The HTC Inspire 4G ($99.99) is a big, powerful and affordably priced Android cell phone for AT&T, and it can stand up well against Apple's iPhone. Comparable in many ways to Verizon's popular Motorola Droid X, this high-quality super-phone is loaded with useful apps and makes a good big-screen theater for videos.

The HTC Inspire 4G is AT&T's answer to big-screen phones like the HTC EVO 4G ($199.99-$449.99, 4 stars) on Sprint and the Motorola Droid X ($199.99-$569.99, 4.5 stars) on Verizon. Like with those other two phones, you'll want big hands to manage the huge 4.3-inch screen; the iPhone 4 ($199-$699, 4.5 stars) is better for daintier folks. At 4.8 by 2.7 by .46 inches (HWD) and 5.78 ounces, this isn't a thick phone, but it's big and broad. The Inspire 4G looks classy, with a solid heft and a metal back. There's a power button on top; the 3.5-mm headset jack is on the bottom. One sore spot, though: The battery door is so tough that it took me half an hour to remove it. It's a good thing you won't replace the battery often.

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The Inspire 4G won't save you from dropped calls. Tested side by side with an iPhone 4, I actually connected fewer calls in a weak signal area than on the iPhone. Oh, well. With decent AT&T signal, though, the Inspire 4G did just fine. Voices sound loud and clear in the earpiece, without scratchiness or distortion. Transmissions sounded clear on the other end, as well, and only sent through a minimum of background noise, even from a noisy area. The speakerphone isn't great; it's on the back, and while it's loud enough to use outdoors, it could be louder. Transmissions made through the speakerphone sounded a bit echoey.

The phone paired easily with an Aliph Jawbone Era ($129, 4.5 stars) Bluetooth headset, including triggering the accurate voice dialing. Battery life, at 5 hours 51 minutes of talk time, was fine for a 3G—oh, sorry, 4G—phone.

The device connects to the Internet via AT&T's and foreign 3G HSPA and HSPA + 21 networks, and via Wi-Fi. It can be tethered to a laptop with the appropriate service plan, and it also works as a Wi-Fi hotspot. On the Ookla speed test app, I got significantly faster Internet speeds than on an iPhone 4, but not what I'd consider "4G." I got an average of 1.5Mbps down on the Inspire and 1Mbps down on the iPhone. That makes for a faster Internet experience on the Inspire, but I'd want to see numbers like 5Mbps before I start trumpeting 4G to the masses.

Software and Bloatware
The Inspire 4G is an Android 2.2.1 phone with a second-generation Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8255 1Ghz processor. Performance is impeccable; the phone feels fast, and it performed very well on our range of Android benchmarks. The Inspire benchmarked faster than any other single-core phone we've tried so far, although I expect phones based on the dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 will scorch it.

HTC and AT&T have added a lot of software to this phone. Is it bloatware? You can't delete any of it, but a lot of it is useful. AT&T provides the Asphalt 5 driving game, FamilyMap geo-fencing, a 2D barcode scanner, AT&T Navigator for GPS directions, Blockbuster for movie downloads, the Kobo e-reader, a Live TV streaming app from MobiTV, an account management app and a yellow pages app.

HTC goes even further: a blocked-caller list, DLNA streaming app, flashlight, FM radio, "Footprints" geo-tagging app, a social networking app, what appear to be three different ways to search for stuff, and—get this—HTC's own widget store and app store, because HTC doesn't like the user interface of Google's App Market. (Yes, you get the Market too.)

Top that with the fact that HTC has rewritten almost every core Android app to improve its functionality. There's a dedicated video player now. Exchange e-mail lets you keep a list of priority senders and filter for their mail, which I love. The photo gallery has Facebook and Flickr hooks. Twitter is integrated into the OS.

The Inspire 4G also comes with free access to HTCSense.com, a Web-based service which lets you forward calls and messages from your phone, locate your phone by making it ring, and lock or erase your phone. In practice I found HTCSense.com to be buggy; the Flash-based Web site had some trouble loading, and the location feature took a while to kick in. This is a good set of features to have, though, and it isn't available on most Android phones.

All of this custom software can all be a little overwhelming, and it's sure to peeve Android purists. But a lot of this stuff is both nice-looking and useful. HTC has won awards for their elegant Android apps, and their e-mail and contact book, for instance, look better than Samsung's and Google's.

A few of the built-in apps didn't work. The "HTC Hub" widget store and AT&T's Live TV feature won't be fully operational until Feb. 13, the carrier said. While the phone has a mode to sync locally with Outlook using HTC's free HTC Sync software, the current version of the software doesn't support this phone. If you need local USB contact and calendar syncing, double check before buying. And yes, this is an AT&T phone, so you're forbidden from downloading non-market apps.