Sprint HTC EVO 4G Can’t Do Voice & Data At The Same Time

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One of the most important handsets of 2010 is going to be the HTC EVO 4G. We have already gone through the specs of Sprint’s latest Android smartphone and one can’t certainly ignore the facts here. The EVO 4G has some very interesting specs and features that could very well compete against the current and future iPhone models as well as all the other hot smartphones currently available.

Will it be a hit phone though? It might be really popular among Sprint subscribers but it won’t be a worldwide bestseller. The HTC EVO 4G is the first WiMAX Android smartphone in the world but there are not enough WiMAX markets to welcome it.

Using it as a simple 3G handset is also a viable solution but then again there aren’t that many carriers that rely on CDMA out there, are there?

We will have plenty of time to analyze the HTC EVO 4G and its sales performance later down the road but right now we’re going to look at a specific feature, or better said, lack of it, which could be important for future EVO 4G buyers.

It looks like the smartphone won’t be able to deal at the same time with voice over CDMA and data over WiMAX. HTC confirmed everything already:

If you’re using 4G for data, you can’t use CDMA for voice. Currently the only way to do simultaneous voice and data would be through a third-party VOIP solution. However, this is not do to strict hardware limitations, so it’s possible this could change with future updates.

As you can see the company left the door open for future updates especially since this issue isn’t caused by hardware limitations. So what say you, Sprint? Are you going to prevent your future customers from sharing their 4G connection while also using the phone on regular CDMA bands? Is that really necessary?

While Sprint may have its reasons for choosing not to allow simultaneous WiMAX and CDMA use, we won’t hold it against them. At least not yet! After all you won’t really find yourself in a crisis situation that often in which you’re actually going to need both a 4G data connection and a CDMA voice connection at the same time, will you?