Let me start off by saying the HTC EVO is a great phone. It has a great big screen, great glossy interface, great high resolution camera, and a great many wireless options. Combined with the latest version of Android and a solid construction the EVO was my first true iPhone replacement after turning down a long line of potential candidates. Unfortunately the features that make the EVO so great are also its greatest limitations, and the primary reasons I am leaving the EVO behind and downgrading to a LG Optimus S.

Great Screen

In an age where small and light are preferred the HTC EVO is a massive cell phone. It has to be in order to house its most apparent feature, a wide 4.3 inch display that takes up the entire front of the phone. The EVO’s display makes browsing the web and watching video easy on the eyes, but there are a lot of Android apps that can’t properly scale across the EVO’s 800 by 480 resolution. Icons look pixelated, interfaces look stretched, and although everything is still usable the benefit of having a large display is lost when the image is blurry. HTC has done a great job at updating the built-in UI to work with the larger resolution, but smart phones are all about apps and the Android Market still has some catching up to do if it wants to fully support this phones greater than average resolution.

Great UI

The Sense user interface HTC grafts on top of Android is another selling point of the EVO. Some say it gives Android the UI polish to complete with devices like the iPhone. Not knowing any better I immediately accepted Sense as the face of Android, but as time went by I started to see the smudges in its makeup. Having all of the native apps in your phone touched up with a fresh coat of paint is fine, but on a smartphone additional applications are on the invitation. When they arrive applications start to take sides, and before you know it the dance floor is divided by the apps that cohere to HTC’s Sense of style and the ones that don’t. No one is dancing together, and it is up to you to fancy foot around each set of apps different design decisions. In addition the Sense apps that ship on the EVO replace some of the native applications Google bundles with the platform, and because these native apps are not available in the Android Market you have no way to see what you are missing. Finally when Google pushes out an Android update it might be a long time before HTC updates Sense to work with the new code. This means your EVO could be left behind while HTC makes pretty in the powder room.

Great Camera

The EVO’s 8MP camera might look good on paper, and take great pictures in daylight, but it pales to lesser resolution cameras when the sun goes down. It is common knowledge that the more pixels you cram into a sensor the size of a pea the less light each pixel gets. This is why high resolution camera phones like the EVO may take grainier pictures than other lower resolution cameras in low light. Worst of all if those extra pixels aren’t making my photos any better they are only managing to slow down the transfer of photos to my friends and take up more space on my memory card. Taking photos on a camera phone is about sharing and the EVO’s great 8MP camera puts an elephant in the envelope.

Great Wireless

True to Sprint’s advertisements the HTC EVO if the first 4G phone in America. But what does that get you? In Boston where I live it gets me wifi like download speeds when I am in range of a 4G signal. Still 4G is pretty limited, and in metropolitan areas like Boston where 4G is available you are more likely to find strong wifi than strong 4G unless you are out in the harbor. Never mind boating, when it comes to the EVO’s extra wireless connectivity on land, sea, or air, I never use it. Sprint’s native network is fast enough.

Great Power Consumption

If their is one great feature not marketed with the HTC EVO it is its great power consumption. The 4.3 inch display, all of those flashy Sense effects, the 8MP camera, and the 4G wireless means the EVO gets about 8 hours of battery life. It made going to work and coming home with a usable EVO challenging. Often I would charge my EVO while I was at the office hoping I would have enough juice for an after hours outing. Having a cell phone with a load of great features isn’t very useful if it doesn’t have enough power to run them for a full day. This flaw more than any other is what convinced me to pass on the EVO’s greatness, and adopt the more reasonable LG Optimus S.

Optimus S

The Optimus S may not have the same screen as the EVO, HTC Sense, an 8MP camera, or 4G anything, but what it does have is a industry standard 320 by 480 resolution screen. vanilla Android operating system, manageable 3.2MP camera, and the same fast Sprint 3G wireless. Smaller than the EVO the Optimus’s screen is still usable and manages to save battery life. Although the stock Android is a little plain there is no makeup to get in the way of the smart features Google continues to publish to the Android platform. The 3.2MP camera takes just as good pictures as the EVO for the kind of things a camera phone was meant to take picture of. Finally if I never used 4G why should I have to pay and extra $10 a month to use it. With the EVO that fee is required, but with the Optimus I get a smart phone with an even smarter price. The EVO retails for $199 with contract while the Optimus is only $49 with three times the battery life. The LG Optimus S a great phone with less great features.