HTC EVO Shift 4G Android Phone (Sprint)

Best Cell Phone I Have Ever Owned February 22, 2011

Reviewer:  T. Soptick  (Lenexa, KS) -

I upgraded to the EVO 4G Shift about 2 weeks ago from my Blackberry 8330 Curve. I was a loyal Blackberry user for several years and was concerned about upgrading to an Android phone. I wanted a bigger screen, a faster processor, and 4G internet speed. I almost bought the EVO, but considered it too big and expensive, plus I wanted a physical keyboard. So I was excited when the EVO Shift 4G came out. I thought the Samsung Epic was too expensive. I am really happy with the upgrade! Going from my Blackberry to this Android phone is like going from DOS to Windows or a PC to a MAC.

Positives: Everything is so visual! 7 Big and beautiful screens to display your apps! 1 tap and your app starts immediately! Love the touch screen! The processor is like jumping from a Celeron to the latest quad processor. 4G speed in my city is incredible! I love the keyboard and am now texting almost half as fast as my 17 year old - a big jump in speed. The number and quality of Android apps is amazing! I have found only 1 app that I cannot replace from Blackberry. I have downloaded almost one dozen apps and haven't had to pay one dime! You Tube videos and my videos look great and play well. The quality of the pictures using the 5.0 megapixel camera shots and videos are a big improvement from my old Blackberry. Last, but not least, the call quality is the best I have had in any cellphone!

Negatives: Battery life! This is the reason I am giving it 4, not 5 stars.I used to be able to go a day and a half without charging my Blackberry. I have to charge this phone twice a day and do not consider myself to be a heavy user, only moderate. With all the incredible features built into this phone, HTC should provide a longer lasting battery to support these wonderful features!

Slightly annoyed by: the volume control. It's easy to accidentally hit it when you are pulling out the keyboard. Also annoyed by the slanted on/off power button at top. It is a little inconvenient and difficult to use.

Bottom line: Buy this phone! In general, I am very pleased with it.

If you are a loyal Blackberry user like was: - go for it! The overall upgrade from Blackberry to this Android phone has been great! I do miss the themes, and Company names,titles,and Groupings of contacts don't transfer well into Gmail (a requirement for Android phones). So you will have to adjust your contacts once in Gmail. But this was not a huge problem for me. What you get in return is a much better overall experience.

Note: If you upgrade to a larger micro SD card from the 2G card it came with, you must transfer the files on the old card to the new card before replacing the original card in your new phone. You need to do this so your phone will recognize the new card. I learned this the hard way. The retail associate who installed the 8G card I bought did not know this.

Update: The EVO 4g Shift recently got the Gingerbread(Android 2.3)update and battery life is now much better. I no longer use Juice Defender.

Feature-loaded, user friendly: smart choice in a crowded smart phone market February 12, 2011

Reviewer:  35-year Technology Consumer "8-tracks to 802.11"  (Mid Atlantic, USA) -

We've been using mobile telephones in our house since 1995, and the parade of discards since then represent choices made to deliver basic services (phone calls, and with the ones just retired, text messages) and at the cheapest prices.

The HTC Evo Shift 4G was only added to Sprint's lineup a month before we bought it ago, making us early adopters of this model, even if smart phones are decidedly mainstream now...

Much of what is good --or bad-- about using 3G/4G/WIMAX services is going to be very dependent on your service provider's network relative to your current location (and indeed, many of the commercials we watch are not about the phone, but about the network) and the applications you interact with.

So while your experience my vary, our experience with this phone in the places we use it has been awesome at every turn. Great features, intuitive interface and --since we still use it to make phone calls too-- good call audio quality.

While the screen is smaller that its Evo 4G product line companion, this is largely mitigated by the slide-out full QWERTY keyboard...a blessing for those who can't seem to master soft keyboard displays.

The phone ships with an impressive array of apps, and the Android marketplace makes finding and installing new ones simple. Two strong performers are Google-powered Voice Search and Navigate: both are eerily good at delivering search results and driving/walking directions. Thi phone's voice-to-text interface is also very good. Surprisingly, a voice-based dialing app that is part of the operating system's collection of widgets seldom gets one right.

We discovered one minor issue with the placement and size of the call volume buttons at the bottom left of the QWERTY tray when it's extended. Your left thumb will inadvertently press them by accident, resulting in the related on-screen display briefly appearing on the screen. It's a minor issue that you will quickly self-train to avoid.

Finally, a note about pricing if you are considering this or any other high-end phone: comparison shop and pay attention when you're ready to upgrade. For the hardware purchase, you can expect to find considerable differences in the prices (even when upgrade discount and rebates are included) from different vendors. Be sure to check out each each of your provider's "store" (brick and mortar, by phone and online), big box stores and even Amazon's new wireless store. It's worth investing a couple minutes in this research to save a considerable amount on the purchase price.

Becoming a smart phone user begins with shopping smartly!

The Best Phone I Have Ever Owned! March 27, 2011

Reviewer:  C. Dooley  (Birmingham, AL USA) -

I absolutely love my HTC Evo Shift 4G! I went from a standard flip phone about month ago to this and added an all inclusive plan of text and data - will never go back to a standard phone again. I carry this phone everywhere and because of all the apps I can download for it, I always have music, books, games, camera, camcorder, phone, text, email, internet, weather info, alarm clock, notebook, GPS, etc with me all the time. The battery seems to last a little longer than I expected being that I am always on my phone doing something, but I keep it charged each night. I love the voicemail feature of this phone.. instead of having to dial into it, your voicemails are saved like recordings to your phone with a time and date stamp - you touch the "play" button and listen to them and then there is a "delete" button you can push to remove them from your phone - more convenient than having to call the voicemail, enter a code, listen to the time and date, etc and waste minutes. I also love the slide out keyboard feature - I hate typing on a screen, so this was a must for me when looking for a new phone and adding unlimited text to my plan. The graphics are awesome on this phone and the screen is a nice size for viewing picture, videos, etc. Basically, this phone is like a mini, portable computer. If I ever need another phone, I will definitely get this one again or one comparable if this particular model is not available.

Finally my Perfect Phone January 29, 2011

Reviewer:  J. L. Miller 

Love this phone. It has everything I want and nothing more. I mean seriously who even uses a front facing camera??? I sure don't. Second, as easy as touch screen typing is, sometime i want to be able to see the full screen of the device when i'm typing and this is what the keyboard is great for. I also really like the touch pad which basically replaces the arrows keys and is really nice for navigating around the web.

Other than that this thing is faaaast and I would imagine that it does get better battery life than the Evo, but I've never owned an Evo. The benchmark tests show that the 800MHz processor is actually faster than the 1Ghz in the original since it is the second generation of the processor. Seriously have enjoyed this phone so far. You should also note that HTC phones upgrade to the newest Android versions far earlier than all other Android manufacturers.

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HTC EVO or HTC EVO Shift January 27, 2011

Reviewer:  The Fallen Angel with a broken Wing "I Cry Out But No One Can Hear Me ..."  (Dark Corner Deep Within the Mind) -

I just recently got the EVO Shift and it's an awesome phone. The main difference between the EVO and EVO Shift is that the EVO has a bigger screen and dual cameras *Front & Rear* where as the EVO Shift is smaller in size, only has one rear camera, and a slide-out Qwerty keyboard. The differences are very subtle and not really gonna make much of a difference between the two. If you're gonna watch alot of videos/multimedia then the EVO might be best but if you're just looking for a phone of general tasks like texting, web-browsing, etc. then the EVO Shift might be better. In my honest opinion the Slide-Out Qwerty keyboard isn't really necessary. The set-up for the on-screen keyboard is so simple and easy that you'd rarely use the slide-out keyboard. My old phone *LG RUMOR* had a slide-out keyboard and I got so used to using a slide-out I didn't wanna go back to using a touchscreen keyboard like I do on my iTouch. So I got the EVO Shift instead of the EVO. I still like the EVO but I found I'm rarely using the slide-out keyboard bcuz the on-screen keyboard is better made than the iTouch that mistyping happens very rarely. The word recognition is great that you don't have to type the whole word. So the slide-out keyboard loses it's purpose. Overall it's a great phone and I think I'm gonna be pretty happy with it.