HTC EVO

Discussion in 'Horn Depot' started by wherzwaldo, Jun 3, 2010.

  1. wherzwaldo

    wherzwaldo 1,000+ Posts

    Anyone else getting one of these tomorrow? I've been geeking out about this ever since it was still called the Supersonic.
     
  2. texaszete

    texaszete 100+ Posts

    I am since I haven't gotten a new phone in like 4 years. I'm hoping that this actually lives up to the hype and the app developers come out in full force, instead of quickly dying off like the Palm Pre.
     
  3. wherzwaldo

    wherzwaldo 1,000+ Posts


     
  4. texaszete

    texaszete 100+ Posts

    Well, full force = on Apple's level. I think Android's at about 30K apps, and the iPhone is nearly 150K. If this phone makes a dent into Apple's market share, then that gap will significantly close. If this phone becomes like the Nexus, then probably not...
     
  5. wherzwaldo

    wherzwaldo 1,000+ Posts


     
  6. texaszete

    texaszete 100+ Posts

    So what do you think of it?

    It took a while for mine to get activated at Best Buy since they said the Sprint system kept crashing. It took me "only" about 30 minutes after another 30 minute wait in line (past my appointment time) since I was an upgrade. Some of the people with new contracts stood there for over an hour at the counter trying to get it activated, not including the wait time in line.
     
  7. wherzwaldo

    wherzwaldo 1,000+ Posts

    Yeah it took over an hour for me; luckily I had an early morning appointment.

    Love the phone itself. 4G has been spotty for me, but I didn't get the phone just for 4G.
     
  8. dtslater

    dtslater < 25 Posts

    Of the folks that have the EVO, what's you're overall opinion? I'm in the market for a new phone and debating between this one and the iphone. I know the software is different but any opinions on which one is better is appreciated.

    Thanks,
     
  9. Bob Wills

    Bob Wills 500+ Posts

    I know two guys that bought the EVO. Both claimed the battery life was horrible, 4G was rarely ever possible in Austin (Sprint), but otherwise it was very cool. One did have to replace his phone after the camera stopped working entirely, and he also commented that it took awhile to get used to a plastic (versus glass) touchscreen.
     
  10. Namewithheld

    Namewithheld 2,500+ Posts

    Do they have extended batteries yet? Also what kind of battery life are we talking about?
     
  11. HoustonHorn

    HoustonHorn 250+ Posts

    I had a long post on this yesterday, but the server crashed at the end of the baseball game and I lost it.

    Basically, having read a ton of reviews and most of the associated comments, the battery life problems are overblown by a few bad reviews. One thing to remember is that it takes 5-6 charge cycles for the battery to fully charge, so there have been some issues with battery life in the first week. However, it seems that most of those go away.

    I think it is reasonable to expect 14+ hours from the EVO with moderate usage and a reasonable level of battery management. No, this isn't fantastic, but considering all of the factors, that isn't too bad. Smartphone technology has outpaced battery technology, so the super smart phones are going to have trouble getting really long life out of the batteries.

    First, the reviews I've seen that bash the battery seem to be coming from the perspective of Apple users in that they expect to turn the phone on, be able to use everything and have the phone completely manage the battery life for them. Without getting into the merits/problems with each side of this argument, most of the reviews that complain of bad battery life don't perform (or at least discuss) any battery management at all. On Android, because of the capabilities of the phones, battery management is necessary to extend the life and its pretty simple. There's alot of things you can do, but start with these:

    Turn down the max brightness - the screen is huge and bright and sucks power and is easy to read at lower brightness levels.

    Use widgets to control bluetooth, wifi, GPS, 4G - turn these off when you don't need them.

    Be aware of the widgets that update all the time, i.e, social networking feeds are terrible for battery life, other widgets like weather widgets don't need to update every 30 minutes or hour. That just wastes battery power when you can set them to update every 6 or 12 hours to reduce strain.

    Just look at the settings and adjust them so that they update at more reasonable intervals.

    Same with newsfeeds, make sure they aren't updating constantly.

    Do NOT use a task manager/task killer. They run in the background and use battery power, and they don't improve performance, Android has a good management system and will close running services as needed.

    Set the screen timeout to 15 or 30 seconds instead of a minute or two.

    There's other steps that you can take, but these are the main ones and are really easy to implement.

    With those, and after the battery has a weeks worth of full charge cycles, the battery shouldn't be too bad. Like I said, it isn't going to set records, but it is more than adequate for most users. Obviously if you are going to be out in the field using the phone all the time with no opportunity to recharge, it probably isn't for you, but I think for most users it shouldn't be a problem.

    Plus, its easy in an office to plug in at your desk or get a replacement battery. If you really need extra battery life, an extra battery isn't expensive and pretty small, so throw that in your briefcase or whatever.

    Based on the reviews and comments I've read, just doing the basic things above should net a pretty decent increase in battery life. Finally, Sprint lets you return the phone for up to 30 days, so if it is still bad, just take it back.
     
  12. The Eyes of Texas

    The Eyes of Texas 500+ Posts


     
  13. HoustonHorn

    HoustonHorn 250+ Posts


     
  14. Reddle

    Reddle < 25 Posts


     
  15. kjgirl

    kjgirl 500+ Posts

    My husband and I have both have EVOs. We turned off the 4G signal and our battery life really improved. I turn it on only when we need better signal but the phone has been super fast with the 3G alone.

    I also turned off the bluetooth because I never use that.
     
  16. HoustonHorn

    HoustonHorn 250+ Posts

    kj...

    You should also turn off wifi/GPS when you aren't using it. I just have widgets on one of my homescreens to do this.
     
  17. 7out

    7out 100+ Posts

    What HoustonHorn said. Follow his advice and you will be a happy android user. [​IMG]
     
  18. HoustonHorn

    HoustonHorn 250+ Posts

    btw, there are definitely apps out there that suck and are programmed poorly. Identify them and uninstall them, or at the very least check the settings to make sure they aren't updating all the time, stuff like news feeds/social feeds are notoriously bad for this, so at the very least make sure they aren't refreshing every few minutes.

    There's no reason to kill a bunch of stuff that probably isn't doing anything and absolutely will reduce your phones performance if they have to completely restart when the problem is one of the apps and not the Android OS.
     
  19. kjgirl

    kjgirl 500+ Posts


     
  20. wherzwaldo

    wherzwaldo 1,000+ Posts


     
  21. HoustonHorn

    HoustonHorn 250+ Posts

    That sucks. I read about how it was bricking phones and they stopped it. They should do more than just replace the phone, imo because of the lost time as well as any data which was lost.

    I'm interested in knowing what they do for people with bricked phones.
     
  22. wherzwaldo

    wherzwaldo 1,000+ Posts

    You have to take it back to the store you bought it from. For me, that was Best Buy. They gave me a refund on the phone, reversed my plan upgrade (I was already a Sprint customer), reactivated my old cell phone, and put me on the rain-check list for when they get more EVOs in.
     
  23. HornBud

    HornBud 2,500+ Posts

  24. HoustonHorn

    HoustonHorn 250+ Posts

    Those videos are hilarious. Sucks that Best Buy is being a ***** about it though. Hopefully another company steps up and gives the guy a job.

    WW...did you get a replacement EVO yet? Send me a PM when you get it - we're releasing our first Android app either today or tomorrow.
     
  25. HoustonHorn

    HoustonHorn 250+ Posts

    btw, for anyone who is interested, we released our first app, Sign, into the Market yesterday. Here's the info I posted in some Android Forums.

    Sign is a unique, gesture based speed dialer for Android which lets you call or text your friends by simply drawing a gesture (signing) directly from your home screen.

    Unlike other speed dial options such as direct dial icons or quick dial widgets, you don’t have to worry about accidentally calling somebody just because you inadvertently bump your phone’s screen. Sign is still extremely fast, fun, easy to use, and best of all, you decide how to activate a text or phone call. Simply assign a gesture to any contact. To make a call or text, all you have to do is activate the widget and Sign right from your home screen. Simple and secure, it’s easy to use without even looking at your phone to find contacts or phone numbers.

    We developed an enhanced recognition engine to provide a more accurate, consistent, and reliable system to recognize the gestures you assign to your contacts. Sign lets you assign single OR multi-stroke “Signs” to the people you call or text most often. The free version, Sign Lite, has a limit of 3 Signs and the full version ($1.99) has unlimited Signs. Give it a try and let us know how you like it. If you have any issues with it at all, please send an email to simplyapplied@gmail.com, we'll respond quickly to fix any issues.

    Also, we have quite a few ideas for future updates, but suggestions are always welcome. Thanks, Simply Applied.


    So, if you have an Android phone, go give it a try and let us know how you like it and if you have any issues.
     
  26. kjgirl

    kjgirl 500+ Posts

    I have been using the Signs app for a while and really like it. I have been using the lite version but will upgrade to the full version because I am finding it will be helpful for me than 3 contacts.

    My husband has been in Europe this past week and we have been talking via Qik for video chat and Fringe for general phone calls. His hotel has wireless so its been easy to do. It's nice to talk to him overseas and for him to see our 10 month old son and not have to pay a dime for it.
     
  27. HoustonHorn

    HoustonHorn 250+ Posts

    kjgirl:

    Awesome! Glad you like Sign. We're working to add some features which will make it even more useful. Let us know if you have any suggestions for features you would like to see.

    Some things we are looking at adding:

    Email
    Directly tie the Sign to the action (call/text/email)
    Open up applications/shortcuts on your phone using signs
     
  28. Seattle Husker

    Seattle Husker 10,000+ Posts

    Man...been using a Samsung Galaxy S phone for few months. The first thing I realized I needed was an App Killer application. I don't understand why EVERY app feels like it always needs to be on killing my battery life. I kill every app but email/calendar apps a few times a day.
     
  29. wherzwaldo

    wherzwaldo 1,000+ Posts

    I think my EVO's performance and battery life actually improved after I got rid of my task killer.
     
  30. HoustonHorn

    HoustonHorn 250+ Posts

    Feel free to keep using task killers, but they don't improve your phone's battery. Even the developers of some of the task killer apps say that any phone running the newer 2.0+ versions of Android don't need task killers.

    Those apps that are listed as "running" are very likely not actually running in the background. Task killers don't distinguish between services that are actually running/using resources and those that are "suspended" and not using any resources?

    Battery life improves on its own after several cycles of charging/discharging, so if the first thing you noticed was the battery life sucked and you got a task killer, the improvement you saw was likely due to the natural improvement in the battery and had nothing to do with the task killer.

    In fact, once you update to Froyo, I don't think task killers will even work anymore.

    If you are having issues with the battery life, then you need to look at the settings for your various apps to see which ones are actively updating frequently, or if you have widgets on your screen that are using lots of resources, or if you haven't reduced the max screen brightness, or if you don't have your screen set to timeout for a minute or two.
     

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