HTC Evo 4G (black, Sprint)

Pros: I like the large screen and the OS

Cons: I don't like the bad video quality, the bad sound quality, the bad phone call quality, the Sprint hidden charges on the bill, the overblown expectations about a phone that was put out with so many defects.

Summary: I read and researched all the reviews before the phone came out and they were all great reviews. I visited many of the familiar tech blogs sites such as engadget.com, gizmodo.com, etc. and they all gave the phone more or less stellar reviews. Needless to say, I rushed out and got this phone from RadioSchack. The first thing I noticed was a nagging high pitched static sound on recorded videos and anything recorded with the mike. The videos themselves were highly compressed witch made them impossible to watch on a high def monitor through an HDMI cable. What 720p? I took this phone (first batch, series 0002 ) back to RadioShack and got a new one from the new 003 batch. This one had a different color processing chip that performed worse than the one in the 0002 series. Guess what the same problems with the sound and the video. I took it back, got my money back and closed my Sprint account. They should deliver what they promise.
I got to thinking, how can a phone maker design and make such a complex communication/entertainment device and do such a poor engineering job where it really counts-the sound. I mean that should be the most important element of any kind of telephone. In the EVO?s case there is some bad engineering going on. For example, the speaker membrane is exposed and poorly secured to the phone. This contributes to the nagging high pitched static sound that I experienced on these two HTC EVO?s. The second bad design element is that the back cover is made of thin plastic which causes the distortion coming out of the speaker to resonate and thus become more noticeable. The sound is distorted, tinny and not clear. If you add to this all the problems that this phone has been having with the SD card, the battery and the 30fps video cap imposed on it, you might have to consider that this phone is indeed a highly flawed phone as has been claimed out in tech blog land. Of course, I also fell for the front camera with the mirrored output image and the unuseable Qik utility, the YouTube utility that does not work on 3G, and the nonexistent 4G signal, but there is nothing like having a phone that you can use to make clear, undistorted phone calls. It is such a satisfying feeling to be able to make clear telephone calls. The EVO is not made for this. For those of you who must have your EVO matter what or that have not noticed any of these defects yet , I say to you good luck with your EVO my friend.
Be careful when you read the crap put out by those overly exited tech bloggers out there in blog land. When they review tech equipment is as if they are getting a brand new toy for the first time so they forget to do any kind of in-depth testing of the devices that they review. This is especially true when they review the new so called smart phones.