HTC EVO 4G LTE brings true 4G speed to Sprint

The HTC EVO 4G LTE, launching this year on Sprint, packs a 4.7-inch display and the Android 4.0 OS. 

It's getting harder and harder to tell the difference between a tablet and a smartphone. 

Say hello to the HTC EVO 4G LTE, a capital-letter-sandwich of a smartphone set to launch on the Sprint network at some point in the second quarter of 2012. The EVO 4G, which was unveiled this week in New York, taps into the Sprint LTE network, and will retail for two hundred bucks, with a two-year data contract. Expect Android 4.0 capability, 8-megapixel rear-facing and 1.3-megapixel front-facing cameras, and improved voice quality. 

But most importantly, this thing has an absolute monster of a display: 4.7 inches, according to HTC. Compare that to the 3.5 inch screen on the iPhone 4 and 4S, and the 4.3-inch display on the Droid RAZR Maxx. Thankfully, as was the case with past HTC models, the EVO 4G will come equipped with an extendable kickstand, allowing you to take better advantage of that movie-theater-sized screen. 

The EVO 4G, when it launches, will go head-to-head with a small army of top-end, big-screen smartphones, including the iPhone 4S, which was released last year to rave reviews (and extremely solid sales figures). So how does it stack up? Well, over at PC Magazine, Eugene Kim does a side-by-side rundown of the EVO 4G and the iPhone 4S, well worth reading in its entirety. 

The "eternal question," Kim notes, comes down to Android vs. Apple's iOS – how much a user gets out of the EVO 4G and the iPhone 4S will depend to a large extent on which operating system he or she prefers. But we can still make some distinctions: the EVO 4G is lighter and thinner than the iPhone, while the EVO's display, with its 312-pixels-per-inch, lags slightly behind the screen on the iPhone 4S, which boasts 326-pixels-per-inch. 

And then there's the network speed. Comparing a Sprint-powered iPhone 4S to a Sprint-powered EVO, Kim gives the edge to the EVO. "The iPhone 4S connects to Sprint's 3G network and lags behind the latest generation of LTE-branded phones," he writes. "The EVO 4G LTE has the advantage here, but keep in mind that Sprint is still in the process of rolling out LTE coverage, so unless you're under its 4G umbrella, this might not be a huge factor."

Pre-orders for the EVO 4G LTE start May 7. Sign up here. 

For more tech news, follow us on Twitter @venturenaut. And don’t forget to sign up for the weekly BizTech newsletter.