Ginny Mies

Four of the best smartphones: (left) the Motorola Droid Razr Maxx; (top middle) the Nokia Lumia 900; (bottom middle) the Sprint LG Viper; and (right) the T-Mobile HTC One S. Shopping for a new smartphone can be overwhelming.

So many good phones are available that upgraders may feel swamped with op­­tions. Never fear: I’ve picked the best ones on each of the four major carriers. And since the smartphone world moves incredibly fast, I’ll also tell you about phones not yet out.

Sprint's original HTC Evo 4G was the carrier's very first 4G WiMAX phone. Two years (and a few other Evos) later, we have the HTC Evo 4G LTE ($200 with a new two-year contract from Sprint; price as of 5/10/12). But despite the name, this smartphone is currently just a 3G phone until Sprint builds out its LTE network. Outside of this issue, the Evo 4G LTE is a solid phone. The display, camera, design, and multimedia features make it the best phone currently coming from Sprint. Sprint will have the HTC Evo 4G LTE available on May 18.

Different Design

The Evo's kickstandThe HTC Evo 4G LTE might share a lot of specs in common with the One X on AT&T, but its design is totally different. With its black body and red accents, you might mistake it for a Verizon phone; it looks an awful lot like the newly announced HTC Droid Incredible 4G LTE. It holds onto the Evo design legacy, however, with a bright red kickstand. You flip the kickstand out and set your Evo on a table for some hands-free video watching. The kickstand is a little difficult to open, however. You'll need some nails to get it out. The kickstand divides the Evo's battery cover, which is part glossy black plastic and part matte, soft-touch rubber.

While there haven’t been too many new smartphones at CTIA this week, a few smaller companies, such as Kyocera, are making waves at the show.

Kyocera announced two Android phones this week, the Kyocera Rise and the Kyocera Hydro. These phones aren’t earth-shattering in terms of specs. Both have 3.5-inch displays, a 1GHz processor, and 3.2-megapixel cameras.

When you think smartphones on prepaid contracts, you probably conjure up images of really outdated BlackBerry Curves and year-old Android phones with low-resolution displays.

Or, maybe you still think that only feature phones can be obtained without a two-year contract. Either way, Cricket wants to defy any preconceived notions that you can’t get a good phone on prepaid. I sat down with Matthew Stoiber, senior vice president of devices for Cricket at the CTIA show in New Orleans, to find out what’s up next for the prepaid carrier.

Photo sharing might be all the rage these days, but Verizon’s exclusive Color app for Facebook lets you broadcast live video to your friends and family. The app takes advantage of Verizon’s 4G LTE network, allowing you to stream up to 30 seconds of live video.

I got a hands-on demo of Color at CTIA in New Orleans and was impressed with how quick and easy it is to start sharing video. Basically, you just start filming within Color’s camera app and you’ll start seeing your friends pop in at the bottom of the display. Verizon’s exclusive version of the Color app also has audio streaming support, a feature that the current widely available Color app does not have.

CTIA has been somewhat of a slow show for phone announcements, but HTC spiced it up a bit with the announcement that the EVO 4G LTE will hit stores May 18. The phone, available on Sprint and costing $199, has a 4.7-inch Super LCD display, a high-end 8-megapixel camera with ImageSense (HTC’s camera interface) and runs the Android 4.0 interface with HTC’s Sense 4.0.

The EVO 4G is very similar to the HTC One X on AT&T, but it has some features that make it unique from its sibling phone. The EVO 4G LTE will be the first phone on a U.S. carrier with HD Voice. Sprint's demo of HD Voice at the EVO 4G LTE’s launch in New York City showed how it significantly decreases background noise.

Samsung Galaxy S IIIThe global Samsung Galaxy S III just launched last week in London, but we got to use it Tuesday at the CTIA 2012 mobile show.

I only got a brief look at Samsung’s latest and greatest, but I found many things to like about it--and just a few I wasn’t so fond of. Keep in mind that this is not the U.S. version of the Galaxy S III; the 4G LTE and HSPA+ phones won’t debut until this summer.

The Sprint Zone app store interface with Sprint GuardianSprint Tuesday announced a new bundled app service for its family-plan customers using Android phones. Using both Lookout Mobile Security and Safely apps, the service is designed to help you easily set up location-tracking apps as well as security apps for multiple Android phones on a single family plan.

The service will appear in the Sprint Zone app store this summer, but exact availability has not yet been announced. The announcement was made at the CTIA 2012 show in New Orleans

HTC and Verizon kicked off this week’s CTIA show in New Orleans with the release of the HTC Droid Incredible 4G LTE. This is the third member of the Droid Incredible family, after the Droid Incredible 2 and the original Droid Incredible. According to Verizon, the Droid Incredible will be available in the next few weeks, but pricing has not yet been announced.

As the name implies, the Droid Incredible 4G LTE hooks into Verizon’s 4G LTE network. It has a 4-inch Super LCD display with a 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor. It also has a microSD slot, supporting up to 32GB of memory. While the Droid Incredible 4G LTE has many similar specs to HTC’s One line of phones (which includes the One X, One S and One V), this is one big difference. Those phones don’t have expandable memory.

AT&T's Samsung Focus 2 Windows PhoneAT&T and Samsung Monday showcased the latest Windows Phone, the Samsung Focus 2, in an old colonial mansion in New Orleans’ Garden District during CTIA 2012.

But you don’t have to be a part of the upper crust to own this phone: The Focus 2 will be $50 with a new two-year contract with AT&T. The smartphone will be available starting on May 20.

HTC and Verizon kicked off CTIA 2012 in New Orleans with the arrival of the HTC Droid Incredible 4G LTE. This is the third member of the Droid Incredible family, after the Droid Incredible 2 and the original Droid Incredible.

According to Verizon, the Droid Incredible 4G will be available in the next few weeks, but pricing has not yet been announced.