[11] The device became the top-selling launch day phone on Sprint, surpassing the Palm Pre, Samsung Instinct and Motorola Razr V3.

Like most Gingerbread Android devices, the EVO features four main touch-sensitive buttons on the front — Home, Menu, Back and Search.

An ambient light sensor adjusts the display brightness, which in turn saves battery power.

The EVO is powered by the Qualcomm QSD8650 chipset that contains a Snapdragon Scorpion microprocessor clocked at 1 GHz and an embedded Adreno 200 graphics chip capable of up to 22 million triangles per second.

In addition, the front-facing camera array has a 1.3-megapixel sensor in front of the device designed for use with video calling and for taking portrait images, although it can also be used in other applications.

The HTC EVO 4G features a microSD slot in addition to the built-in ROM that allows for user-expandable storage.

With Android version 2.2+ (Froyo) available as an over-the-air upgrade, the OS supports applications that permit themselves to be installed on the SD card.

The unit has an HDMI-out (type D, micro connector) port, which allows sending content to an HD television set.

The EVO features a CDMA cellular radio that supports 3G EVDO, Revisions 0, A and (the yet-undeployed) B[citation needed] allowing faster download and upload speeds, greater power efficiency; and WiMAX, a protocol known as 802.16e, featuring speeds of up to 10 Mbit/s on the downlink and 1.5 Mbit/s on the uplink.

A second update was pushed by Sprint on June 20, 2011, fixing magnetometer (compass) issues, Netflix streaming, voicemail notifications, and hearing aid compatibility.

Unlike other custom user interfaces for the Android OS like Samsung's TouchWiz UI, HTC Sense does not allow disabling or removing a panel.

Some of the first customers complained of screen separation; HTC acknowledged the problem and was able to limit the number of affected units.

The device clock is 15 seconds faster than Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), either with Android 2.1, 2.2 or 2.3; a manual clock setting does not override seconds, and root authority would be needed to overcome issue using Network Time Protocol (NTP) software.

The 15-second offset hints the number of leap seconds introduced since GPS inception in 1980 rather than an epoch issue and was reported as an Android bug on December 16, 2009.

[20] Certain phones running Android including Samsung EPIC do not exhibit the issue, possibly because firmware fetches UTC value rather than GPS from Network time, or subtracts leap second offset.

Finally, on January 19, 2012, HTC software update 4.67.651.3 overcame the issue, just a week before the end of life for the EVO was announced.

[21] Users have complained that the battery life for the Evo 4G is inadequate and incapable of lasting one day of normal use.

The EVO's design is derived from its Windows Mobile-based brother, the HTC HD2, which also has a 4.3-inch (110 mm) multi-touch capacitive touchscreen, nearly the same slim profile, and the same placements of most general components and buttons.