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[Brentai]

I get the feeling that people around here may have a passing interest in stating their opinion of things.  Well, have I got a topic for you!

Except I'm going to start off by actually issuing a request, not an opinion.  Has anybody got their grubby little hands on an HTC EVO already?  It seems a little unlikely especially considering I'm the only Sprint fanatic here, but I figure it's worth asking since I naturally trust random people on the internet more than I do professional technicians.

And in case you missed it in the other thread: I like Sprint because it doesn't suck like T-Mobile, rape you in the back pocket like Verizon, and, uh, if you are seriously considering AT&T for any reason other than the iPhone then you need to be smacked firmly in the back of the head.

[Bongo Bill]

For Android phones on Sprint, I have been using a Samsung Moment. It's not the fanciest Android on the market but it has got eight hundred meg of hurts, and it works rather well. It ships with an absolutely unaltered vanilla Android system, which, according to the reviews I looked into before purchasing, is the only mark against it, as it is otherwise a competent and useful device. Well, that and AMOLED displays are total ass in direct sunlight. On the plus side, it's got a slide-out QWERTY keyboard that feels pretty damn good.

I have no idea how it stacks up versus the HTC EVO, which is newer. Figure you head down to a phone retailer and see how they feel, then compare stat sheets.

Edit: well, it seems the EVO's the only 4G phone in the universe right now, so if that's what you're after, you don't have much choice.

[Lottel]

I toyed around with a buddy's and I really liked it. I have a nerd boner for HTC but damn, It's a good looking phone and everything was smooth and fast. No idea about how good of a PHONE it is though.  Didn't spend more than a minute or so with it.

[Ziiro]

I played around with the demo model in the store for a bit yesterday after work. I think it's an incredible phone if you can handle a software keyboard. I'm one of those knuckle draggers who's not ready to transition from a physical keyboard - yet the Evo is so good I may have to switch. It is a beautiful piece of technology.

Maybe next paycheck. I need to replace my G1 pretty badly at this point. It's starting to fall apart.

[TA]

I played around with the demo model in the store for a bit yesterday after work. I think it's an incredible phone if you can handle a software keyboard. I'm one of those knuckle draggers who's not ready to transition from a physical keyboard - yet the Evo is so good I may have to switch. It is a beautiful piece of technology.

Maybe next paycheck. I need to replace my G1 pretty badly at this point. It's starting to fall apart.

This is basically exactly how I feel, except I haven't had a chance to go down to a store to play with one yet.  Also I need to figure out how to move from a G1 on T-Mobile to an Evo on Sprint without paying a hefty termination fee, since my contract doesn't end until next summer.

[Brentai]

I'm trying to get an accurate report on its battery life, because that's something that's simultaneously my only real reservation and an absolute dealbreaker.

Consensus is that if you don't give a shit what carrier you're on, Verizon's Droid Incredible might be a better choice, but if you're on Sprint and have a couple Benjamins then there's no excuse not to have the Goliath Phone.

[Royal☭]

I'm banking that by the time I'm ready to upgrade to 4g, it'll be large enough to justify the expense.  For now, my next phone will probably be the HTC Incredible.

[Rico]

With moderate 3g use anda couple phone calls I can go about 36 hours without a charge on a relatively new Nexus One.

[Ziiro]

I'm trying to get an accurate report on its battery life, because that's something that's simultaneously my only real reservation and an absolute dealbreaker.

Evo is not for you, then. It's really bad for battery life.

Gizmodo:

If only the battery was a fuel cell, powered by ambition. It might  be up to the task of powering this juggernaut.

My main phone at the moment is a Nexus One, so I'm pretty familiar with managing Android to make it through the day. It's oddly a struggle to make the Evo last that long—on a weekend, I had to recharge by 2pm—and I had 4G turned off. Expect to plug this thing in at work before you go out at night if you want a phone that isn't dead by your second drink.

[Rico]

Well, there goes my advice.  Kind of embarassing for the Evo.

[Mongrel]

Man, geez... I can remember when you'd get a week's charge out of a new phone, easily.

[grandpa simpson image macro goes here]

[Brentai]

Tried a demo of it at Best Buy, and hated it.

For one thing, it's pretty lol xbawks hueg.  To put this in perspective, I didn't actually have a problem with the X-Box controller, and I think this thing is horribly proportioned.  While this does make for a really nice looking screen, the simple fact of the matter is I want a cell phone - a device that can easily go in and out of my pocket and make some goddamned calls.  If I wanted a oversized portable computer, I hear Apple's come out with something like that.

Secondly, it's virtual keyboard only, which drives me knucking futs.  It's actually the major complaint I leverage against the iPhone, too, which has got me roped into bitter diatribes from fanatics about how a real keyboard isn't that important... ones who mysteriously refuse to use their phones for text, and when absolutely forced to type on them end up doing so awkwardly with embarrassed comments.  As you might have noticed, I type a fucking lot, so it's kind of important to me.

Third, HTC's interface is kinda goddamn horrible.  I dunno how much of it is Android core and how much of it is customizations, but it's hard to choose an app to run without accidentally starting one.

And fourth of course is the fact that the demo unit was conspicuously attached to a huge goddamned power supply.  If a phone is going to shut itself off halfway through the workday then it's pretty terrible at its core function: being a god damned telephone.

All of these issues are workable and you can get used to it, but damn it, if I only get to upgrade once a year it'd better be an upgrade that I can live with for a year.  Trading in my Blackberry for a brick just to impress my coworkers seems like the sort of shallow Joneses bullshit I've spent my life trying to avoid.   So my basic decision wasn't so much "fuck this" as "wait to see what kind of Sprint Android comes next".  For what it's worth I thought the Samsung Moment was pretty awesome but I'm sure if I hang on they'll roll out a 4G one with a better battery*, at which point I can pounce on it like a single mother at an Adam Lambert concert.

* Which is the Samsung Intercept due out next month, supposedly.  I can wait a single month.

[Beat Bandit]

And fourth of course is the fact that the demo unit was conspicuously attached to a huge goddamned power supply.  If a phone is going to shut itself off halfway through the workday then it's pretty terrible at its core function: being a god damned telephone.

In the phone's defense here, mine will only last about two hours if I really fuck with it (what people would do all day in a store), but if I let some standard background stuff go and only use it for calls / texts / IMs then it lasts a full day.

[Mongrel]

It's also worth mentioning that battery life ALWAYS degrades noticeably once the phone is worn in. It's one thing to be okay with having to charge your phone every night, but if a brand new battery only powers the phone for a full day to begin with, that's not going to wash once you've had the thing for six months. You need to start out with a lifespan of AT LEAST 2-3 days.

[TA]

It's also also worth mentioning that you can counteract that and greatly stabilize the life of a battery by fully charging it, then letting it drain completely dry, a couple of times as soon as you get it.  At least, this is what I have been told, and having done it to my phone the battery tends to be good for long periods of heavy use.

Is it possible to get rid of HTC Sense on a phone that has it, or is that just built into the Android install?

[TA]

This review at ubergizmo.com - no clue about how reputable a site that is - offers some hard numbers for Evo battery life that seem extremely positive.  They do revolve around a more practical "Put the power control widget on there, don't turn shit like GPS or Wifi on until you actually intend to use them" approach, rather than just leaving everything running and sitting there with a stopwatch.

I've also seen it said that the HTC Calendar program that's part of Sense is a huge battery drain.  Also a flickr sync thing.  And if those are pared back in settings, you start seeing much improved battery life.

[Rico]

As far as Android phones go, the GPS is already an on-demand thing.  May be worth it to toggle Bluetooth on and off, but if you're toggling off auto-sync then the phone's really not being all that useful for a smartphone.

[Mongrel]

It's also also worth mentioning that you can counteract that and greatly stabilize the life of a battery by fully charging it, then letting it drain completely dry, a couple of times as soon as you get it.  At least, this is what I have been told, and having done it to my phone the battery tends to be good for long periods of heavy use.

Is it possible to get rid of HTC Sense on a phone that has it, or is that just built into the Android install?

This helps. Good battery management through the life of the phone (same behaviour - letting it drain to empty then fully charging it, also not overcharging it) also helps. But none of those is a 100% cure. There will always be some degradation over time, so starting out of the gate with a battery that already only barely meets your needs when new is still a bad idea. 

[Büge]

Man, geez... I can remember when you'd get a week's charge out of a new phone, easily.

[Malikial]

I dunno what crazy universe some of you are using droids in but I used mine to play poker and view the internet whilst also being in IRC on an 18 hour trip to Texas and it was only 45% charged when I got there despite almost constant use, except a dry pocket in Missouri where NO PHONES HAVE SERVICE, and a place in Arkansas where I couldn't use data for about 35 minutes, I didn't sleep the whole time because James doesn't let people sleep in the car if he's driving... But this isn't the thread to bitch about that.

 Still, having it at home, since I'm back to having a computer it lasts like 7-10 days without being charged just being used as a text/phone. Still, I don't answer my phone I screen calls and call people back, so it gets less phone use than it SHOULD and I only send about 10 texts a day... BUUUT, James used to work as a phone guy at alltel/verizon so he did all the set up charge, letting it run dry and then charging it to full and stuff to get the battery going good. I dunno if that matters. Also, my driod is just your clunky old base droid. Not one of the newer ones.