HTC EVO 3D

As 3D is taking over theaters and living rooms around the world, the craze is hitting handheld too. The next thing to shake up the business or on the way to irrelevance: geeks will geek about it either way. Now that the HTC EVO 3D has grown a GSM radio, they get ready to enjoy a real 3D clash of the flagships. It doesn’t get any better than two heavyweight fighters battling it out, and someone’s got the 3D video to prove it. The best part is the HTC EVO 3D, like the LG Optimus 3D, is not placing all its chips on the stereoscopic screen and pair of cameras. No sir, each of those smartphones claims to have the best there is for power and speed. We are talking mighty dual-core CPUs, loads of RAM and superb connectivity. The EVO 3D can be your kind of smartphone even if you don’t care about 3D stills and videos. Key features

* Quad-band GSM and dual/tri-band 3G support * 14.4 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA * 4.3" 16M-color stereoscopic capacitive LCD touchscreen of qHD resolution (540 x 960); Gorilla glass * Android OS v2.3 Gingerbread with HTC Sense 3.0 * 1.2 GHz dual Scorpion CPUs, Adreno 220 GPU, Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8260 chipset * 1 GB of RAM and 1 GB of storage for apps * Dual 5MP autofocus camera with LED flash, massively comfortable shutter key; face detection and geotagging * 720p video recording @ 30fps in both 2D and 3D mode * Wi-Fi b/g/n and DLNA * GPS with A-GPS * Stereo FM radio with RDS * microSD slot up to 32GB (8GB card included) * Accelerometer, proximity sensor and auto-brightness sensor * Front facing camera with video calls * Standard 3.5 mm audio jack * microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v3.0 * MHL TV-out (requires MHL-to-HDMI adapter) * Smart dialing, voice dialing * DivX/XviD video support * HTC Locations app * HTCSense.com integration * HTC Portable Hotspot * Ultra-fast boot times (if you don’t remove battery) * Office document editor A massive high-res screen certainly looks good on paper, but it takes inspiration and clever design to beat those Super AMOLEDs and those Retinas. A new Adreno GPU with a major speed boost might seem more than anyone will ever need, but competitors have not been sitting around either so it’s always going to be close. And you cannot say whether the EVO 3D has the spark by just looking at the specs.

We hope a full review would bring you a whole lot closer to finding the answers you need, so let’s get started. The EVO 3D gets unboxed right after the break. he HTC EVO 3D is a high-end phone and as such you’d expect it to come with a pretty well stuffed box. It does deliver to a point: you get adequate storage in the form of an 8GB microSD card, there’s a microUSB cable to use for computer connections and with the charger head.

A single-piece headset completes what is by all standards a decent list. Yet, given the MHL connectivity of the EVO 3D, an HDMI cable would have certainly made sense. A carrying pouch would’ve also come in handy, in helping you protect your precious new smartphone.

We now turn our attention to the HTC EVO 3D’s key feature, the stereoscopic LCD screen of qHD resolution (960 x 560 pixels). Just like with the LG Optimus 3D, you get the glasses-free stereoscopic effect using the parallax-barrier technology. That’s an extra screen layer that makes sure each eye sees a different set of pixels, giving a sense of depth.

The technology however does have a few downsides worth mentioning. For one, it only works in landscape mode and each eye gets only half of the screen’s horizontal resolution. Also, to be able to enjoy it fully you will need to find the sweet spot between your eyes and the handset's screen, which is different for everyone.