Editorial: My Phone Sucks

So this is my phone

The HTC EVO 4G, and I hate it. The phone I had before the EVO was the Samsung Instinct. Yea I know major upgrade right? Don't get me wrong when I first got the EVO I loved it, this is much more then a phone we are talking about here. Most of the things you can do on a computer can also be accomplished on this phone. This phone was rated as one of the Best Android Phones of 2010, and is praised by all of my friends who own it. So then why would I hate such a seemingly great phone? My major problem with this phone is the battery life. At first it was a minor annoyance, easily made up for by the power and beauty of the phone, but after three days of having no phone for 12+ hours because it died in the middle of the day because of the terrible battery life it became a number one priority.  Oh how I hate this phone let me recount the ways.

Hardware
The phone is built solid I have dropped it about 20 times and have come away with only a few scratches. It sports a tough black plastic chassis, 4.3 inch capacitive touchscreen, 8mp rear and 1.3mp front facing cameras, and a 1 Ghz snapdragon processor (very fast). The phone also has HDMI out and a kickstand for portrait viewing. Anybody will tell you that these are monster specs. There are new smartphones soon to be released that do not have this kind of hardware. So you would think that I would be please with this device... The screen is too big. Before this phone I always dreamed of having a phone with a screen of this magnitude. When you are coming from a 2.2 inch screen like the Instinct you understand the value of screen real estate. But now that I have had the EVO for a year I can safely say that I do not like the enlarged screen. It makes the phone feel big and clunky, the extra screen size is unnecessary, as well as adversely affecting battery life, and as you already know battery life is a big deal for me. This brings me to the issue of the battery life of this phone which is down right abysmal.


According to iFixIt, the battery is a 3.7-volt, 1500-mAh, and 31-gram unit -- meaning it has 23 percent more capacity than an iPhone 3GS, 15 percent more than a Droid Incredible, and 7 percent more than a Nexus One. This just means that the battery should be great. This has not been my experience. I have had the phone die while sitting on standby at night. I spend a good amount of my day at school and this phone lasts about six hours between charges. This means that for about 12+ hours I could potentially be phone-less. Sure you can say "just carry a charger then" but aside from being inconvenient and troublesome  it is down right unacceptable. The phone is supposed to be a mobile device, It would be understandable that if I watch videos all day, listen to music, surf the internet and send text messages that the phone would run out of power fairly quickly. But even with mobile internet turned off, a few texts/calls during the day I would be lucky to get six hours of battery life from this phone. Well maybe its not just the hardwares fault...


Software
The HTC EVO 4G comes equipped with Android version 2.2 which is currently the newest incarnation of the operating system. This version boasts smoother performance and stability. However I believe this operating system is partially to blame for the battery crisis this phone faces. Even thought I did not care for my previous Samsung Instinct I will have to say that the battery life on the phone was amazing. Two days without a charge and I will be hovering right about 50% battery life, and the battery on that phone was much smaller then the battery on the EVO. The main culprit of the battery problem is the multi tasking feature of the OS. While a great idea in concept. Why would someone every need to do that many simultaneous tasks on their smartphone? (The issue of "true" multi-tasking is one that truly interests/infuriates me and warrants its own post) These tasks continue to run in the background and eat up battery power at an exponential rate. Even with a task manager these background applications cannot be closed. Another major strain on the battery is the 4G. When I first purchased this phone the 4G worked well, but I quickly realized that I couldn't tell the difference between 4G and 3G. Take for example the Ferrari and the Lamborghini both of these cars are incredibly fast, can you really tell if one is faster then the other? This is the same deal with 3G and 4G, I could rarely tell the difference however I was paying a 4G "premium fee" as well as suffering from terrible battery life for a service that I do not use.


Wrap-up 
This is not really a review or something meant to sway your opinion. I just wanted to express my anger towards this device and its creators while also warning you to do research before you buy. For someone who loves multimedia, music, social media on the go and does not mind carrying their charger and extra batteries this is a dream phone. However for a road warrior like me who spends most of their time outside of their house and away from charging stations this phone is an absolute nightmare. 
This is another article that takes a stronger stance against the problems of this phone : http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/09/dont-buy-the-android-evo-it-is-a-seriously-flawed-device/