... (Score:2)
The *best* feature: (Score:4, Interesting)
FTA:
"It works as a Wi-Fi hotspot, supporting up to 8 devices;"
Wow! That's insane, considering that laptop wireless sharing is only now just becoming mainstream.
How many people will buy this phone, and ditch dsl, cable, etc? Smaller than any dsl or cable box, uses less power too I'd bet.
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Smaller than any dsl or cable box, uses less power too I'd bet.
And probably only costs about 8x as much. You expect people to replace their internet connection with a phone? I'll just point out that won't work for anyone who lives in a household containing more than one person and doesn't want to buy a dedicated phone to act as their gateway. For anyone living alone, maybe that would be an option, but it sort of sucks that if you lose your phone you also lose your internet connectivity at home.
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How many people will buy this phone, and ditch dsl, cable, etc? Smaller than any dsl or cable box, uses less power too I'd bet.
Might not be a bad idea. Data speeds of 4G (according to Wikipedia) should be somewhere in the range of 275 Mbit/s downstream and over 75 Mbit/s upstream. Of course, it also depends if companies are going to allow for "unlimited" data plans.
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And with an HDMI port to boot. Could be the lowest power and smallest home theater device.
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How many people will buy this phone, and ditch dsl, cable, etc?
Even the best mobile connections are godawfully slow and have insanely high latencies compared with even modest wired broadband connections. You'll only switch if you absolutely don't care about the speed of your internet connection.
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Enjoy your 5GB monthly invisible cap that you'll hit in an hour with 4 teens surfing mytubebook and listening to lasdoralip.fm.
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Tethering on the HTC Hero is completely painless if you could get rid of the limitation. It's funny, I just bought the device and my ADSL went down. Enabled tethering in the settings menu and coupled it to my Linux host using USB, expecting a few hours of fun. Literally seconds later my internet connection was established.
Now for Bluetooth tethering in 2.1, my ThinkPad is BT 2.1 enabled, so that would be great during trips - although it will drain the battery just a tad more.
The thing that *is* really painf
No hardware keyboard... (Score:4, Insightful)
Too bad there's no hardware keyboard on this beast. I can't stand using touchscreen keyboards. Hopefully this isn't becoming the norm.
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Eh (Score:5, Funny)
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Oh come on mods. Even I, the Lord of Curmudgeon and Admiral of the Irascible and Cantankerous, laughed at that one.
Yup, i'm going for a word score.
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Obviously someone who doesn't understand the meme has mod points today.
Super Phone? Aw, come on. (Score:3, Insightful)
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The difference is Dell's more powerful computers today does the exact same function as Dell's less powerful computers years ago. They still run word processing, spreadsheets, games, a task manager, etc.
The "superphone" is more an indication that it's taken on far more functionality, not just getting better at what it previously did.
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Agreed. Today's supercomputer is tomorrow's soft drink can.
+1 for the tag of 'holy shit' (Score:2)
This. Is. Wrong. (Score:2)
The phone runs Android 2.1 on a 1-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8650 chipset along with a helpful 1GB of built-in memory and 512MB of RAM, which is assisted by a MicroSD slot supporting up to 32GB cards.
OK, so this phone has more jam then my wife's and I's two celeron laptops, and is just about as powerful as my Sempron desktop. Why have a computer?
Front Camera nice (Score:3, Interesting)
It is nice to see phones that are adding front cameras. Asian phones have had this for years allowing for video chatting with the handset.
Fuck Everything, We're Doing 5G (Score:5, Funny)
but... (Score:2)
Will it support 3G bands or just 4G?
Re:4G only (Score:5, Funny)
Actually the "4G" refers to the price. I hope they have a payment plan.
Wrong - Re:4G only (Score:2, Informative)
From the article - "The Evo 4G will swap between 3G and WiMAX for data depending on what's available; it will make all voice calls over Sprint's CDMA 1X network."
Re:One flaw... (Score:5, Funny)
HDMI is a plug. Youtube has a matter replicator in my house now?
Re:YAY! (Score:5, Insightful)
In many confidence games, the 'con man' will use 'shills' or assistants who pretend to be independently interested in the swindle or scam. In modern marketing, it is fairly common for companies to identify natural leaders and people with influence, and offer to pay them to fake spontaneous endorsement of the product. Given those facts, any news or commentary relating to commercially available products must be viewed with a healthy amount of skepticism.
Re:YAY! (Score:4, Insightful)
That's true, but regardless of whether or not this is meant as advertising, the introduction of a phone like this into the US market is also certainly newsworthy. The two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.
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Yes, someone at Sprint finally woke up and realized they have a range full of boring-ass phones, and even the Palm Pre couldn't save them. Glad to see Sprint has finally joined the 21st century with this phone. I'll still never switch back to them though :P
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Re:YAY! (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me clarify the situation for you: every single story on slashdot can be qualified as advertisement. Every. Single. One. That story about WoW reaching 10M+ players? Advertisement for Blizzard. That story about some guy building a bender robot? Advertising for said guy. That story about a fork in the Linux kernel? Advertising for Linux.
Pointing out that something getting front-page billing on Slashdot is good advertisement for said something is like pointing out the Sun is shining on the Earth: true, but not really useful information. Now, if you would have evidence that Sprint paid CmdrTaco to run this story, this would be an entirely different proposition. However, until you do, you're little more than a blowhard who likes playing Captain Obvious.
Re:YAY! (Score:4, Insightful)
every single story on slashdot can be qualified as advertisement. Every. Single. One.
So by that logic, a story about a congressional hearing is an advertisement for that hearing? A story about someone's rights being violated or a major patent lawsuit is an advertisement? Wiktionary says that an advertisement [wiktionary.org] is "A commercial solicitation designed to sell some commodity, service or similar." That sounds a lot like this story, but nothing at all like a quote from Torvalds or a move by the FCC, which is the kind of info /. made it's name on.
That said, you are actually more and more right every day, in the sense that slashdot has become a big target for viral marketing, which is probably how this story got posted. If one thinks of slashdot as a bulletin board, one forgets that there are editors. If one looks at it as a news aggregator, one gets a little closer to the truth, but since news in general becomes more and more viral every day, it's even hard to say that much. Basically its a sounding board for whatever the editors think is cool. Apparently they think this phone is cool. I think they are spending too much time on this kind of crap and ignoring other, more important stories. But that's just my opinion...
Re:It's a TELEPHONE (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps you'll find more utility in the tools that you purchase if you stop thinking about them in terms of what a marketer told you and what its potential actually is.
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silly, no one talks on the phone anymore. you use a telephone to read email, twitter, facebook and the rest of the internets
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Then, exactly, just what are those people doing driving around with the phones plastered to their ears? Using their earlobes to keyboard? Taking pictures of their ear rings for some twisted facebook site? Twittering the voices inside their skulls?
It's pretty scary in my universe. God help me to stay away from yours....
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this is a telephone. This is device whose primary purpose is to facilitate verbal communication
Not any more. These devices are largely small(ish) wireless computers with touch-screen interfaces. I don't have an iLeash, but my friends who do appear to use them as 'computers' much more than they use them for verbal communications. Sure, they allow for verbal comms, but it's only one of many features.
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Sounds like every geeks wet dream. And yet I can't help but think to myself ... this is a telephone. This is device whose primary purpose is to facilitate verbal communication.
That's where you're wrong. None of these smart phones are telephones anymore. They are computers (handheld and less powerful computers than our desktops, but computers nonetheless) that HAPPEN to make telephone calls. Honestly, phone calls are the thing I do the least on my Droid. I'm on travel quite a bit and being able to get to my e-mails, have a GPS to help me find the locations of my hotels and meetings, and also be able to enjoy some entertainment on flights has been awesome.
So, my advice (not tha
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This is device whose primary purpose is to facilitate verbal communication.
Which reminds me -- why don't we have picturephones yet? We were supposed to have them in 2001 [wikipedia.org], weren't we? Every sci-fi flic from the original Star Trek to Blade Runner to Total Recall has them. The technology is here; you can use a computer as a picture phone, but you can't use a phone as a picture phone, even though a phone has a vidio screen and a camera. Why?
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Install a video messaging app on this thing and it is a picture phone. It's got a front facing camera specifically for that.
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Sorry, but it's not. At least not to a lot of us. Maybe it is to you, but then why would you even care about this device enough to post your derision at the enhanced features?
I carry a Blackberry. I do use it for phone calls. Very, very rarely. I probably make about 3-4 calls a week on it, and it's my only telephone.
I also use it for emails, Gmail, calendar, text messaging, instant messenger, contact manager, surfing the web, reading news on RSS, listening to music, taking photos and videos, Geocaching
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You must be new here. - Tim
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And yet you still cant install apps to the sd card. Come on Android, stop being paranoid and let us install the damn apps on the sd card
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ROM = READ ONLY MEMORY.
Please tell me how to Write to Read Only Memory.
Plus if android apps are anything like iPhone apps, I already have over 1 gig of apps on my iPhone.
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Its called Flashing. I would link you to the wikipedia site about it, but their DNS is fubar.
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Coffee? Clearly you want the Pomegranate. [pomegranatephone.com]
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How are Android apps crippled?
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Android would be a lot better if Google hadn't crippled the app capability so you are forced to do everything online
How are Android apps crippled?
The previous poster is talking about the inability of Android to run apps stored anywhere but the internal memory, significantly limiting devices like this one, with significant storage capacity, because that capacity cannot be easily used to store applications, just data. Some game makers, for example, have said they cannot port to most android phones because their games are larger than the internal storage.
Hopefully Google will be able to resolve this issue going forward and some app developers are alread
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I think you're making excuses for an engineering problem.
Odd, I could say the same thing about your comment.
You seem emotionally invested in this discussion. Your comment doesn't even make any sense. I didn't make excuses for any engineering flaw in anything because I was not defending any engineering, just pointing out a well known problem.
So enforcing uniform standards is a bad thing?
This is a straw man argument.
Every OS and it's dog has a recommended way of doing things which always scatters things across the file system.
That is the case with legacy OS's and versions of some OS's but it is not good engineering. OS X, for example, stores entire apps in a single, special folder. The only thing outside that folder are shared frameworks and config files (which are casc
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Re:And in related news no one here cares about... (Score:4, Funny)
For Windows Mobile fans...
Fascinating! You seem to be implying that there is more than one!! And I had always thought they were just a myth. What truly amazing times we live in, where such people live right alongside the rest of us, and we don't even know they're there!
Tell me, is it true that you all have fingertips as pointed as sharpened pencils, which allow you to actual use the OS? Or is it, like my friend believes, that you are all atoning for some great, and unspeakable crime? Perhaps you were AOL developers in your past life?
:-P
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