Sprint HTC EVO 4G LTE preview (video)

What was the exciting new collaboration that HTC and Sprint’s bigwigs just couldn’t wait to tell us about? Anyone who’s been following the smartphone scene at all as of late surely won’t be surprised to find out that the one-time Nextel bedfellow is getting a member of the One family to call its own. It’s just the precise name of the device that wasn’t too predictable.

When the handset goes on sale sometime in Q2 for $199 it’ll be saddled with the decidedly unwieldy moniker HTC EVO 4G LTE — a rather clunky title for such a svelte device. What the name does offer, however, is a direct connection to the original EVO 4G. That phone, which arrived in consumer hands way back in June 2010, was branded as Sprint’s first “4G” handset, courtesy of the carrier’s WiMAX network. It’s understandable, then, that its spiritual successor would carry that redundant 4G LTE moniker. The companies also clearly wanted to retain some of those happy memories, while setting the phone apart from those other One handsets on the market. How’d they do such a thing? Meet us after the break where we lay it all out.

HTC One X hands-on at MWC 2012 (video)

Mobile World Congress has already brought a lot of great phones, and the show floor hasn’t even opened yet. But there’s just something about Peter Chou’s latest creation that has us more eager to play with it than anything else we’ve seen so far (and perhaps for the rest of the show). We’re talking, of course, about the One X, the absolute top of the line model of HTC’s trio of One series devices announced tonight. The “superphone” (Peter’s words, not ours) is packing the entire deck of cards: a 1.5GHz quad-core Tegra 3 CPU (for the global version; the LTE version uses Qualcomm’s S4 Krait processor), 1GB of DDR2 RAM, 4.7 inches of 720p Super LCD 2 non-PenTile gorgeousness, Ice Cream Sandwich with HTC Sense 4.0 on top, 8MP rear camera with f/2.0 lens and 1080p HD video, to name a few.

First impressions? In a nutshell, we’re blown away. It feels wonderful to hold in our hand, it’s got the full suite of specs we like to see, the camera’s as quick as HTC claims, and the device flies — in fact, we’d be amiss not to mention the fact that the vendor’s ICS-backed Sense UI is much lighter than any of its predecessors and doesn’t bog down the performance at all. And keep in mind that this is in all likelihood still running on pre-production firmware. Impressive, to say the least. Our only beef with the device is the lack of a physical shutter button, especially given the firm’s commitment to providing stellar camera performance. We’re not ready to crown the One X as the best of the show yet — we have four days’ worth of MWC left, after all — but it’s one device we’ll be returning to spend more quality time with on the show floor. If you want to share in the enjoyment, head to the gallery below, or the video after the break.