Aside from its smaller profile and added physical keyboard, the EVO Shift has a 5MP camera compared to the first EVO's 8MP offering. It lacks a secondary, front-facing camera as well as an HDMI out port. The Shift does, however, record 720p HD-quality video.

In terms of under-the-hood power, the EVO Shift has an 800MHz processor -- a number that may initially appear less impressive than the EVO 4G's 1GHz chip. Interestingly, though, some early speed tests performed on the phones show the Shift coming out ahead. Mobile retailer ran Quadrant analyses on the two devices and consistently found the EVO Shift receiving higher benchmark scores, with end results around 1477 compared to the EVO 4G's 1232.

One burning question: What about ? The EVO 4G, after all, has for its, err, premature depoweration. The EVO Shift's smaller screen should in theory put a lower strain on the phone's power consumption. That said, both devices use the same 1500 mAh battery, and both are listed by Sprint as having about six hours of talk time -- so we'll have to wait and see how the newcomer performs in the wild before making any final judgments.

The EVO Shift, by the way, ships with Android 2.2 -- aka Froyo. It's not immediately clear if or when it'll be upgraded to the shiny new release, but one would imagine it'd be relatively early in line for the nod. HTC has yet to make any firm upgrade commitments for any of its devices, but based on past trends -- the original EVO was the first carrier-specific device to receive the , preceded only by Google's Nexus One -- the original EVO sure seems like a strong contender for a timely Gingerbread rollout, too.

The HTC EVO Shift 4G will be available for $149.99 (yep, 50 bucks cheaper than its big bro) starting January 9. It'll be sold through Sprint and also at all Best Buy and Best Buy Mobile locations.