HTC EVO V 4G (Virgin Mobile)

Virgin Mobile's first phone to run on Sprint's 4G WiMAX network, the HTC EVO V 4G is an excellent deal for Virgin Mobile customers. Though a bit expensive, at $299.99 up front, it gets you fast 4G WiMAX speeds, powerful dual-core performance, and glasses-free 3D, all for as little as $35 a month. Sure, the phone?is on the bulky side, and narrow viewing angles mean that only one person can view 3D content at a time, but it's the fastest, most powerful phone available on Virgin Mobile, which earns it our Editors' Choice award.

Physical Design and Call Quality
The HTC EVO V 4G is basically the same phone as the HTC EVO 3D?(3 stars)?we reviewed on Sprint last year. At 5.0 by 2.5 by .45 inches (HWD) and 5.9 ounces, this phone is pretty huge.?The back panel is made of rubberized, textured black plastic that feels comfortable to hold. Dual 5-megapixel cameras are in place on the back of the phone for recording 3D content, and camera and volume controls are located on the right side of the phone. It feels a little crowded, and the camera buttons are easy to press accidentally, but you get used to it.

The EVO V has a 4.3-inch 960-by-540 qHD LCD display, which looks sharp, bright, and clear. It's by far the nicest screen you can get on a phone from Virgin right now, and typing feels fine on the phone's onscreen keyboard. Below the display are four capacitive touch buttons.

While we had some trouble with call quality and internet with the EVO 3D, that seems to have been remedied here, as the EVO V turned in much better call quality, reception, and Internet connectivity. The EVO V is a quad-band (800/850/1900/2600) CDMA/WiMAX phone that runs on Sprint's 3G and 4G networks.

Reception and calls are about average. Voices sounds loud and clear in the phone's earpiece, if somewhat thin and digitized. Calls made with the phone sound a bit muffled, and noise cancellation is mediocre. Voices sound fine over a Jawbone Era?Bluetooth headset ($129, 4.5 stars) and voice dialing worked over Bluetooth without issue. The speakerphone sounds fine but is far too low to use outside. Battery life over 3G is average, at 5 hours and 41 minutes of talk time. But turn on 4G, and that number drops considerably, even when you aren't using the phone. You'll probably only want to connect to 4G when you know you're going to use it. 3D recording eats into that battery number significantly as well, so you may want to carry a spare.

Data Speeds and Data Plans
As we discovered in our testing for the Fastest Mobile Networks, Sprint has the slowest 3G speeds of all the carriers we tested. That means that all 3G-only Sprint, Virgin, and Boost phones are running at some pretty challenged data speeds. Thankfully, 4G WiMAX support offers the EVO V a major boost. Running Ookla's Speedtest.net app, I saw average 4G download speeds of 4Mbps in Manhattan. Uploads were a lot slower, at an average of 0.6Mbps. But speeds in Queens were great, at an average of 8Mbps down and 1.3Mbps up.

Sprint's 3G network, on the other hand, is significantly slower. I saw an average of 1.1Mbps down and .8Mbps up in Queens, but not even half that in Manhattan. Additionally, while I didn't have trouble connecting to Sprint's 4G network, there was one instance in Manhattan in which it was crawling along. This issue didn't repeat itself, though.

The best reason to get a phone on Virgin is to tap into the carrier's inexpensive pricing plans. You can get "unlimited" texts and data for just $35 per month with 300 voice minutes. The 1,200 minute plan costs $45, and unlimited voice calling brings the price to $55 per month. If you don't do much talking, that $35 plan is hard to beat?especially considering that a data plan alone will cost you $30 on a carrier like Verizon Wireless, and for that price you're limited to 2GB of data per month. There is a downside for heavy data users: After 2.5GB of full-speed data usage per month, your speeds will be throttled significantly until the end of your billing cycle.

For an additional $15 per month, you can use the EVO V as a mobile hotspot to share your connection with up to eight devices. This also gets an additional 1GB of full-speed data added to your plan.

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