Sprint Unveils HTC Evo 4G Super Phone

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."

Wrong - Re:4G only

[RocketJeff]

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:Voice?

[ircmaxell]

Well, yes and no. Voice still goes out over CDMA. What this means to you though, is that when voice is using CDMA, EVDO can't operate (since it uses the same radio). However, it can still use WiMAX and 802.11... So you can use voice and data at the same time, but only if you're in the range of either WiMAX or 802.11... Cool, but not groundbreaking (yet).

Re:Game Changer!

[wolrahnaes]

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:Also..

[IorDMUX]

As a member of Qualcomm's power-management IC engineering team, (and hoping I do not sound like a total shill,) I'd like to point out that battery life and power efficiency is one of the big selling points of the Snapdragon. As opposed to the Intel Atom, which was designed by a desktop/server CPU company, at Qualcomm we're is coming from a background of years of low-power mobile device design.

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.

Re:The *best* feature:

[owlstead]

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 painful is that my XS4ALL provider also provides WiFi hotspots, which the android phone can use without any trouble. The problem with that is that KPN, the provider of the hotspots, requires a login through HTTP redirects. This means that if I use WiFi autoconnect, all the applications stop or even crash since their packets are routed into a black hole.

Re:Also..

[John Hasler]

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.