Sprint's New Powerhouse

[LMITOUT]

I've just successfully tethered my laptop with the EVO. It took some monkeying around and installing some drivers, but it's working and it's fast (through my wi-fi connection at home). Fast enough for an on the go connection anyway.

I tried tethering wirelessly through bluetooth but it was horribly slow. Now with the PC drivers installed I'll probably try it again to see if that helped.

The battery seems to get better after a few good discharge and recharge cycles. They say that these batteries don't have a memory but I beg to differ. I've had three Blackberry's and now this EVO and every one has got better after going through a handful of charging cycles. Another thing I've done to help with the battery life is turn off wi-fi, bluetooth, and GPS unless I need to use one of them which is not very often. It's easy enough to turn on with the various included widgets so it's not a big deal.

[PierBridge]

How about the Camera issue? Any headway on that with changing resolution settings?... I thought I heard one of the Droid phones was having poor quality picture issues that were solved with a software upgrade! Incredible maybe???

[LMITOUT]

Haven't heard about that. Maybe it was a different phone than the EVO? The EVO is fairly adjustable as far as the camera settings are concerned and take decent pics for a cell phone. I turned down the resolution a bit because 8MP is just too big.

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

Finally got one via the Sprint HSOforum. Hopefully they are quick on the shipping.

[LMITOUT]

I jumped on the Swype beta yesterday and it's amazing. One of the worries I had about going from a physical keyboard to a touch screen was typing and accuracy. Swype has alleviated almost all of those worries and it should only get better the more I use it. Incredible app and I would recommend it to anyone with a virtual keyboard.

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

What is your battery life like? I was looking at about 6 hours with moderate use the first few days. Today I turned off the GPS, I'm at about 7 hours of being unplugged (lots of emails, texts and phone calls) and I've used MAYBE 15%.

I think part of the original problem may have been that I was using battery status pro, which seemed to drain the battery very quickly.

[LMITOUT]

The first few days were not good. I believe that the battery needs to be 'conditioned' no matter what people say. Other's agree that it needs to be cycled a few times before the battery life comes around. I've seen this on three Blackberry's as well....after 2-3 days of fulling discharging and charging the battery life was much improved, and I'm experiencing similar results with the EVO too.

I also turned off the GPS, wifi, and bluetooth to help with battery life.....similar to what I did with my Blackberry. Why have it drawing power when you're not using it?

There are other apps that need to be looked at as well since they will pull info at predetermined intervals throughout the day that really don't need too. A couple that come to mind are the News app and the Finance app. Take a look at their settings and either disable updating or lengthen the intervals. I figure if I want to check the news using the News app I'll let it refresh when I open the app. Same with the finance app and a few others. Another is a Sprint app that is probably running if you check. That can be disabled completely also. You can go into Settings and then Apps to see what apps are running. Many will need to run, but there are some others that are frills-only type programs like the News or Finance apps.

Other than those minor tweaks the battery life is much better now than it was the first few days. Granted I was using it pretty hard since it was new at that time, you could still tell it wouldn't hold a charge as long as it should.

What I find strange is that when you unplug the phone in the morning the battery drops from 100% to 90-95% almost instantly with maybe only checking an email or two that came in overnight. Others have reported this as well. What I'll do then is plug it back in and let it charge until I leave for work and it will stay closer to 100% for a longer time after unplugging. That 5-10% drop right off the bat has got to be some sort of charging glitch that shuts off charging when the battery isn't completely charged.

[deadeye]

Ok, i got questions about Swype

How do you go about getting Swype and was it free?

You like it now that you have had it for a couple days?

Does it work in landscape mode and can you use if for typing things like emails or posting on here?

[LMITOUT]

There was a beta for Swype that had a very short window last week. I went to their HSOforum, signed up, and they sent a link to install the app. I'd bet there are copies floating around out there if you look hard enough. It was free since it's a beta test. I'm unsure if my trial copy will expire and then I'll be forced to buy the app or not. I'll buy it if I have to...it's worth it.

Yes, you can type on the keyboard in landscape mode, view photos, videos, browse the net, and watch YouTube.

[norm]

I had swype on my Hero for a month. Then the beta trial version expired and I cannot seem to find any place where I can download it again. It is a sweet app I would gladly pay up to $10-$15 bucks for it...I just cant find it anywhere.

[LMITOUT]

Well it's been a few weeks since the last report, but I'm still enjoying the Android experience. The apps that are available are great and the phone is stupid fast. Swype has helped me with my touchscreen typing but I still think I'd be faster using a physical keyboard. Other than that, everything is good and I'm satisfied with making the switch from BB. Truth be told I'm kind of a freak about having the latest and greatest gadget, so that doesn't mean that BB is a bad phone, it's just that they weren't keeping up with the times and resting on their solid foundation of a OS which has now grown outdated.

It's time for BB to step up or they'll be left in the dust by Android and Apple. They have their 6.0 OS coming out soon but it may be a little too late. The deal with BB is that they are a corporate phone, and that is completely understandable as their security is second to none, but the everyday user who they are trying to capture is growing tired of waiting for a great OS that Android and Apple offers. I think they were doing a good job until Android came along which opened the flood gates to phones that weren't constrained and had an open app market. Even though BB has some loyal users, it won't be long before they start to say enough is enough and make the switch to Android or Apple. Personally I enjoyed my experience with a BB phone and would never consider an iPhone, but until BB wakes up and sees what is happening I'll stick with Android.

[deadeye]

Amen to that LOL. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one happy with the whole android experiece.

I am supposedly getting 2.2 tommorow which includes Flash among speeding things up so we will see how that goes.

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

Is 2.2 coming via an inside source, or will everyone with the Evo get the upgrade?

[LMITOUT]

EVO's should get 2.2 but not until around Christmas.

[LMITOUT]

Looks like they bumped up the Froyo (v2.2) release for the EVO to next Tuesday!

[Wish-I-Were-Fishn]

That's great!

I bought a used android phone to see what I like and dislike in a smartphone before I lock into a new phone & plan. That new Galaxy series from Samsung is looking awful tempting.

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

What are your thoughts on FROYO? I did the upgrade on Tuesday and had some MAJOR lag. I re-booted 3 or 4 times over the next 24 hours, and finally now it is back to as good as before the "upgrade".

Other than a couple different icons, I can't say that I've noticed much difference.

[Nick Kuhn]

The biggest thing with Froyo is the JIT execution code. Basically allows out of order instruction execution for Java applications, making them run up to 3 times faster than without JIT.

[LMITOUT]

It seems snappier, although the EVO was no slouch before the upgrade, either.

One of the most welcomed things is the addition of Flash. Now websites work like they should....such as radar animations on the weather sites.

The Flashlight App is neat and the ability to store apps on the SD card is a nice feature too.

[LMITOUT]

New firmware update today. Removes the 30fps cap on the video and it shows. Much smoother transitions between screens and while scrolling through text, etc.

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

Just got the new 3500 mah battery from Seidio. It takes this phone from great to awesome. It is no secret that the Evo is very limited on battery life. I was lucky to make it 8 hours without being on yellow or red. Rumor has it this battery will go 2 days easy.

[LMITOUT]

Does it make the device thicker?

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

Yeah. If you were to remove the stock battery and hold it on the outside of the battery door, that would be a rough guesstimate on size.

[LMITOUT]

OK, that's the one I was thinking of. Although the thought of extra battery life is enticing, I'd prefer to keep it on the thin side for pocketability.

[Wish-I-Were-Fishn]

OK, that's the one I was thinking of. Although the thought of extra battery life is enticing, I'd prefer to keep it on the thin side for pocketability.

No joke, the phone is already huge. Nice to know you have an option if you need it down the road.