In light of iPhone 4S, now's the perfect time for the new HTC EVO Design 4G world phone
It was probably pretty easy to overlook Sprint's official announcement of the HTC EVO Design 4G in the midst of all the excitement surrounding Ice Cream Sandwich yesterday. It also might have been easy to overlook because, being the power users that we are here at G&E, we weren't all that impressed with the device's specs.
But maybe our first impressions were wrong. In fact, I even think that the specs and timing of the EVO Design are pretty ingenious on Sprint's part.
As we all know, smartphone adoption by the general public is way up, and some analysts are even expecting the amount of active smartphones to surpass active feature phones in the near future. And regardless of your opinion of Apple, this growth is largely fueled by the popularity of the iPhone.
While many EVO users are not impressed by the internal specs of the latest iPhone 4S, it's hard to deny that most of the population doesn't really care about what's inside. They just want something that's cool, that works as expected, and that gets reception anywhere they go. This last point illustrates why it's so significant that the latest iPhone now supports global GSM frequencies, especially for a CDMA carrier like Sprint.
And that's also why maybe we shouldn't ignore this latest addition to the EVO family: the EVO Design is, as we now know, the first Sprint EVO that's also a global phone.
Spec-wise, it can also hold its own against Apple. It's got a faster processor, a bigger screen, expandable storage, and a price of $99.99 that keeps it competitive. In fact, it might be the perfect device for those who would have otherwise opted for the older iPhone 4, which is being offered for the same price.
Even though Sprint seems to have shifted its focus away from the EVO brand the past couple weeks in favor of Apple (did you really expect anything else?), the release of the EVO Design shows that Sprint is not forgetting about the EVO – in fact, this might be a sign that Sprint still plans to focus on the EVO as its best Android offering for all price tiers going forward.
The release of the EVO Design was therefore a smart move on Sprint's part to keep budget-conscious consumers happy, especially those who are looking for the features of the new iPhone 4S at a cheaper price. And the release of the EVO Design definitely keeps HTC (and the EVO brand) as primary players in the Android race.
So don't be disappointed about the specs of the EVO Design. This was just the right time for Sprint to release it and rejunvenate the EVO name, and I'd bet money that soon we'll be hearing rumors about the next EVO superphone that will be sure to blow our expectations out of the water.
