Introduction

The handset is a powerhouse. A super-fast 1GHz Snapdragon chip drives the latest Google Android software. And it comes with a large 4.3-inch touch screen display -- that's more than 30 percent bigger than the one on the iPhone -- and a number of strong features such as an 8.0-megapixel camera for photos and a second 1.3-megapixel front-facing lens for video-chatting.

In addition, the handset can act as a Wi-Fi hot spot and create up to eight connections other devices, such as laptops, for an extra $30 a month fee.

But there are significant drawbacks to the Evo, most noticeably, it's very short battery life. As imagined, the extra speed comes at a cost of extra power. When 4G is turned on, the handset goes powerless within a day.

Regardless, the Evo is probably worth a look for consumers who need the highest data speeds around. Although Sprint's 4G coverage is only limited to about 32 markets at the moment, it's in a race with Verizon to roll out nationwide service and should cover much of the country by the end of the year.

Design

The Evo is covered head-to-toe in a mix of gloss and soft-touch black, with bits of red accents for flare. It's remarkably similar in shape and size to its cousin the HTC HD2 from T-Mobile. The Evo is just a hair thicker and noticeably heavier -- about 10 percent more heft -- than the HD2 and has slight differences in the physical buttons, but otherwise the two are nearly identical.

Both phones are a bit big and chunky compared to other devices on the market. But despite the size, the Evo is sleek, with few buttons along the edges and touch-sensitive navigation icons instead of physical buttons on the face.

Like the HD2, the Evo has a huge 4.3-inch touch screen display, significantly larger than the Apple iPhone's 3.5-inches or the Google Nexus One's 3.7-inches.

It has dual cameras -- a high-resolution 8.0-megapixel one with dual LED flash on the back for photos, and a second 1.3-megapixel front-facing one for video-calling. A speaker port and kickstand, to prop the phone up when watching videos, are also on the back.

The bottom of the phone has ports for an HDMI-connection, cable not included, to large screen televisions and a micro-USB port.

Overall, the Evo is a big phone. It's big, it's thick and it's heavy. But with the added size, it's able to fit an enormous touch screen display, two cameras, a speedy processor, and not to mention the plethora of 4G features. All which help ease the pain of lugging around such a bulky phone.

Out of the box, the HTC Evo 4G comes with a standard 1500 mAh battery, USB wall charger, micro-USB cable, an 8GB microSD card, the customary user guides and manuals and an envelope to recycle your old phone -- all encased in an eco-friendly package.

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