I kept thinking that reviewers were just overstating the point for the sake of traffic, that the HTC EVO didn't get good battery life but that it was a relative measure. Then I played with one and in half an hour of web browsing and using the menus (with Sense turned off, display reduced, task killer in action, in the Mission Bay district of SF where Sprint's signal is good) and we rampaged through 20% of the battery.
20% in half an hour. Guys, this is not cool.
For comparison, with my pre-4.0gm I used my iPhone 3GS for web work an average of an hour and a half per day with between 1-2 hours of talking and push email and nearly all-day iPod use on and I came home with 20-40% (mostly that depended on talk time), and I could still rely on it to be my iPod at the gym even if I was using Pandora. I go 8am-11pm with confidence. With the iOS 4.0GM, it's like I've got a 20% battery upgrade and I'm using the device more.
It's really frustrating that Apple keeps making hardware that fits my specs but not being on a carrier that does me right. Meanwhile other carriers—carriers that I know will drop far fewer calls and have far fewer problems at crowded events—simply cannot get a phone that doesn't have a tower of serious flaws. The closest stab in recent memory was the Nexus One (with its terribly flawed touchscreen) and the Droid (which by now appears like a doddering old slowpoke by comparison to the current crop of phones).