While giving Samsung a breather, it appears that Apple has now firmly switched their attention to HTC’s latest prospects and unfortunately it looks to be consumers that are going to suffer from this the most. US Customs is now officially ‘investigating’ patent infringements in both devices and according to the International Trade Commission, Apple said said that HTC are in violation of Apple patent #5946647, filed on August 31st 1999 – yes really.

You can even check out the patent and its full details here if you want to see for yourself. HTC has already responded to their devices being withheld, calling it a ‘standard’ procedure and that they’re looking to get both smartphones out to US consumers as soon as possible.

As far as we’re aware, this is the first instance of a Customs agency actually holding on to devices due to patent violation. The HTC One X was due to land on AT&T very soon, but visiting the carrier’s official product page will just result in an out of stock message. It’s a similar case for the HTC EVO 4G LTE on Sprint as there is now an out of stock message on the pre-order page as well.

What are your thoughts on this unusual delay – were you looking to buy one of the devices this month? The EVO 4G LTE was due to be available this Friday, but that definitely isn’t happening now. We’re still amazed that Apple has almost 600,000 patents in the closet quite frankly.

It almost seems a certainly these days for manuals to leak out prior to release and consumers definitely won’t be complaining about this latest instance. It’s definitely the official manual here and 219 pages long with color illustrations as well.

When quickly scanning through the PDF file, we noticed that there’s even a manual section on private browsing. What ever would you use that for we wonder? We didn’t think sharing the HTC EVO 4G LTE with another person was on the top of your agenda, so Sprint must be providing this private browsing feature for something else.

On page 136 on the manual, there’s also some information there which many of you will find helpful. There’s been many queries on whether you can turn off the 4G LTE data connection whenever you like, and it looks like you will be able to with relative ease. This will also come in very useful indeed for those moments when you are never going to get a 4G LTE signal and you want to conserve battery life, so that’s good.

You can download the manual and study it for yourself here, courtesy of InsideSprintNow. As we told you earlier this week, there’s still no official shipping date for pre-orders, but May 18 has been mentioned several times so look out for that. For those of you looking for the best deal, Wirefly seems to be a good option at $150 on a two-year contract.

Right now, you can head to Sprint’s official website and pre-order the device for $199 on a two-year contract, once you have typed in your zip code. Before you rush out and pre-order though, you may want to shop around for better deals – for good reason.

Wirefly has also gone live with their HTC EVO 4G pre-order page and have already slashed $50 off Sprint’s asking price for the device. It means that you can pick up the device for a very reasonable $150 on contract and don’t forget that it also comes with $10 of free Google Wallet credit if you’re signing up for the NFC service for the very first time.

As Engadget noticed though, Wirefly were also initially willing to disclose a few additional details that the official Sprint website did not, including a solid release date for the device. As seen in this screenshot here, you can clearly see that an May 18 release date is mentioned, but if you head to Wirefly’s EVO 4G LTE page now you’ll see that the release date information has disappeared. Has Sprint been on to them straight away to remove the information asap? It looks that way to us.

If correct, May 18 isn’t too long away but it still gives you a good while to hold out for some even better deals from other online retailers. We have a feeling that some other sellers may be willing to part with some free accessories like we’ve seen in the past so it is well worth keeping your eyes open.

We will let you know if the release date status changes over the next few days, but for now make a note of May 18 for the glorious launch. If you are hunting for the best deals online at the moment, let us know if you have spotted anything better than the $150 price that Wirefly are offering.

There’s no doubt that the Galaxy Nexus remains one of the smartphone superpowers in the industry right now, and it would be a fantastic coup for Sprint if they were able to add the device to their growing lineup.

Don’t forget that the Sprint Galaxy Nexus is not really a secret. You may have forgot that Sprint actually announced their version of the device at CES 2012, but due to expected Verizon exclusivity, customers have yet to see the elusive device appear on their network. The wait may be worth while though, as a Best Buy inventory leak has revealed that Sprint will release the device on April 22.

Just to remind you, when the device does actually arrive it will boast 4G LTE connectivity like the Evo 4G LTE and Google Wallet from day one as well. It also means that the Sprint Galaxy Nexus will arrive before the already official Evo 4G LTE, meaning that you’ll be faced with a difficult decision on whether to pick up the Galaxy Nexus, or wait for the Evo 4G LTE which may not release until May.

Sprint’s 4G LTE network has been a long time coming, but it looks like the company have two amazing smartphones to firmly compete with rival networks AT&T and Verizon. If you had to make an immediate choice between the Galaxy Nexus or the Evo 4G LTE on Sprint – what handset would you choose and why?

For Sprint customers, it is easily the best smartphone to date on the network and still arguably the best Android smartphone on paper. For a US first, Sprint announced that the Evo 4G LTE would be the first smartphone to feature HD Voice, which promises unrivaled call quality that perhaps even the Apple iPhone cannot match.

The technology is already available sporadically in Europe, but Sprint has got themselves a major coup by bringing HD Voice to the US for the first time with the Evo 4G LTE.

As for the hardware specs, they largely match up with the AT&T One X as expected, but there is one major disappointment which sticks out for us. The device will feature a 1.5Ghz dual-core processor, a 4.7-inch display and an 8MP camera just like the HTC One X, but after heavy speculation that Sprint’s device would feature a battery similar to that of the beastly Droid RAZR MAXX, we’re sad to see that HTC has just put a standard battery inside the Evo 4G LTE.

We were really looking forward to seeing that 2,650mAh battery in an official capacity, but instead Sprint has revealed that the Evo 4G LTE will just pack a 2,000mAh battery instead. Sprint customers will still get a slight battery life advantage over the HTC One X on AT&T which packs a paltry 1800mAh battery, but we think you’ll agree with us that just 2,000mAh is not what anyone expected to see – especially with the heavy emphasis on 4G LTE data support.

Then again, Sprint customers may not really care about the battery overlook. Some users may not be heavy data users as others, and just having a top of the range Android 4.0 phone with 4G support could be sufficient enough. It means that the Droid RAZR MAXX is still in another league in terms of battery life potential, but we just hope that future Android releases this year will attempt to close the gap.

What is your initial reaction to the HTC Evo 4G LTE on Sprint? Is it already your next smartphone, or are you a little disappointed that it didn’t include a bigger battery? We have a feeling that the HTC One X is going to struggle with just 1,800mAh – let’s hope that the 200mAh extra juice in the Evo 4G LTE makes the difference.