HTC has some great phone choices on all four major carriers. Nic ‘the Angry Guru’ and I have teamed up to pit four HTC phones against each other. The contenders are Evo Shift for Sprint, Inspire 4G for AT&T, Mytouch 4G for T-Mobile, and Thunderbolt for Verizon. In this first part we will take a look at the cameras and overall thoughts on hardware. We’ll follow this post up shortly so stay tuned and enjoy the challenge!

For the challenge, Nic and I will rank each device in each section 1-4. Then we will add the scores together to get a final ranking. The one with the lowest points gets the highest rank (think golf). Is this complicated? Yes. Do we care if you think it’s complicated? No.

Mytouch 4G and Shift – The 5MP camera of these phones takes decent shots. The Mytouch camera seems to pick up less noise and overall will give you a better shot, plus you get a front facing (VGA) camera on it. The Evo Shift suffers really bad in low light conditions and the flash washes out the image.

Nic’s Thoughts

Thunderbolt & Inspire take great pictures with the 8MP camera. The dual flash makes it very functional in all lighting settings. Evo Shift and MyTouch both fall short but are good enough for Facebook and MMS, but I wouldn’t try to print any of them. Thunderbolt also has a decent 1.3MP front facing camera that allows for profile pics and avatar pics. WARNING: Girls please keep using the bathroom mirror for full figure shots.

Camera Section Winner: Thunderbolt/Inspire (tie)

Mike’s Thoughts

The Thunderbolt and Inspire are both 4.3″ monsters with a great display and fantastic feel in the hand. The Thunderbolt is slightly thicker, but in return you get a larger battery and kickstand. The Inspire is thinner and made out of one solid aluminum piece. I prefer the Inspire’s slimmer form and metal feel, but would love a kickstand.

The Evo Shift has a smaller display and thicker body, but you get a great slide out QWERTY keyboard. The hinge is a little stiff for my taste, but the keys feel great and it’s very easy to type on.

The Mytouch 4G packs a 3.7″ display and therefore a little smaller than the Thunderbolt and Inspire. The screen is very crisp and preforms great even in direct light. It does have a “plasticy” feel much like the iPhone 3Gs, but its solid and light.

Nic’s Thoughts: Thunderbolt and Inspire are so similar it’s sick. I have to give a slight advantage to the Thunderbolt for the cleaner backside, and the kickstand. I don’t know why HTC used metal when it blocks signals requiring them to use multiple plastic plates on the back. The kickstand is a huge feature on the Thunderbolt. At 4.3in you really can enjoy viewing video without holding the device close to you face.

EVO Shift has a keyboard that doesn’t want to come out. It’s a real step away from the typical slider keyboard that you could easily flick open. For some this will be a detraction but I liked it over past sliders I’ve used. The detraction to sliders is naturally they’re thick. The MyTouch is such a toy. I’m not impressed

Hardware Section Winner: Thunderbolt