HTC Evo Design 4G review

For under $100, HTC and Sprint try to throw in everything but the kitchen sink – instead delivering a handset that tries too hard and delivers too little.

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HTC Evo Design 4G
Is this sub $100 phone worth your cash?

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HTC Evo Design 4G

In this day and age, a 5.0 megapixel camera sensor isn't much to get excited about, but that's exactly what the HTC EVO Design 4G is packing on its backside. Coupled with a single-LED flash, photos taken with this handset are "just okay" even at the highest 2592 x 1456 resolution setting, with low color saturation and frequently murky results indoors.

Images snapped in the great outdoors fared better, with far more detail present compared to the ones we shot inside. Contrast was also improved, but overall, images look too muted color-wise for our taste. Photos can also be taken with the 1.3 megapixel camera on front, but it's clearly better suited for video chat.

HTC Evo Design 4G

Otherwise, the Camera app comes with all the requisite features you might expect. The volume rocker does double duty for zoom in/out but you'll need to use the on-screen shutter button to actually snap photos.

HTC Evo Design 4G

13 filter effects are built in to the Camera app, ranging from Distortion, Vignette and Depth of Field to a handful of Instagram-style Vintage looks. Users can choose a variety of options from Camera settings including the ability to geo-tag images, auto enhance, auto focus and face detection.

Although the EVO Design 4G comes with a qHD display, photos viewed on the device itself actually look much better than they do once they're imported back to your computer – almost deceptively so, because color saturation and contrast seems to be cranked up on the four-inch display, which is capable of showing off 16 million colors.

J.R. Bookwalter