

Don’t Buy The HTC EVO, It Is A Seriously Flawed Device - ukdm
http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/09/dont-buy-the-android-evo-it-is-a-seriously-flawed-device/

======
KirinDave
I was about --| |-- this close to waiting in line last Friday for the EVO
launch and moving away from my iPhone. Then I got to play with one for awhile
and I was really shocked by the battery issue.

I kept thinking that reviewers were just overstating the point for the sake of
traffic, that the HTC EVO didn't get good battery life but that it was a
relative measure. Then I played with one and in half an hour of web browsing
and using the menus (with Sense turned off, display reduced, task killer in
action, in the Mission Bay district of SF where Sprint's signal is good) and
we rampaged through 20% of the battery.

20% in half an hour. Guys, this is _not cool_.

For comparison, with my pre-4.0gm I used my iPhone 3GS for web work an average
of an hour and a half per day with between 1-2 hours of talking and push email
and nearly all-day iPod use on and I came home with 20-40% (mostly that
depended on talk time), and I could still rely on it to be my iPod at the gym
even if I was using Pandora. I go 8am-11pm with confidence. With the iOS
4.0GM, it's like I've got a 20% battery upgrade and I'm using the device more.

It's really frustrating that Apple keeps making hardware that fits my specs
but not being on a carrier that does me right. Meanwhile other
carriers—carriers that I know will drop far fewer calls and have far fewer
problems at crowded events—simply cannot get a phone that doesn't have a tower
of serious flaws. The closest stab in recent memory was the Nexus One (with
its terribly flawed touchscreen) and the Droid (which by now appears like a
doddering old slowpoke by comparison to the current crop of phones).

~~~
grandalf
The Evo sucks down battery. I found that by disabling background data transfer
the battery life improved Tremendously, to the point where it's not an issue
anymore and I can go 1.5-2 days between charges.

However, I would love to be able to install Froyo and remove Sense. I imagine
each of those steps would help to improve battery life even further.

Aside from being aesthetically ugly, Sense is so tightly embedded that it's
impossible to fully disable it. I'd prefer some nice HTC branded wallpaper
that could be easily disabled in a few minutes.

~~~
jrockway
I doubt Sense makes a difference in battery life. It's also my understanding
that it's just a home screen; change the preference for which app manages the
home screen, and you are back to plain Android.

What's irritating about Sense is that it basically precludes any updates. My
guess is that the Evo 4G gets Froyo never, which is why I think I'm just going
to get a Nexus One. Or wait for a Nexus Two.

~~~
CountSessine
Will there be a Nexus Two? Only about 135k Nexus One's have been sold. Google
is shuttering their web store that they were selling the Nexus One at. While a
technical and usability triumph, it has to be said that the Nexus One is a bit
of a boondoggle, considering how much Google and HTC probably spent developing
it.

The big problem for Google is that they wanted to change the way people bought
cell phones, but it just didn't take. The phone companies control the sales
channel (except for the Apple store) and they probably won't want to sell a
Google-branded Android phone without all of their silly carrier-specific
modifications (NASCAR? Really, Sprint? NASCAR?!?). If there ever is a Nexus
Two, Google has to figure out where they're going to sell it.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
There seemed to be some kind of media backlash against this phone in the US
but they're selling it unbranded on Vodafone in Europe and the HTC Desire
appears to be fundamentally the same phone (sold with the Sense UI, but again
without carrier branding). I can't see how the phone hardware, as opposed to
the attempt to change the sales channels in the US, can be considered any kind
of white elephant.

~~~
CountSessine
That's a good point about the Desire. If Google does make a Nexus Two, I guess
that's how they'd do it - ride on the back of an already-developed smartphone.

Still, the web store for the Nexus One is going away - that seems to indicate
that Google has lost interest in selling Google-branded phones. We can always
hope they'll change their minds...

~~~
grandalf
When is it going away? Will unlocked nexus ones still be sold?

~~~
CountSessine
<http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-20005015-265.html>

I don't think the article mentions when it's being closed. And considering you
can typically get any GSM/HSPA phone unlocked somewhere, I'm sure the Nexus
One will still be available. Most 'unlocked phone stores' have gruesome
markups though, and it was something of an anomoly that you could get such an
advanced phone as the Nexus One unlocked for just $530. Just looking at a
couple of online merchants, both Plemix.com and exoticphone.com both have the
audacity to sell the Nexus One itself for a hefty markup!

$629 <http://www.plemix.com/phone-htc-nexus_one-phone>

$749 [http://exoticphone.com/htc-google-nexus-one-
unlocked-p-2065....](http://exoticphone.com/htc-google-nexus-one-
unlocked-p-2065.html)

The Plemix.com one is especially amusing - it claims that $629 is a mark-down,
and that the original price was $854! Keep in mind that Google has always and
still is selling the Nexus One for $529 in their web store.

------
arjuan
There's conflicting evidence on this issue. Once I set my battery profile by
draining it completely then recharging it with the power off, my battery life
has been just fine.

I left my phone on, unplugged, last night, drove to work listening to a
podcast, and have been at work for about two hours and my phone still reads a
full charge. Advanced Task Killer is showing 18 apps running in the background
(power user here :) )

Also, if you read the EVO forums there are plenty of other people who are
getting great battery life out of this powerful device.

~~~
cubicle67
From what I remember (and I may be mixing up phones here) it was use of 4G
that chewed battery life. Are you using 4G at all?

~~~
arjuan
I had 4G turned on overnight as well (where I have full 4g/3g service). I've
heard that leaving 4G on while in a 3G-only area will drain the battery, but
hopefully that problem will be fixed with an update.

------
jsz0
HTC has been known to cut some corners on their hardware. For example they
ship some variations of the HTC Hero with a tiny 1200mAh battery, others with
a 1500mAh and will sell you an extended life 1800mAh. Why not just include the
best battery possible? The HTC Evo ships with a 1500mAh battery -- the same as
my HTC Hero that is half the clock speed with a smaller display. I don't get
very good battery life on my Hero so I can only imagine the Evo with the same
sized battery is really going to struggle. It looks like there's a 1750mAh
extended life battery coming but that's not a huge improvement. (and it's
going to cost you $50)

~~~
jrockway
They really needed that $199 price point at any cost, I think. My impression
from trying to buy one is that Sprint is not the wireless provider of choice
for people with tons of money.

~~~
grandalf
True. Consider the pricing per month:

450 Minutes, unlimited mobile/mobile and data: $59 for google IO attendees.

$29 per month to use wifi teathering.

This is 450 minutes for $90 per month! To make it unlimited the prices becomes
$130 per month!

Compare that to T-Mobile which offers all that (unlimited) for $65 with the
Nexus One.

------
dogas
I have an evo. It's really a nice phone, however the battery life is indeed a
major issue. However, better software will help fix the issue and make it a
_great_ phone.

Currently there's a couple of hackers attempting to open the NAND and make the
filesystem read/write. This is a crucial step and needs help! Any low level
guys or just general hackers should help the cause!

<http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=694034>

------
ZeroGravitas
Is there any hard info about what the battery issue is?

Some people think it's just Android being rubbish or written in Java or not
made by Apple, but some people with the device seem to have no problems while
others are writing articles like this.

I was under the impression that Android phones actually told you what had used
up all the battery. I would have thought that might have been a good starting
point for writing an actual journalistic article about this.

~~~
blub
JavaME was a known battery hog, but maybe Dalvik is better. Going with Java is
a risky decision because whatever you do you still lose: if you ramp up the
CPU it will consume more power and drain the battery, if you don't the
software will be too slow. Add JIT and you use more battery.

I found it particularly amusing how one commenter was bragging about how his
HTC EVO made it through the day on one battery charge.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
What device do you have? One busy day seems to be standard with iPhones as I
understand it and based on my experience with an iPhone 3G, though iPhones are
generally supposed to be worse than say Nokias or Blackberries.

Apple's figures suggest that if you browse the web on 3G or Wifi, make calls
or watch video constantly then you'd get 5-6 hours on my 3G, but even that's a
high estimate as it assumes that when you're talking on the phone or watching
videos then you have the 3G and WiFi powered off.

That's enough for me as it's routine for me to charge my phone every night
(though I've turned notifications right down and I do have a car charger
because using the GPS for directions seems to really eat at the battery) but I
can imagine many kinds of travelling businessman who would find that an
annoyance.

~~~
blub
But the braggart said that he almost didn't use the phone...

I have a Nokia E72 and recharge every ~4 days with heavy 2.5G internet use,
~20 minutes of talk time per day, use as a PDA, etc. Almost no wi-fi, no
videos, no music.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
If he's _bragging_ about 8 hours of standby then he's either confused or a
troll. On the other hand some people have, apparently genuinely, struggled to
get 8 hours of standby from this particular model, so he may have been
refuting this with personal experience and everyone's got confused.

I'm not sure we're any closer to any actual conclusions about how battery
hungry the Evo actually is, what problems it might have and what kind of usage
triggers them.

------
mcantelon
In my use of the EVO battery life didn't seem that bad. A bit worse than the
Nexus, but not a nightmare. I did run into the photo issue: got SD card errors
when trying to save that would require rebooting the phone. Seems like a
possible bug that a software upgrade could address.

Aside from these issues, the EVO's display makes it hard to go back to an N1.
The display is gorgeous and the extra screen real estate makes typing via the
soft keyboard significantly easier. Photos taken by the EVO are impressive as
well: much better than the N1 or any smartphone I've ever seen.

------
mcantor
Are we ever going to get an Android device (preferably on US T-Mobile) with
comparable power to the new iPhone, that has a _gorram slide-out keyboard_?

~~~
adbge
I'm sincerely hoping that the next generation of the Nexus One has a slide out
keyboard. I suffer from pretty bad shakes due to the cocktail of medication
I'm taking and often typing on my iPhone is an exercise in futility. Luckily,
there is hope for us yet!

"Google Inc executive Andy Rubin said on Friday that the next version of the
Nexus One phone, which was made by HTC Corp, will be for enterprise users and
might have a physical keyboard."

Source: <http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60809H20100109>

~~~
ZeroGravitas
You might want to keep an eye on the Samsung Galaxy S that's just been
released in the UK. There's a rumour (and a fan-made mockup) of a "Pro"
version with a hardware keyboard.

------
jrockway
I have tried to buy an EVO 3 times now, and every time I've done so, I've
shown up at the store to be laughed at by the sales people for wanting one
(despite calling and being told that there was availability). Now that I've
had time to think about the cost over a 24 month contract, I don't even want
one anymore, even though I already have Sprint for my mobile broadband plan.
(Sprint sucks, but Wimax is really good.)

Anyway, Arrington and the other TC reviewer already admitted they don't live
in a 4G market. Why buy a 4G phone when you can't get 4G?

~~~
ergo98
Those jackasses don't buy anything. It's all sent to them for free.

------
rbranson
The T-Mobile G1 (HTC Magic) had horrendous battery life when it first came
out. Gradually the battery life got better and better as they released more
software updates. These were changes to the OS that made it use less battery
life, however. There might not be as much "free juice" to squeeze out of this
device. To be fair though, this is the first phone-like WiMAX device, and it's
likely that they don't really understand the real world conditions of handheld
WiMAX devices yet.

~~~
gmichnikov
HTC Magic = myTouch 3G, HTC Dream = G1

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Magic>,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Dream>

------
tptacek
But... but... but... Eric Raymond said, "If I were an Apple marketing guy, I’d
be asking “How the hell can I compete against the EVO 4G with this?”.

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Saavedro
"Or wait a few months for a better android phone."

I think this line really exemplifies the difference between the iPhone and
Android. The speed-to-market for a brand new Android device is -insane-.

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keithwarren
I just went 45 hours between charges. I am not in a 4G market so the 4G radio
is turned off and I use locale to disable GPS when I am at home but I really
wonder about some of these issue people have experienced. It almost makes me
wonder if the stock batteries may have had some bad manufacturing batches or
something - either that or they really need to be conditioned properly which
is something I was religious about the first few days.

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lenni
I have the HTC Hero and I'm having the very same issues. Sense is mucking up
the UI, the sd card can often not be read and the updates that are routinely
being delayed by month. Worst of all, HTC has installed a kernel that blocks
attempts to root the phone, which is required for updating. Basically I'm
getting the Apple treatment but without the amazing devices.

~~~
jrockway
Yeah, the Hero is a low-end device like the Dream and Sapphire. What you get
for being an early adopter is shitty hardware.

------
tpiddy
i love my htc evo. the battery isn't as great as my pre but after disabling a
few things and some tweaks it is not nearly as bad as everyone is making it
out to be. hopefully it will get better with software updates or an extended
battery that fits the standard cover will come out.

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aresant
If you read nothing else in this article:

"MG Siegler irrationally loves the iPhone and it has become an important
fashion accessory and self confidence crutch in his San Francisco hipster
lifestyle."

Sorry, I thought that was too funny not to share with anybody skimming the
thread . . .

