Introduction
As 3D is taking over theaters and living rooms around the world, the craze is hitting handheld too. The next thing to shake up the business or on the way to irrelevance: geeks will geek about it either way. Now that the HTC EVO 3D has grown a GSM radio, they get ready to enjoy a real 3D clash of the flagships. It doesn’t get any better than two heavyweight fighters battling it out, and someone’s got the 3D video to prove it.
HTC EVO 3D official photos
The best part is the HTC EVO 3D, like the LG Optimus 3D, is not placing all its chips on the stereoscopic screen and pair of cameras. No sir, each of those smartphones claims to have the best there is for power and speed. We are talking mighty dual-core CPUs, loads of RAM and superb connectivity. The EVO 3D can be your kind of smartphone even if you don’t care about 3D stills and videos.
Key features
- Quad-band GSM and dual/tri-band 3G support
- 14.4 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
- 4.3" 16M-color stereoscopic capacitive LCD touchscreen of qHD resolution (540 x 960); Gorilla glass
- Android OS v2.3 Gingerbread with HTC Sense 3.0
- 1.2 GHz dual Scorpion CPUs, Adreno 220 GPU, Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8260 chipset
- 1 GB of RAM and 1 GB of storage for apps
- Dual 5MP autofocus camera with LED flash, massively comfortable shutter key; face detection and geotagging
- 720p video recording @ 30fps in both 2D and 3D mode
- Wi-Fi b/g/n and DLNA
- GPS with A-GPS
- Stereo FM radio with RDS
- microSD slot up to 32GB (8GB card included)
- Accelerometer, proximity sensor and auto-brightness sensor
- Front facing camera with video calls
- Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
- microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v3.0
- MHL TV-out (requires MHL-to-HDMI adapter)
- Smart dialing, voice dialing
- DivX/XviD video support
- HTC Locations app
- HTCSense.com integration
- HTC Portable Hotspot
- Ultra-fast boot times (if you don’t remove battery)
- Office document editor
Main disadvantages
- Less than impressive screen performance outdoors
- Speed and productivity not on par with other dual-cores
- Rather heavy
- Low resolution 3D stills
- The two cameras are too far apart for good stereoscopic close-ups
Things are certainly looking promising here, but smartphones are past the my-spec-sheet-is-longer-than-yours stage as of a few years. It’s all about the user experience now and, while powerful hardware is the first step towards providing it, you need equally good software if you are to challenge the best on the market.
The HTC EVO 3D in the comfort of our office
A massive high-res screen certainly looks good on paper, but it takes inspiration and clever design to beat those Super AMOLEDs and those Retinas. A new Adreno GPU with a major speed boost might seem more than anyone will ever need, but competitors have not been sitting around either so it’s always going to be close. And you cannot say whether the EVO 3D has the spark by just looking at the specs.
We hope a full review would bring you a whole lot closer to finding the answers you need, so let’s get started. The EVO 3D gets unboxed right after the break.
Retail package is good, but not perfect
The HTC EVO 3D is a high-end phone and as such you’d expect it to come with a pretty well stuffed box. It does deliver to a point: you get adequate storage in the form of an 8GB microSD card, there’s a microUSB cable to use for computer connections and with the charger head.
A single-piece headset completes what is by all standards a decent list. Yet, given the MHL connectivity of the EVO 3D, an HDMI cable would have certainly made sense. A carrying pouch would’ve also come in handy, in helping you protect your precious new smartphone.
The EVO 3D retail package contents
In fairness though, none of the competitors offers a better package so we won’t be taking any points away from the HTC EVO 3D.
HTC EVO 3D 360-degree spin
The glasses-free 3D screens are obviously still quite a bit of a stretch for smartphones at this point. The EVO 3D is nearly a millimeter thicker than the Sensation. In fact, at 126 x 65 x 12.1 mm, the 3D smartphone is the thickest of all dual-core smartphones currently on the market. The 170 grams of weight are quite a load compared to some of the competitors.
Design is impressive
The HTC EVO 3D is quite an imposing handset, and not without some distinct design accents. The huge screen is usually enough to make a smartphone a looker, but we have a black metal frame here to maximize the “wow” effect.
And even though the handset be quite large and heavy it is only 2 grams heavier than the Optimus 3D, which should be the first and most important point of reference. The LG smartphone is also just 0.2mm slimmer and a bit taller and wider than the HTC flagship so it’s pretty much a tie.
The EVO 3D and the Optimus 3D side by side
And the back of the EVO 3D is pretty cool too. It might be all plastic, but the pattern of fine diagonal lines gives it texture and looks good. Even the faux gold-painted frame surrounding the dual camera deck somehow fits in here. By the way, the pair of camera lenses curiously makes the whole thing look like a compact tape-recorder.
The exposed USB port on the left is probably the only design solution that we’re not particularly fond of, Overall though, we quite like the EVO 3D exterior. Had it been as slim as the Galaxy S II, the HTC new flagship would have been close to perfection.
3D screen left to do the talking
We now turn our attention to the HTC EVO 3D’s key feature, the stereoscopic LCD screen of qHD resolution (960 x 560 pixels). Just like with the LG Optimus 3D, you get the glasses-free stereoscopic effect using the parallax-barrier technology. That’s an extra screen layer that makes sure each eye sees a different set of pixels, giving a sense of depth.
The technology however does have a few downsides worth mentioning. For one, it only works in landscape mode and each eye gets only half of the screen’s horizontal resolution. Also, to be able to enjoy it fully you will need to find the sweet spot between your eyes and the handset's screen, which is different for everyone.
The 3D display is really what the EVO 3D is all about
Our subjective impression of the HTC EVO 3D screen is that the stereoscopic effect is slightly less dramatic than on the LG Optimus 3D. It’s just not as sharp, with less prominent depth. The difference is small and the HTC phone has a wider sweet spot: finding the ideal viewing position is easier. It might even be possible for two people to watch 3D content on the EVO 3D screen simultaneously – unthinkable on the LG Optimus 3D.
Still, even if a tad dampened, the 3D imaging is impressive. The downside is that it’s only enabled in the EVO 3D camera app and gallery. The Optimus 3D had a larger number of preinstalled apps optimized to use its 3D screen, which is quite important given the next-to-non-existent supply of third-party offerings at this stage.
It does 2D too
That said, 2D performance is actually the more important aspect of the EVO 3D’s screen. True, it will be the stereoscopic part that will be drawing crowds, but users will be stuck in two dimensions 90% of the time.
The good news is that the EVO 3D has a large and bright high-res screen. The bad news is the same could be said for most of its competitors. The qHD resolution and the ample 4.3” diagonal certainly give it an advantage, but its contrast is no match for the AMOLEDs or even the Reality and Retina displays out there.
Viewing angles aren’t perfect either – the EVO 3D does a lot better than the previous generation of HTC devices (Desire HD, Desire Z etc.), but it’s losing way more contrast when looked at an angle than an Incredible S, for example. It’s not bad enough to be a burden in everyday use. But it won’t produce the stunning effect of the icons appearing as if they’re painted on top of the screen that some of the competitors have.
Then again, most of those competitors aren’t doing 3D in their spare time and the only one that does is not doing that much better either. The LG Optimus 3D might have a bit better contrast and viewing angles, but the EVO 3D resolution advantage more than makes up for that.
And here come the HTC EVO 3D display test results so you can see how that one compares to its peers.
| Display test | 50% brightness | 100% brightness | ||||
| Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | |||
| HTC EVO 3D | 0.26 | 184 | 719 | 0.65 | 495 | 761 |
| LG Optimus 3D | 0.22 | 226 | 1019 | 0.49 | 520 | 1068 |
| LG Optimus 2X | 0.23 | 228 | 982 | 0.35 | 347 | 1001 |
| Motorola Atrix 4G | 0.48 | 314 | 652 | 0.60 | 598 | 991 |
| HTC Sensation | 0.21 | 173 | 809 | 0.61 | 438 | 720 |
| Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II | 0 | 231 | ∞ | 0 | 362 | ∞ |
Sense UI, Gingerbread and the new lockscreen
The HTC EVO 3D comes with Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread and the latest version 3.0 of the HTC Sense UI. We've already seen it in action in the HTC Sensation. Check out the video demo we’ve prepared and watch out for the new lockscreen.
The Sense 3.0 lockscreen has four shortcuts and a ring at the bottom. You drag the ring towards the center of the screen to unlock the phone.
Or, you can drag any of the shortcuts into the ring to unlock the phone and launch the corresponding app. You can assign any four apps to the lockscreen.
The new lockscreen is brilliant
The HTC EVO 3D comes with six different lockscreens preinstalled. You can access them in the Personalize menu.
The default homescreen just shows the ring, four shortcuts and the time. Then there's the Photo album lockscreen, which tosses photos from your gallery in cool 3D fashion.
There's the Friend Stream widget with SNS updates and the Weather widget which shows off the Sense UI's cool weather animations. There's Stocks too - with quotes flying up or down. Finally, there's the Clock lockscreen which shows a bigger clock - you can pick any of the 11 clock widgets available.
Some of the preloaded lockscreens
Unfortunately, you can't download new lockscreens from the HTC Hub. Not yet anyway.
Beyond the lockscreen is the Sense homescreen, with a scroll arc at the bottom that's just an indication of which homescreen pane you’re on – it can't be used for actual scrolling.
Some of the homescreen sections
There’s Leap view instead - tap the home key (on the center homescreen) or do a pinch gesture to zoom out to display the thumbnails of all seven homescreen panes at once. Upon a press and hold you can drag to reposition the homescreen panes as well.
Leap View lets you quickly switch between homescreen panes
Seven homescreen panes is all you get though – there’s no add or delete option. With all those widgets (which are quite useful too) you’ll want to keep all of them anyway.
HTC Sense comes with the proprietary HTC Scenes – essentially six custom homescreen setups (Work, Travel, Social, etc). Each scene changes the wallpaper and the set of widgets. For instance, the Work scene has a Stocks widget, while the Social offers a Twitter widget. Those can be customized, of course.
You select a Scene within a fancy-looking 3D card interface. You can modify existing scenes (older Sense versions prompted you to save modifications as a new scene) and you can get more scenes off the HTC Hub.
Switching between scenes takes a couple of seconds but the customization goes deep – the business and personal modes that some competing phones offer seem quite limited compared to the HTC Scenes.
Preset scenes
HTC Sense has another customization option called Skins. Every skin changes the look and feel of most of the onscreen buttons, application screens, option menus, and other items. Each comes with unique wallpaper and uses different colors for various UI elements. They can also replace the standard dock, lockscreen and widget frames with custom ones or change their shape.
The main menu displays as a typical grid, laid out on vertical pages with shortcuts sorted alphabetically. You can set different sorting options - alphabetically, most recent or oldest - but you can't rearrange them manually. There's a list layout, where two-finger alphabet scrolling is enabled.
The grid layout • settings
The main menu has a tabbed layout similar to different Sense elements (such as the phonebook). There are three tabs available at the bottom – All apps, Frequent and Favorites. They are quite useful especially when you have lots of installed applications.
The list layout
Tapping the Personalize button brings out a whole screen of items to choose from – for the display (scenes, wallpapers and skin), for the homescreen (widgets, shortcuts, folders, etc.) and even sounds (ringtones, alarms, notifications and Sound set).
The Personalize menu
In the widget section, both types of widgets (custom HTC and stock Android) are placed on the same page. There are so many of them you may find the seven homescreen panes short. You can download new widgets off the Market or the HTC Hub.
Plenty of HTC widgets
When you select a widget you are prompted to choose between several versions – most widgets have at least two styles. The different versions typically offer at least two sizes of the widget and different skins. For example, there are thirteen different clocks. Still they don't seem to have changed all that much since the HTC Desire.
Some different styles of the Twitter and Weather widgets
Some widget styles even offer different functionality. One version of the Twitter widget, for instance, shows updates for the people you follow and lets you tweet/update status. The other version is more compact and only allows status updates and tweets.
Editing the homescreen is different to vanilla Android. You can tap and hold on a widget and you can drag across homescreen panes. While you're dragging a widget (or shortcut or whatever), two "buttons" appear at the bottom of the screen - Edit and Remove. You drop the widget on either button to perform the corresponding action.
Edit can be used to modify the settings of a widget - e.g. choose a different folder for the Photo Frame album or even choose a different version of the Clock widget. This saves you the trouble of first deleting a widget and then putting it back on the screen to choose a different version, setting and so on.
Dragging a widget gives you options
The notification area features a list of recent apps (in addition to the notification list), just like a task switcher. A press and hold of the Home button works too. The notification area is tabbed as well - the second tab has toggles for WLAN, Bluetooth, GPS, network data or the Wi-Fi hotspot. There is a shortcut to the full list of settings and the last line shows used/free memory.
The new notification area doubles as a task switcher • the quick settings tab
Besides the standard task switcher, you get a task manager too. It's simple to use - each running app is listed with an indication of how much RAM it's using (no CPU usage reading though). You can terminate apps one by one and there's a Kill All button too.
HTC's task manager
The fast boot feature is enabled on the HTC EVO 3D but it won’t work if you have removed the battery – in that case it will do a regular slow boot.
The cool things is apps preserve their state after the restart – so if you were browsing a web site before turning the phone off, the browser will restore your session.
Our guess is, HTC is using some sort of Suspend or Hibernate routine as seen in regular computers to implement the fast boot; still great feature to have, though.
Final words
The HTC EVO 3D is a hard phone to review. It so wants to be the best at everything it does that it’s bound to end up with quite a mixed scorecard. The problem with this one is that establishing its worth to users is impossible without knowing their priorities.
The HTC EVO 3D does provide an incredibly solid smartphone experience. But if that’s what you are after, there are a few handsets that will match its performance without charging a premium for a single feature of questionable merit. Sense UI fans will find what they are looking for, but a few other members of the HTC lineup will gladly offer them the same.
What if 3D is a must-have? Perhaps the high-res screen? Well there seems to always be an alternative. It's hard to be at the top without making a few enemies. Here they go.
For the better stereoscopic experience, we’d pick the LG Optimus 3D. It has a screen with a slightly more dramatic 3D effect and more relevant content preinstalled, while the OMAP4 chipset will give you all the oomph you need from a modern-day smartphone.
LG Optimus 3D
If you are having second thoughts about 3D screens you’d probably be better off with a device like the Samsung Galaxy S II. The Exynos must be the most potent chipset currently available, while the Super AMOLED Plus screen is really hard to beat in terms of image quality. You also get 8MP stills and Full HD video in a super slim package.
Samsung Galaxy S II
The massive high res screen of the metal-clad HTC Sensation, the Motorla Atrix' qHD display and docking options and the lower price of the LG Optimus 2X are also threaten to put the HTC EVO 3D in question. The smartphone experience is similar across the sample and the “extra” features are worth a thought.
HTC Sensation • Motorola Atrix • LG Optimus 2X
Yet, despite all the advantages of those smartphones over the EVO 3D, none of them is a complete replacement. The key feature of the HTC flagship is that it actually has more key features than anyone else. It’s the only way to get a 3D screen and qHD resolution at the same time. Or Sense UI and a gig of RAM. We could go on really, but we guess the point's been made.
The HTC EVO 3D is a device that strives to do it all and we are pleased to report that for the most part it delivers. However, competition is so intense today that it would be impossible to beat everyone at every level. The EVO 3D gets points for trying. Winners don't pick their battles, you'd just be wise to pick your priorities.
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