6 Things I Loathe About My New HTC EVO

Okay, ‘loathe’ might be a strong word, but these things bug me. Yes, I absolutely love my HTC EVO and can’t imagine life without Android, a 4.3″ screen and a kickstand (yeah, I’m that asshole). But no device is perfect (and that includes the iPhone 4, fanbois and girls!). Android is so customizable that almost any minor complaint I’ve come across can be tweaked easily with a widget, but here’s a few annoyances about my HTC EVO that still plague me. They’re a bit different than the standard complaints about the device that I’ve run across, but deviant’s just how we roll.

1. Dearth of Android accessories

I took this for granted with the iPhone. If my iPhone 3G wanted to get gussied up and pick out a pretty new outfit for the cotillion, it had no problem. I could find a new iPhone case to suit my mood in a heartbeat. But with Android devices, the market for any given phone changes so rapidly that it’s hard for case manufacturers to keep up (or want to).

I tend to prefer a very thin, sleek case that adds a bit of color, so my iPhone usually sported a super-svelte Incipio Feather case. I absolutely LOVE the Feather line (though Incipio’s other options are way better if you like your device heavily armored). Apparently, Incipio is working on the Feather case for the EVO, and if that little rumor pans out, I’ll weep tears of brightly colored joy.

DIY Fix: This adorable actually DIY case you can find on Etsy that supports a cool lady-run Android site. They’ll fit any device– just specify when you order it! Mine’s charcoal grey and classic Android green.

2. No landscape homescreen

With a 4.3″ screen, it seems natural to want to use the phone in landscape mode most of the time, like the massive Dell Streak. Especially because I like to pretend the EVO is more of a tablet than a phone, which it arguably is.

DIY Fix: Cock your head. Lay horizontally.

3. Physical Buttons

With my iPhone 3G, I had a nervous habit of flipping the “silent” toggle on and off in my pocket. I’d still really like to have a physical button to make the phone silent. As it stands, I have to unlock it and use a homescreen widget. And there’s only one button to unlock the phone, which annoys me, because that shit is pretty small, and hard to find when you’re all sleepy or drunk or what have you.

DIY Fix: Silent Toggle Widget

4. Soft Keys A Little TOO responsive

I know Nexus One users had complaints about the lack of responsivity in their soft keys, but whoa. The EVO’s row of four buttons along the bottom seems to think it’s clicked if I even walk by it. This is mainly an annoyance when I’m using the camera, as the phone switches to landscape mode and I end up pressing the little home button half of the time and missing my totally awesome shots of like, cats doing assorted things.

DIY Fix: Turn on haptic feedback (even if you don’t care for it) to behaviorally recondition yourself. It’s like a little zap, B.F. Skinner style.

5. Camera Lens Placement

The way the EVO’s back camera lens protrudes out just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. If you lay it down flat, which I try to avoid, the lens will rest on whatever surface you set it on. I wish it was embedded a bit into the phone’s back so this wasn’t an issue. I generally use the kickstand as a solution to this, and also I use it to look like hot shit.

DIY Fix: I’ve got quite a few unused transparent screen covers lying around from my iPhone days of yore. I grabbed one and cut out a tiny circle and stuck it on the lens for protection— not ideal, but workable.

6. HTC Sense, for better and worse

Sense is a double-edged sword. It’s really shiny and I actually like most of Sense’s pre-loaded apps, but HTC’s skin for Google’s mobile OS makes us late to the Android 2.2 party. Devices like the Nexus One (Google’s proprietary phone) see immediate upgrades to 2.2 (nicknamed “Froyo”), while most of us will have to wait a few months. Sure, I could root my EVO, and make it cut the line for 2.2, but I’m pretty down with the Sense UI otherwise. And ain’t nobody gonna take my huge HTC Weather widget away from me. No way, no how.

DIY Fix: Rooting is your way toward total phone/world domination.