When it comes to rumors, the day before the press conference announcing a device often turns out to be the most reliable. Just such a rumor has landed today, in the form of a purported "press photo" of Sprint's EVO One (at least, that's the rumored name).
Now, I don't want to be a Debbie-downer here, but there are a few things that make this "press photo" look like less than the real McCoy (though I'm not outright calling it a fake - so read on).
First, there are the images flanking the supposed EVO One. These stock photos of the AT&T and T-Mobile One X and One S, respectively, have been available for over a month now. Not only that, but they're not to scale, either - the T-Mobile One S is all kinds of out of proportion. Then there are the dates: the AT&T and T-Mobile devices have dates of February 26 in the primary Sense widget, while the EVO One shows April 4 (the announcement date), and has Seattle as its location, as opposed to Los Angeles on the other two.
But let's say that PocketNow, or its source, just slapped together these three devices in a single shot for comparison's sake (completely possible and legitimate explanation). That may actually be the case, as it closely resembles another PocketNow leak for the US variants of the Galaxy S II last year. And it's probably worth mentioning that photo turned out to be accurate.
But the EVO One in this photo lacks one thing that makes me extra cautious: Sprint branding of any kind (at least on the front). The previous EVO devices, the EVO 3D and 4G, shown below, had the Sprint logo on the upper-right-hand side of the phone.
EVO 3D and EVO 4G, respectively
While the device shown in the middle of the leaked photo definitely looks like a real piece of hardware, and different enough from the standard AT&T One X to obviously not be a mere color variant, the lack of a Sprint logo leads me to believe this may not be the exact production device that will be unveiled tomorrow. It's very possible the only difference we'll see is the addition of a Sprint logo and a shifting of the HTC logo to the upper-left-hand side of the bezel. But it's equally possible Sprint has decided to drop its branding from the front of the device to make it look cleaner. Who knows?
The fact that the speaker grille on the leak shot shares its styling with those on the EVO 3D/4G (recessed as opposed to seamless, the latter of which is the style on the AT&T/T-Mobile One devices) does lend the photo more credence - Sprint obviously wants to keep the look of the EVO brand relatively consistent. It's also shaped similarly to both previous EVOs - a rectangle with rounded corners (as opposed to the softer, semi-circular shape of the AT&T One X's top and bottom edges).
And, as confirmed by one of our commenters, the Voicemail app icon on the EVO One leak photo does appear to be the Sprint voicemail application. Sounding more and more legit to me.
So, is it the EVO One? Probably. We'll find out for sure tomorrow at 2:30PST during Sprint and HTC's press conference in New York.