The HTC Evo 4G may be exactly what Sprint needs to keep the network from drowning. With the Evo 4G in their corner, Sprint will be the first carrier to offer a 4G enabled smartphone in the U.S. market. Though Sprint is the first carrier to have a 4G network in place with WiMax, it appears as if 4G speed is all 4G customers will be able to take advantage of. One of the big promises of the 4G standard was to have simultaneous voice and data connections while on the 4G network.
If you’re using 4G for data, you can’t use CDMA for voice. Currently the only way to do simultaneous voice and data would be through a third-party VOIP solution. However, this is not due to strict hardware limitations, so it’s possible this could change with future updates.
At the moment, Sprint has disabled this feature. CDMA users have never been able to use the two features at once, so it’s probably no big deal that the HTC Evo 4G will not be able to do it. But what about potential customers who are interested in the Evo 4G but do not current subscribe to Sprints services? T-Mobile and At&t customers can use their 3G connections for voice and data concurrently. It may not be that big of a deal, but I can say that I enjoy Tweeting, updating apps, and using other data services while on the phone. Would this be a deal breaker if you were thinking over switching to Sprint for the HTC Evo 4G?
The main reason to get a 4G phone that has CMDA and WIMAX is to be able to access the data side of the phone while talking; or talking on the phone via bluetooth while using the WIMAX to surf the net on my laptop! Sprint always does something to muck up the works. Hopefully someone will have a work around.
actually this feature is still being tested as we speak. There has been no final declaration that this will not be available by launch time.
The only reason to upgrade from a 3G to a 4G phone is the data connection. If you need that much data, how much time are you spending talking?