I was reading through Walt Mossberg’s review of Sprint’s EVO 4G, which actually seems like a great phone, when I came across the following line that really baffled me:
[...] when using 4G, the EVO’s battery runs down alarmingly fast. In my tests, it didn’t last through a full day with 4G turned on. The carrier, in fact, is thinking of advising users to turn off the 4G network access when they don’t think they need it, to save battery life.
Here’s the thing: I didn’t know that I needed 4G until you provided me with a device capable of utilizing it. I was blissfully unaware of how drastically different the speeds were until you advertised it was “10x faster than 3G”. So now you’ve put this awesome device in my hand but are going to kindly recommend that I put your main selling point on the back burner until I “need” it. The simple fact with most users is that once they have a killer feature, they need it all the time. This is like depositing a million dollars into someone’s bank account with the caveat that they can only withdraw $100 a day. Sure, you’re a millionaire, but at the end of the year you pull down a teacher’s salary.
