There is a considerable amount of hype over the latest smartphone on the Sprint network, namely the first handset capable of running on the 4G WiMAX network, the HTC EVO 4G. However apparently those 4G speeds aren’t all they are cracked up to be.

According to an article by Surjit Singh over on Topnews, recent performance tests of the HTC EVO 4G have revealed that the device doesn’t “boast anything revolutionary” in terms of mobile communications.

Apparently the HTC EVO 4G was tested on the WiMAX network in the Washington cities of Tacoma, Sonhomish, Seattle and Bellingham along with the Oregon cities of Portland and Salem, and the device appears to “fall short” of being a “significant game changer” mainly due to the apparently “sluggish speed” of the Clearwire 4G WiMAX service.

However when testing the HTC EVO 4G in Oregon it was found to perform slightly better than in the Washington tests although still didn’t hit the advertised download speeds of between 3 and 6 mbps as the average download speed recorded in Oregon was 2.3mbps.