About three weeks ago, a box arrived from Sprint. Inside the box was a kitten. No, sorry … in fact it is this clever 7 “tablet Android HTC, the EVO 4G Show. After using almost every day and talk to everyone I could corner, I’m still a bit conflicted as to whetherwhether or not I buy one. At the end of this review, we hope that you will know what I mean.
HARDWARE
The EVO See all technical specifications are available on the HTC website, but the main highlights are a 1.5 GHz processor (single-core … sorry, gang) and WiMax 4G. Oh, and he has this interesting stylus, too, but more on that in a moment. Other hardware specifications are in line with most other 7 “tablet: a 1024 x 600 resolution, LCD screen 32 GB of internal flash memory storage, front and rear-facing camera (1.3 MP and 5MP respectively ), stereo speakers and microphones, and all the usual ports (microUSB) and buttons (power and volume).
There are a few touches that make the EVO view (and not Sprint 4G cousin, the HTC Flyer) interesting. On the one hand, the ends of the shelf (left and right when held in landscape orientation) have these little plastic lip on them that give a great sense of grip for the thumb and fingers. It’s almost as if HTC has taken a cue from designers reflex in this regard, and certainly better (IMO) on the standard “slab” format of most pills today.
Another nifty little is that HTC has made the extra effort to have the capacitive buttons (Home, Menu, Back, and Stylus) rotate from portrait to landscape. In portrait mode, the buttons under the display lights up (as above). But if you rotate the device 90 degrees to the left, the screen rotates and the navigation buttons to the edge a long time now under the screen (for example, the buttons listed above, and new lighting will illuminated on the left bezel, which is now below the screen). It’s a small touch, but really helps the overall user experience.
One thing I do not like HTC is leaving out a dedicated button capacitive for research, like all Android phones a. I got quite accustomed to using for initate research, both within applications and in general, and not having it is aggravating.
Absent from the list of hardware features are an LED flash for the camera back, a HDMI port, a crutch, a removable battery, and, more surprisingly, a Micro USB slot (there are not adding additional storage) .
One thing you notice about the EVO view is that it seems quite heavy for its size. Specs show that it weighs 15 ounces, 1.5 ounces more than the Galaxy Tab of similar size, but in the hand, it feels much heavier. On the upside, however, to EVO can be charged via a regular microUSB cable, so no nonsense owners there.
SOFTWARE
If there is anything that I have come to expect from HTC Android on its terminals is some interesting and often useful software enhancements,. I’m a fan of Sens, and for EVO has the latest version, 2.1, the user interface of the HTC custom layer. With that, you get improvements such as rotating carousels home page style, a very clever screen lock (which gives you immediate access to up to four applications), some widgets updated (including another beautiful weather widget, that HTC seems to be rather appropriate), and a raft of tiny UI settings (eg up to 10 most recently used applications list on the right, in the shadow of notification, and access to the tab “Quick Settings” from within the shadow of notification).
HTC has also included its new video rental and HTC Love (a referral service app), HTC Hub (a mini “store” for HTC applications, widgets, backgrounds, etc.), and HTC e-reader book app. EVO does not share the view media via DLNA and comes with the Office of Polaris to view and edit Office documents in the light standard.
As has become the standard for 4G Sprint Android devices, there is a widget to enable / disable 4G (when disabled, the device uses Sprint’s 3G network, which I found to be generally quite is adequate for normal use). Sprint also honored for EVO to its own applications (some of questionable value), including NASCAR, Raging Thunder Lite, Sprint Mobile Wallet, and TeleNav GPS (which is a reasonable alternative to Google Maps at least for the conduct of nav).
The version of Android comes to the EVO is surprising that Android 2.3.4. Place gingerbread on this instead of honeycomb (3.0 or 3.1) would have allowed HTC to get it out the door faster, but it does make this tablet seems a bit dated, even before its release. I would not be surprised if the view were to get EVO Honeycomb in the near future.
STYLUS
One thing I like about HTC is that it is more willing than most phones / tablet OEM experience. Sometimes it is not so great (for example, the HTC surround speaker with a slider (wha?)), But other times it may be interesting, if not downright irresistible. The HTC stylus designed for the EVO view (and flyer), they call the Scribe, almost everyone I showed it to perk up with interest. After all, it was not so long ago, a stylus is an accessory assumes all smartphones and PDAs are sold.
The HTC Scribe is a pen with a small capacitive pressure-sensitive tip and two buttons, one for “clear” and the other for “stress”. It is powered by a single AAAA battery size.When the view is triggered EVO to accept the entry of the stylus, the stylus control “wheel” appears in the lower right corner. From there, the user gets access to a variety of colors, drawing instruments, sizes end, and functions (delete, cancel, etc.).
The Scribe is built into the experience of EVO in three ways. Scribble is a way, which essentially allows to take a screenshot of the display See EVO is currently captured and then annotate it using the stylus. If I had to critique web pages or the marking of many pictures, this feature could be useful … but I did not.
The second way is the Scribe is used in standard applications you’d expect. You can highlight and annotate e-books and it will save you from these brands on a separate layer within the ebook. You can highlight and markup PDF and Office files and, as you want. And these files are saved in the tagged format (Un Doc is a doc. Even after being marked with the margins recorded as individual objects, editable in Word). That in itself is pretty cool and something I consider using in the examination and review of documents.
The third way is through the HTC soft notes. Notes is an all-purpose note-taking app that focuses on the support of the pen, but also accepts the text and photos of the keyboard (directly from the camera or gallery). In addition, you can attach a document or file to a note or attach a note to a calendar event. It’s a surprisingly nice application with a robust feature set. Also, Notes integrates directly with Evernote, so that any note that you can be automatically saved in your account, download the Evernote servers, and OCR (my tests were impressive, with Evernote be able to my research scribble a manuscript of about 90% of the time). Below is a picture of me making a note and the corresponding screenshot Evernote.
But (you knew there had to be a “but”), as good as it could be, the actual experience was a bit frustrating for me. For one, the screen looks a bit small to write. While using a real pen a piece of paper 6 “high by 3.5″ wide (size of the screen to view EVO) would not be a problem for the EVO does not allow me to the resolution of write as little or as clearly on his screen as I would on paper. Thus the word “reflection” is greater than about as small as I can write comfortably without ending up with a crazy mishmash of scribbles. As a sidenote, Evernote OCR was unable to “think” or “pencil” above, but it did correct OCR “marker” and “pen”, so that there are limits to this input method.
In addition, the noise of the stylus on the screen is good, boring. That tap, tap, tap, tap, tap …. Tap, tap, tap, tap. Tip The Scribe is pressure sensitive (to give control over line width) but also Clicky, so any writing session scope will lead those around you to distraction … or murder.
Finally, there is no convenient place to keep the Scribe. View EVO (or flyer) is not a hole stylus, the scribe did not even clip. Moreover, because it is metal, you do not dare let him in contact with the screen of the EVO View in a bag, so it must go in a separate pocket. So you end up with the stylus (which is perfectly round) roll on the tables, get lost in the pockets and bags, and usually not very practical. And that’s pretty much eliminates the whole point, which is to free-form text entry easy.
Notes is very good, but has some limitations. For example, when you insert a picture, it is stuck there in this place at this size. You can not crop, resize, move or edit the photo in any way, which seems ridiculous given the other the application of little things.
CONCLUSIONS
Overall, using the EVO view was nice. He never seemed to slow down or lag, and it was quite stable and well behaved. Battery life was very good … almost as good as the 7 “Galaxy Tab (which is excellent). Generally, I had no complaints about the hardware other than the weight and lack of a MicroSD slot.
HTC Sprint EVO 4G View is a lovely little tablet. For some, it might be ideal for their use cases. For others, it will be too small nor too heavy, or not running the correct version of Android. For me, the pen was surprisingly well executed, but I think I need a bigger screen for it to be really convincing. If a 10 “tablet is on the drawing board to someone at HTC, please do me a solid support to Scribe. Thank you.
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