AT&T and HTC shot us over an HTC Inspire 4G, and while we literally had to dodge falling ice and walk carefully over the frozen Arctic tundra to get to the FedEx package, it’s all warm and snuggled up now. We saw the handset officially make its way into the world at CES, but there’s nothing quite like that second encounter, right? Here are some of our thoughts on the latest Android handset to hit AT&T:
- We really dig the styling of the Inspire 4G. It feels very current yet familiar and the unibody construction with high-grade materials, specifically aluminum, really makes it feel like a quality product.
- Getting the device up and running isn’t confusing, it’s just a little… unconventional? To insert your SIM card and microSD card, you push off a bottom cover, but to insert the battery, you push off a side cover by the volume keys. We didn’t have much luck the first couple times with the battery cover and found it pretty difficult to take off. This is most likely a good thing in the long run, but it’s worth noting.
- We’re a bit disappointed that the handset is as thick as it is. It’s very EVO-like, though more up to date styling-wise (like we mentioned), but we’d have loved for a thinner handset as the device is extremely large due to the big screen and it’s noticeably heavy.
- The screen is great — no problems here. Text on HTC Sense-powered devices always looks a bit aliased to us, but besides that, we’re looking at a super sharp, vivid, bright, and colorful 4.3-inch display.
- Our quick time with the handset proved to be very zippy, and we also love the redesigned camera UI — plus, image capture is lightning fast.
- A small thing, but we love the H+ icon in the status bar to signify HSPA+.
All in all, you can see why we’re really enjoying the HTC Inspire 4G so far. The Inspire 4G launches February 13th for $99 with a two year agreement. We’re putting together our official review, but in the meantime, check out some photos of the device in our gallery, alright?
