The past few weeks have been more than busy on the Android scene, with so many great new devices being launched at CES this year. Top of the notch specifications, top of the notch performance and all that good jazz, but most of those are still in the process of being launched sometime in the near future and we are running the risk of missing out on great new devices which are out already and have already proven their worth.

Some time ago, while reading a number of Android related pages, I kept seeing more and more news regarding the launch of Sprint’s HTC EVO Shift 4G, their 3^rd Android smartphone with 4G enabled and their second handset in this category with a slide-out keyboard, hence the name of Shift.

Probably the most intense argument when talking about this newest offspring from Sprint has been around the fact that this latest addition to their lineup is powered only by a 800 MHz processor, but a lot of users didn’t notice that the architecture on which this CPU has been built is different from the old 800 MHz processors. Sure it’s not a dual-core like the ones we’ve seen appear at CES or launched in South Korea (come to us as well please LG) but it sure knows how to pulls it’s weight. The main element which comes to the user the very first time when this little device reaches your hands is it’s screen size most likely as it’s equipped with a 3.6 inch display. Still the quality of the image and also the speed of the device diminish this aspect. Some might argue on the fact that devices with 4 inch displays are out and about as well as handsets with a 4.3 inch display, yet this doesn’t lower the score for the HTC EVO Shift 4G in my book.

One must keep in mind that the Milestone had a 3.7 inch display and how well it worked with that. Moving on with the specs of the device we find the single-core MSM7630 800 MHz processor which thanks to its new architecture is working very well. Combine that with the fact that this device has 512 MB of RAM and 2 GB of ROM, speed is not an issue. Because of the added keyboard and the 4G radio, the weight of this device moved up a touch to 5.9 ounces (that’s about 167 grams). Size wise this Android smartphone feels very good in the hand measuring 4.6 inches in length, 2.3 inches in width and 0.6 inches in thickness. This makes the device very manageable even with one hand, so props there to HTC making a nicely built device.

The keyboard works great, and the buttons have a nice click to them when pressed. The D-pad is something I’ve been weary of ever since I used the D-pad on the first Milestone, yet this time it works rather well and you can feel how it moves up, down, left and right. The buttons themselves are well spaced and thanks to the backlight you never run the problem of pressing the wrong one. All in all HTC did a great job here as well. Build quality is exceptional as the keyboard doesn’t wiggle or move in any way and the sliding mechanism has a nice feel to it, really close to what I’ve seen in the Motorola Milestone 2.

HTC’s EVO Shift 4G comes with a 2 GB micro-SD card in the package but that one can be swapped for a 32 GB one which is placed under the battery. The Shift is running Android 2.2 Froyo with HTC’s Sense UI added to it which worked great on any other HTC I’ve been around and it doesn’t disappoint this time either. All in all if I were to give a verdict, I can safely say that it’s a good buy as the device is well worth your money. It handles great, it has great performance for its specs (even outperforming higher end models in benchmarks) and build quality is top of the notch so all in all it’s well worth your money. Until next time, I’ll see if I can beat my typing speed on this one when compared to the QWERTY on the Milestone 2.1

January 12th, 2011 Catalin Mengheris