Its larger-than-usual screen may be the most noticable thing about Sprint's new phone, but it also boasts faster Web access than any phone before.
Tom Simonite, Technology Review
HTC releases the first phone with a connection faster than 3G--but the company will face stiff competition soon enough.
Starting today, there's a new, faster breed of cell phone Web access out there. HTC's EVO 4G, available on Sprint, is the first phone that uses WiMAX, a technology that allows fast wireless Internet over long distances. This week, Technology Review previewed this new era of mobile connectivity.
The EVO is the most powerful phone running the Android operating system on the U.S. market. With the Qualcomm 1GHz Snapdragon processor (also found in Google's Nexus One) and 512 megabytes of random-access memory, it packs more punch than both the Nexus and the latest iPhone. The EVO is also a physically bigger beast, with a chunky, cuboid shape and 4.3-inch LCD touch screen, compared to the Nexus One's 3.7-inch window and the 3.5 inches of the iPhone 3GS.
But the real news here is the EVO's WiMAX chops, which have never been seen before in the cell-phone market. Sprint says its "4G" service--as it brands its WiMAX network--makes the EVO capable of downloading up to 10 times faster than today's 3G network.
Until today, only modems for full-size computers could use the newer network which has so far only rolled out in 33 cities, covering an estimated 41 million people. The nearest coverage to this San Francisco-based reporter is 500 miles away, in Las Vegas, but I took the EVO south to Palo Alto, where wireless Internet service provider Clearwire runs a 20-square-mile WiMAX network to encourage Silicon Valley developers to build apps for the new technology.
Although this Clearwire "sandbox" network doesn't offer as polished a service as a full consumer WiMAX installation would, when the EVO locked on to a WiMAX signal, the difference was obvious. Web browsing became smoother, videos loaded more quickly and skipped less often, and streaming video live to the Web via Qik was much improved. The Android app provided by Speedtest.net reported download rates consistently over four megabits per second, compared to the consistent one megabit per second I saw using 3G on the same device in the same spot. (WiMAX seems to consume the phone battery faster, too, alas.) With the EVO's hot spot feature, I got it to function like a pocket-size wireless router so that my laptop could share the connection.
WiMAX isn't really 4G in the eyes of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a U.N. body that defines wireless "generations" and formalizes their technical specifications. To be 4G, a mobile device like a cell phone must offer a connection of at least 100 megabits per second. WiMAX's speeds can peak over 100 megabits per second, but it can't reliably reach 4G-grade delivery, and Sprint's network currently offers six megabits per second at most. For now, though, "WiMAX provides data service at the highest available rate," says Zhi Ding, an electrical engineering professor at University of California, Davis, who leads a research group working on improving wireless communications.
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russianhaxor
1 Comment
WiMax
In my opinion, Sprint has tried much too hard to set themselves apart from the competition by delivering WiMax earlier than everyone else. Their intense marketing campaigns and support from Intel who invented the WiMax chip set are the only reasons why WiMax was able to get where it is now. The only problem is... They are consistently labeling themselves as 4G when they really aren't. If HSPA+ can deliver faster speeds than WiMax then the mention of 4G should practically be illegal. The simple fact is, just because the US has been slow to deliver what europe and other parts of the world already have, does not mean that companies can go throwing around buzzwords such as 4G without any regard to what it means. For god's sake, places that actually already have HSPA+ deployments their speeds are FASTER than WiMax. Yes, Intel will do everything within their power to keep WiMax alive... but even Yotta, the Russian Telco who supported WiMax and was the first to carry the first WiMax capable phone and network has decided that they too will go LTE when they decide to go 4G. Simply put, it appears that the popular method of delivering TRUE 4G will be by trying to increase the current network's speeds by upgrading to something like HSPA+ now and then within a year or two delivering quality LTE coverage. As for Verizon, we can expect to see the 3G effect. Meaning right when 3G came out, the coverage was extremely spotty and Users will have to wait a year or two until they get solid LTE coverage without any 3G switching.
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