HTC EVO 4G launch day line watch
By Vlad Savov 
posted June 4th 2010 3:50AM
posted June 4th 2010 3:50AM
New York reader Jordan Harding starts us off with a visage of the Bryant Park Sprint store. He's (clearly) the first in line, but barriers have been set up to contain the inevitable crush of Supersonic fanboys and girls. We love the tasty irony of him taking this picture with his Palm Pre, the previous king of Sprint's hill.
It's 4.30AM in Washington DC and... we've got another queue-less Sprint storefront to gaze upon. At this rate, we might need to go create the lines ourselves. Thanks, Bryant.
The tumbleweed keeps tumbling in front of RadioShack stores, while reader DevilGear shows us the first image of real fleshies waiting for their hot new Android friend. Thanks and kudos go out to Nick and Michael for keeping their local Shacks populated.
At long last, an honest to goodness line has materialized over in Washington at 7.30AM. Thanks again, Bryant.
Lexington Avenue in New York is just busting at the seams with muted anticipation.
Chi-town has come out in irresistible force, as this pic taken at 7.15AM local time shows. Another notable bit of info: it was snapped with an EVO by reader Eric, who was probably wise not to tread any closer to that massive crowd with the object of their desire in his hand.
Say hello to New Berlin, Wisconsin, where we're told the parking lot is unusually full and people are even waiting out in the rain. Thanks to Sanford for grabbing this snapshot at 7.18AM local time.
We've got nothing snarky to say about this one -- it's a fully formed, round-the-corner, bona fide line, even if it is a bit too well behaved for our tastes. Shot by Chad in New York with an HTC Incredible.
AT&T and Apple are hell piece of crap. Sprint rules, we can't bash Sprint or our love for EVO. So what if Apple have stores and they actually have lines which are actually long. So what if their employees handle things more smoothly. So what if there is a award winning costumer service backing the product. Let's bash Apple cause that's what we do. LOVE for EVO.
the Best Buy in Bloomington,Il. has a great team in there mobile department! Had an appt. at ______ (haha! thought i was gonna make it that easy to figure out who i was huh ;-) ) and was out of there within 20 minutes! 20 minutes only because i wanted a invisibleshield installed. Good Job Guys!
Drove by the Sprint store down the street to see if they had any accessories i might want and laughed on the inside at all the corporate tech fiends(guessing State Farm and Country employees) waiting to get there phones activated. LOL im sure they were forced to use PT for as long as they were waiting.
There was a small line in front of a Sprint store in downtown DC when I went to pick up my EVO. Ironically because their system shutdown yesterday afternoon, they didn't sell out and had EVOs for us, as told by the store manager. I was in and out in under an hour with EVO, accessories, and transferred contacts. It's the bees knees.
@LIMITPROOF Dang, meant to specify that this was TODAY (SATURDAY), there was a small line TODAY.
Does going to the Apple Store somehow make up for not being one of the popular kids in high school?
Why are the lines so small or non-existent? Because, no matter how much the tech media and blogs like engadget and gizmodo try, people just aren't interested in going back to Sprint, their history of god awful customer service and even worse coverage. Nobody is interested in a 4G phone that doesn't get 4G service anywhere. While it may seem like the sweet spot for tech fanboys, remember that demographic is TINY in comparison to the millions and millions of actual consumers.
Sprint has ruined its name with its botched buyout of Nextel, and attempting to force those Nextel business customers to their subpar CDMA network. The palm pre was supposed to be the phone that saved Sprint, but we all know how big a disaster that turned out to be - Palm nearly going bankrupt before being saved at the last minute by HP. Now, we're supposed to believe this 4G phone (with wildly limited 4G coverage) is going to convince the masses to go back? Really? Why are tech jounallists so naive as to think this phone is going to be any different, when the underlying network still is so flawed?
Or perhaps people fail to remember that Sprint continues to lose customers faster than they can gain them, as recently as first quarter of this year losing an additional 75,000 subscribers more than they gained, despite the claim of being less expensive? Does anyone look at this stuff, or are you guys so enamored of shiny objects that you don't want to know why they continue to bleed subscribers?
I'll remember this hype, just like I remember the hype for the pre, and chuckle quietly. I'll remember it on the next 'great' thing that gets hyped up the tech media, and chuckle some more. You're doing your readers a disservice by ONLY looking at the hardware and failing to look at the underlying business failures that Sprint continually fails to address.
@Axtell I've been on Sprint for over four years. I travel all over the country on business, and I ride a motorcycle all over the back roads of SoCal. I can count on one hand the number of times I've dropped a call in all of that time. Same for the number of times I've found myself without service.
I don't buy a phone or choose service based on the biased ramblings of some iPhanboy on the internet and look forward to the arrival of my new EVO on Monday.
Engadget should do an iPhone waiting line vs Evo waiting line
In my first real test of the phone - I read 3 email accts various times of the day, facebook updating, using shazam, google maps and google search, texting and occasionally checking the time, with the screen at 50% brightness and 4G turned off I've managed 10h 23m 41s since last charged with 50% of my battery life left. Not too shabby so far, I'm going to do the same tomorrow with 4G turned on and we shall see what I get then...
UGE
@ugemeistro
Wow, keep us updated on your test.
@ugemeistro I don't see how that is possible, I'm on my third charge cycle and with wifi/bluetooth/4G off, only location, 50% brightness, with light texting, web browsing and app usage am at 0% battery after 8 hours. Unbelievable. Thinking about returning it and returning to my blackberry.
@Mongoos150
here's my stats
12h 43m 31s since last charge
Android 27%
Cell Standby 19%
Phone idle 14%
Camera 12%
Maps 10%
Voice Calls 10%
Display 8%
@ugemeistro
I posted this earlier, but its lost in "ovlivian." Today i got up at 8am took the EVO off the charger and went on a 3 mile hike with GPS tracking the entire time and Pandora streaming the entire time. I had two 30min phone conversations and about 100texts. Screen brightness set to 80%. At 4pm I put the phone back on the carger with 50% remaining. Not Bad at all! :)
It is 4g in st.Louis I was forest park and had 4g.and then I went home on the north side and had 4g.but when I went south county I didn't have 4g but its 4th in st.Louis