Supplies of the HTC EVO 4G LTE are reportedly through U.S. Customs and on the way to Sprint stores as well as customers. The Inside Sprint Now blog, run by a person in Sprint’s customer service division, noted that the phones are now in Sprint warehouses and will be delivered by May 24. As of 5pm CT, Sprint won’t be accepting pre-order cancellations according to the site, although Sprint hasn’t officially made such statements at time of writing.
If true, this is good news for Sprint, HTC and the customers that pre-ordered the operators new flagship phone with LTE. While the handset doesn’t yet have an LTE network to connect with, Sprint is launching its first six LTE cities within the next several weeks. HTC is facing flagging sales and hopes to revitalize its product line with the HTC One series. My looks at the AT&T and T-Mobile versions show that HTC has succeeded in making a well designed, high performing smartphone.
The HTC EVO 4G LTE devices were held up from entering the U.S. last week due to an injunction from the ITC as the result of HTC infringing on an Apple patent. The protected feature is one that opens up another application and takes action when a link it tapped; such as the Phone app opening when tapping a phone number. To mitigate this issue in the U.S., HTC added a menu option in the settings of its new smartphone so that customers can associate link actions with different applications.
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