HTC Desire HD

A lot of people have called the HTC Desire HD an EVO 4G for GSM carriers. While the form factor and specifications may seem similar, there are a lot of differences behind the Desire HD’s ample screen. It’s the screen itself that will grab your attention, and well it should. When it comes to screen dimensions, somewhere there is a line between “not big enough” and “too big”. I don’t think we’ve found that magic number just yet: the Desire HD’s 4.3-inch, 800 x 480 WVGA screen is “ginormous”, but not awkwardly so.

Many of you prefer having a physical keyboard to a slimmer phone. This phone almost does away with that need. When rotated horizontally, the phone’s on-screen keyboard is every bit as usable and finger-friendly as the physical keyboards that I’ve used in the past. Speaking of keyboards, the phone comes pre-packaged with HTC’s soft-keyboard (or “IME”), which is one of the more advanced, intelligent soft-keyboards that I’ve used – a large improvement over the stock Android IME (which is pretty good to start with). I was hoping for Swype to come pre-installed on the phone; it was not, and I had to install my beta copy (which loses some functionality when it’s not built onto the phone – more on that later).

HTC EVO 4G

The first thing you're likely to notice about Sprint's HTC EVO 4G is its size: this smartphone is big. And so is its display, which measures a whopping 4.3 inches. But pick up the EVO 4G and you'll be blown away by its speed. This is one lightning-fast phone - even if you can't experience the phone in all its 4G glory.


4G Wireless

As the first 4G phone to hit stores, 4G wireless support is the EVO 4G's headline feature. Sprint says its 4G network can offer download speeds that are ten times faster than a 3G connection, which will give the "HTC EVO 4G the fastest data speeds of any U.S. wireless device available today."



But 4G is still a new technology and the network isn't yet available in many places. The network is not available in the Boston area, where I live and where I tested the EVO 4G. But I was still impressed by the phone's speed.

T-Mobile 2 GX

The good: The T-Mobile G2x features a 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor that delivers great performance. It also has a sharp design, plenty of multimedia features, and HSPA+ speeds.

The bad: The T-Mobile G2x's photo quality did not meet our expectations. The call quality could also be slightly better.

The bottom line: The T-Mobile G2x's simple Android interface, blazingly fast speeds, and polished look make it the phone to beat in T-Mobile's lineup.



Review:

When LG introduced the world to the LG Optimus 2X late last year we were suitably impressed by its dual-core processor and multimedia capabilities, but because LG has a history of not importing its high-end devices into the U.S., we held out little hope that it would hop across the pond.