HTC Inspire 4G On AT&T On Sale Today ~ GoAndroid

Sunday, February 13, 2011

HTC Inspire 4G On AT&T On Sale Today

4:38 PM

Simranpal SIngh

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AT&T enters into the 4G space today with the release of the HTC Inspire 4G. Although the Inspire 4G’s big brother on Verizon seems to be getting all the press we’ve spent some time with out HTC Inspire 4G and really like it.
Let’s go over the bads first:
Battery Life: We’re not sure what HTC was thinking putting a 1230mah battery on the Inspire 4G. Perhaps they needed to put the battery into the clever little side slot to make way for the newer radio but the 1230mah battery is lasting 5 or so hours for us and we’re medium users. Wi-Fi hotspot, like with all other phones that offer this feature, drains the battery at an incredibly fast pace.
No FFC: There is no front facing camera on the HTC Inspire 4G. We’re not sure why it is on HSPA+ and T-Mobile seems to have it down on their Mytouch4G also made by HTC. Video conferencing and 4G are supposed to go hand in hand.
Part 2 video after the break

The Network: We tried to be as positive as we can about the HSPA+ network or (4G) on AT&T. We will tell you from experience that HSPA+ on AT&T and HSPA+ on T-Mobile are two entirely different beasts. T-Mobile seems to go an average of 2.5x faster than the best speeds we saw on AT&T HSPA+. We tested the Inspire 4G in: Atlanta, Charlotte, Richmond, Washington DC, Philly, New York and Boston in the last week and we typically didn’t get better than 1.3-1.8mbps download. T-Mobile in most of the same cities came in between 3-7mbps. We did get a spike in Atlanta on Peachtree street at 4mbps for about 20 minutes.
Now The Good:
The HTC Inspire 4G is one bad ass piece of hardware. It actually feels better in the hand, and more sturdy than it’s brother the HTC Evo 4G. The 1ghz pocessor has to have been optimized because its a really zippy phone and handles multi-tasking very well.
HTC moved the battery and while for some reasons it’s really bad, it freed up the microsd slot for much easier access along with the sim card compartment. The Inspire 4G comes with an 8gb microSD card however this thing plays videos really well and handles gaming well too so if you need multiple microSD cards (we don’t recommend hot swapping) but it’s in a much easier to access location.
AT&T Uverse TV streams well in HSPA+ areas.
Gmaps looks beautiful on the HTC Inspire 4G’s screen.
The 8mp camera takes very beautiful pictures and the dual flash makes sure the phone takes great pictures in low light and even dark.
The video quality is great as well.
Here’s the best part though, the HTC Inspire 4G is well worth the $99.99 AT&T is going to be selling it for starting today. It’s by no means a low level phone at a crazy great price. The Samsung Infuse is supposed to come out in the summer so if you’re looking for an alternative to the Atrix or to upgrade to HSPA+ go for it, you won’t be disappointed, even the bad stuff can be worked around.