For Billy Leroy, owner of the street-side shop that harkens back to the grittier days of New York’s Bowery district, the sign was both a prop and a way to reach out to European tourists who were flooding his shop when the euro was hitting $1.60 highs.

The placard was a sign of the times. In late 2007 and early 2008, business news was thick with reports that supermodel Gisele Bündchen was dumping dollars for euros in her contracts. Rapper Jay-Z in his video “Blue Magic” was seen flashing thick wads of 500-euro notes rather than greenback Benjamins. And there was wide speculation in the markets that the euro would soon eclipse the dollar as the international currency of choice

Now? The value of the euro cratered, there is real talk the currency won’t survive as the monetary net under its 16-nation bloc, and the “Euros Only” sign has vanished along with the flood of European visitors at Billy’s Antiques & Props.

“I don’t take them anymore,” Leroy said in a telephone interview with CNN.. “I cashed in all my euros when they were high. It just isn’t worth it to exchange them.”

What happened to “euro chic”? In many ways, the currency is now a fashion victim — and the current seesaw ride in euro value is directly related to the prestige it once enjoyed.

Much like the credit crisis first poked holes in the perceived value of bank assets in the United States, this European stage of the crisis leaves investors wondering about the real worth of the euro. The euro was trading at $1.50 in December, until the debt crisis in Greece raised questions about the fiscal sturdiness of other European Monetary Union states.

“There was this feeling that the trend of dollar depreciation and euro appreciation will continue forever,” said Piero Ghezzi, managing direct and global head of currency research at Barclays Capital.

“Everyone was so bullish on the euro, even over the last year or so, the market was weakly positioned – everybody was long euros, short dollars,” Ghezzi told CNN. “So the correction has been very fast precisely because investors were very long euros.”

That has had a dramatic impact on the economies united under the currency. Indeed the strength of the euro in recent years blinded the eurozone to its underlying fiscal problems, Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Union, told the Financial Times in an interview this week.

Even as the currency has staged a comeback this week – up from its lows of $1.19 to now around $1.24 – businesses that deal across the euro divide are not jumping for joy. Businesses, who often have to price products months before they hit the shelves, don’t know what to charge: The wrong guess up will price products out of the market; the wrong guess down will evaporate profit margins..

“I have a client in Australia who needs to send an order, but he’s waiting because he’s speculating the exchange rate will drop to $1.10,” said Chris Grove, who runs a business in Italy that sells custom ovens to restaurants and bars around the world.

Since the euro began to slide, Grove’s business has mirrored its wild moves. “Since January there have been some months where it’s difficult to get things out the door in time, and other times when I’ve been sitting around twiddling my thumbs,” Grove said.

U.S. businesses that sell primarily to European markets were able to ride out the recession better than most thanks to the weak dollar. “The euro got so strong American retailers were having a heyday selling in Europe and on the Internet,” said Patrick Schuleit, sales director of Armadillo Enterprises in Tampa, Florida, which makes and sells Dean Guitars and other musical instruments.

Until recently, the business — which sells in 60 markets worldwide but counts Europe as its largest market — was doing well in euro markets. “Now I’m getting a lot of panicked phone calls from distributors in Europe,” he said.

“The problem is, what are you going to use as your safety valve on the exchange rate with your distributors — $1.25? A couple more bad headlines and it could drop to below $1.10,” Schuleit said. “Some people think the euro is going to strengthen, some people think it’s going to drop back down to parity with the dollar.

“People don’t want to put a new price list out every month, that’s the destabilizing thing,” Schuleit said. “You’re really writing a new piece of history seeing this kind of downward pressure on the euro.”

How low will it go? No one can say for sure. Ghezzi of Barclay Capital believes that the euro “is now approaching fair value,” while others predict the euro will reach the same value as the dollar.

“Sometimes we lose perspective, right? The euro is at $1.20 – it’s not at 75 cents. In 2001 it was 84 cents,” Ghezzi said.

“Obviously the markets are driven by greed and fear, and that means overshooting — irrational exuberance, and irrational pessimism,” Ghezzi said.

Washington

In a statement issued Saturday, Obama praised China’s decision to increase the flexibility of its exchange rate, which officials hope will help balance China’s trade deficit with the United States and Europe.

“China’s decision to increase the flexibility … is a constructive step that can help safeguard the recovery and contribute to a more balanced global economy,” the president said in the statement.

“I look forward to discussing these and other issues at the G-20 Summit in Toronto next weekend,” he said.

Will currency move help U.S.-China relations?

China’s official Xinhua news agency said The People’s Bank of China — China’s central bank — announced Saturday it would push further its rate reform to make the the yuan, also known as the renminbi, more flexible. The move could appease international criticism against China’s weak exchange rate, which has created trade imbalances between Western nations and China.

“The decision was made in view of the recent economic situation and financial market developments at home and abroad, and the balance of payments (BOP) situation in China,” Xinhua quoted the Central Bank’s spokesperson.

“The stability of the RMB (renminbi) exchange rate has played an important role in mitigating the crisis’ impact, contributing significantly to Asian and global recovery, and demonstrating China’s efforts in promoting global rebalancing,” he said.

The International Monetary Fund’s managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, released a statement on China’s move, which he described as a “welcome development.”

“A stronger renminbi is in line with findings of the G-20 Mutual Assessment Process, to be presented in Toronto next week, and will help increase Chinese household income and provide the incentives necessary to reorient investment toward industries that serve the Chinese consumer,” he said.

China’s move comes ahead of the Group of 20 and the Group of 8 meetings in Canada’s Province of Ontario scheduled next week, with finance ministers and central bank governors of major trading powers will discuss trade issues and the world financial crisis.

Representatives of several industrialized nations including India, Brazil, the United States and European countries have previously asked China to allow its currency to float.

According to an internal BP document released Sunday by Rep. Edward Markey, D-Massachusetts, BP believed that the worst-case scenario could be as high as 100,000 barrels, or 4.2 million gallons of oil per day.

The figure is the highest yet to surface regarding the leaking oil well. At the disaster’s outset, BP claimed the leak was about 1,000 barrels a day, a number it later revised to 5,000 and then much higher. BP told the House Energy and Commerce Committee that the worst-case scenario was 60,000 barrels (2.5 million gallons) a day, lower than what the document states.

The document, submitted in May, maintains the 60,000 barrel estimate, but stipulates that if the “blowout preventer and wellhead are removed and if we have incorrectly modeled the restrictions, the rate could be as high as 100,000 barrels a day.”

Markey said the document “raises very troubling questions about what BP knew and when they knew it.”

“It is clear that, from the beginning, BP has not been straightforward with the government or the American people about the true size of this spill,” said Markey, the chairman of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee in the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

“Considering what is now known about BP’s problems with this well prior to the Deepwater Horizon explosion, including cementing issues, leaks in the blowout preventer and gas kicks, BP should have been more honest about the dangerous condition of the well bore,” Markey said in a statement.

BP spokesman Robert Wine said the May estimate cited in Markey’s document is irrelevant to the current situation because the oil company has no intention of removing the well’s blowout preventer.

“The allegation doesn’t make sense,” Wine told CNN. “Why on earth would we remove the blowout preventer when it’s sitting on top of the sea well and providing some control (of the spill)?”

Toby Odone, another spokesman for BP, added that the blowout preventer will be removed only when the well is completely killed.

A blowout preventer is designed to seal off a well in the event of an emergency, but the device has not been working since the April 20 explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon.

Also Sunday, while cleanup crews and technical teams continued efforts to stop crude gushing into the Gulf, Louisiana lawmakers proposed a different approach: prayer.

State senators designated Sunday as a day for citizens to ask for God’s help dealing with the oil disaster.

“Thus far efforts made by mortals to try to solve the crisis have been to no avail,” state Sen. Robert Adley said in a statement released after last week’s unanimous vote for the day of prayer. “It is clearly time for a miracle for us.”

The resolution names Sunday as a statewide day of prayer in Louisiana and calls on people of all religions throughout the Gulf Coast “to pray for an end to this environmental emergency, sparing us all from the destruction of both culture and livelihood.”

Also Sunday, wildlife officials were planning to transport and release 40 pelicans that rescuers rehabilitated after finding them covered with oil. The birds will be moved from New Orleans, Louisiana, to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Port Aransas, Texas.

As much as 60,000 barrels (2.5 million gallons) of oil may be gushing into the Gulf every day, new government estimates found last week.

BP said it was able to capture roughly 8,480 barrels of oil from midnight to 12 p.m. Saturday. The company said it captured 24,500 barrels — just over a million gallons — of oil Friday, a little less than it captured the day before.

BP said Saturday that it has paid $104 million to residents along the Gulf Coast who have filed claims related to the Gulf oil spill, issuing more than 31,000 checks in the past seven weeks.

There was no immediate response from local, state or federal officials to BP’s tally of its payments.

Meanwhile, oil recovery efforts in the Gulf resumed Saturday morning on the drill ship Discoverer Enterprise, after work was suspended for about 10 hours because of a mechanical problem.

A venting device aboard the drilling ship was not working properly, said Ayla Kelley, spokesperson for the Deepwater Horizon command center.

Other recovery efforts continued during the time that the Discoverer Enterprise was idled, she said.

She said the problem was with a blocked flame arrester, designed to prevent oil from combusting by extinguishing the flame.

It helped that “Toy Story 3″ bowed in more than 2,000 3-D locations, a number that accounted more than 50 percent of its gross. Its IMAX numbers were also solid: The film earned 8 percent of its total from the 180 large-screen theaters. The movie generated a 99 percent positive rating from review collector site Rotten Tomatoes and an A from exit pollster CinemaScore.

The animated flick also helped boost the box office more than 30 percent over this weekend last year, when “The Proposal” debuted to $33 million.

The story is far different for the only other new wide release, “Jonah Hex.” In fact, the PG-13 western actioner starring Josh Brolin was wholeheartedly rejected by audiences, grossing a paltry $5 million for an eighth place finish at the box office.

It will likely go down as the biggest disappointment of the summer, one that’s surely not going to help the careers of either Brolin or costar Megan Fox. Audiences gave it a C+ as indicated by CinemaScore.

Second place for the weekend went to “The Karate Kid,” which held up pretty well considering the competition for family audiences from “Toy Story 3.” The PG-rated remake earned an estimated $29 million for the three days, bringing its 10-day total to $106 million.

The film fell off 48 percent from its opening weekend, but that’s likely to be the well-playing movie’s biggest drop for a while, since no other movie is likely to pose as big a threat as “Toy Story” in the coming weeks.

The other second weekend holdover, “The A-Team,” also held very well, dropping only 46 percent to earn an additional $13.7 million. The PG-13 rated movie has now earned close to $50 million for its 10 days in release. The $100 million-budgeted film has a ways to go to break even, but if it can keep its drops in the 40 percent range, it may end up okay.

“Get Him to the Greek” took fourth place for the weekend. The “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” off-shoot grossed another $6 million, representing a 38 percent drop from last weekend. The $40 million-budget film has now earned almost $48 million since it debuted three weekends ago.

“Shrek Forever After” took the fifth place in the derby, earning another $5.5 million, raising its cume to almost $223 million. The film fell off over 65 percent for the weekend, an expected drop considering the direct effect of “Toy Story 3.”

“Prince of Persia” held in surprisingly well its fourth weekend in theaters. The PG-rated actioner starring Jake Gyllenhaal earned an estimated $5.2 million, dropping only 19 percent from its session last weekend. The Jerry Bruckheimer-produced flick has now earned $80.5 million.

Spot seven went to “Killers,” which slipped only 36 percent in its third weekend. The PG-13 rated flick starring Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl grossed $5.1 million for the weekend, putting its total at $34 million. “Iron Man 2″ and “Marmaduke” rounded out the top 10.

“Iron Man 2″ holds the title of highest-grossing film of the summer, earning an additional $2.7 million to put its cume at $304 million. Wonder how long it will take for “Toy Story 3″ to surpass it?

The PG-rated “Marmaduke” lost 56 percent of its value, not surprising considering all the competition for the family audience. The movie has grossed a weak $28 million since it opened three weekends ago.

In limited release, “Cyrus” and “I Am Love” had solid openings. “Cyrus,” starring John C. Reilly and Jonah Hill, earned a huge per-screen average of $45,000 on four screens in New York and Los Angeles, for a total of $180,000 in its first weekend in release. “I Am Love,” a Milan-set love story starring Tilda Swinton, opened on eight screens for a per-screen average of $15,000 for a $125,300 total.

Check back in next weekend when Tom Cruise’s “Knight and Day” goes up against Adam Sandler’s “Grown Ups.” My early prediction: Toy Story lands in the No. 1 slot again.

After slumping almost 14% in six weeks, stocks, as measured by the broad S&P 500, have now gained back just over 6% in the past two weeks. That’s good news for investors who were worried that the correction — a selloff of more than 10% from the highs — would become a bear market, a selloff of over 20%.

But the stock recovery has been mostly technical and trading-driven, rather than based on changes in the underlying issues that sparked the selling in the first place. That factor suggests another bump down is coming, perhaps later in the summer.

But stocks could ride the bounce for another few weeks, with the Dow turning around after it reclaims its 2010 high of 11,205.03 from April, said Dean Barber, president at Barber Financial Group.

“I’m still bullish for the next few weeks, but beyond that I think we could be heading into a bear market,” he said. “The recent jobs reports have been terrible, housing is stabilized but has another leg down ahead of it, and the consumer is slowing again.”

His view: “If GDP turns negative in the third and fourth quarter, we’re going to see a lot bigger stock selloff.”

But markets may also just meander for a while, rather than slide further, depending on what the economic news in the U.S. and abroad suggests, said Robert Siewert, portfolio manager at Glenmede.

“A number of indicators are suggesting slower growth, and fears of a double-dip recession are growing,” he said. “It’s going to lead equity investors to proceed with caution.”

This week brings reports on housing, durable goods orders, employment, consumer sentiment and GDP. The latest on BP in the aftermath of the oil spill and the direction of commodity markets will also be in focus. Gold closed at a record high of $1258.30 an ounce on Friday.

The value of the euro, European debt issues and the impact they may have on the global economy will also remain in focus, particularly as the G-8 meeting gets underway in Canada at the end of the week. In terms of European debt issues, the concern of late has focused on Spain as it fights to raise money amid soaring debt levels and rumors that it needs a bailout like Greece. The other PIIGS — Portugal, Italy and Ireland — remain on watch as well.

Federal Reserve: The central bank is meeting Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss interest rate policy, with a decision expected Wednesday afternoon. The bank is widely expected to hold rates steady at levels near zero. As usual, what the bankers say about the outlook for the economy will be critical.

Monday: There are no market-moving economic or corporate events expected on Monday.

Tuesday: The existing home sales index from the National Association of Realtors is due in the morning. The index is expected to have risen to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.10 million units in May, up from a 5.77 million unit rate in April, according to a consensus of economists surveyed by Briefing.com.

The FHFA Housing price index for April is also due in the morning, but is not typically a market mover.

Wednesday: The May new home sales index from the Census Bureau is due shortly after the start of trading. The index is expected to have fallen to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 427,000 units, from a 504,000 unit rate in the previous month.

The weekly crude oil inventories report from the government is also due in the morning.

Thursday: The Commerce Department releases the durable goods orders report for May in the morning. Orders are expected to have fallen 1.4% after rising 2.8% in April. Orders excluding transportation are expected to have risen 1.25% after falling 1.1% last month.

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment is expected to have fallen to 458,000 last week from 472,000 the previous week. Continuing claims, a measure of Americans who have been receiving benefits for a week or more, are expected to have risen to 4,580,000, from 4,571,000 last week.

Oracle (ORCL, Fortune 500) reports quarterly results Thursday evening. The software maker is expected to report earnings of 54 cents per share, up 17% from a year ago, and revenue of $9.5 billion, up 38% from a year ago.

Friday: The revised reading on gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the first quarter is due in the morning. GDP is expected to have grown at a 3% annualized rate, unchanged from the previous reading.

The University of Michigan’s final reading on consumer sentiment in June is due in the morning. It’s expected to hold steady at 75.5, unchanged from the last reading. 

Although Chinese officials insisted on Sunday that the decision was taken for domestic reasons, the announcement comes a week ahead of a G20 summit in Canada that was shaping up to be something of a showdown over the level of the Chinese currency.

By indicating that the peg between the renminbi and the US dollar was now likely to be broken, Beijing had “stolen the thunder” from the US and other governments that hoped to use the summit to put pressure on China, said Eswar Prasad, a former IMF China economist now at Cornell University. “They have taken the issue right off the table for the G20 and can refocus attention on what they see as the real problem for global financial stability — rising government debt in the advanced economies, especially the US.”

Indeed, as criticism in the US of China’s undervalued currency has been on the rise, Beijing has argued that the US economy is the real problem. “What they are doing with their own currency will affect the global economy much more than anything else,” one senior government official said last week.

China’s currency move: Why now?

This is not the first time that Beijing has used carefully timed announcements to deflect attention from its policies. Ahead of last April’s G20 summit, when China’s large current account surplus was under attack, Zhou Xiaochuan, central bank head, called for the replacement of the US dollar as the global reserve currency. That proposal had the desired political effect of shifting the focus back to the US economy.

Li Daokui, an adviser to the Chinese central bank, added that Beijing was shifting policy now on its own terms because it did not want to be cornered into a Plaza Accord-style negotiation. (In 1985, the governments of France, West Germany, Japan, the US and the UK, agreed to let the dollar depreciate in relation to the yen and D-Mark by intervening in currency markets. The accord was signed at the Plaza Hotel in New York City.)

If the political intentions of the weekend statement are clear, the economic consequences are not so obvious. The central bank ruled out the two things that had been expected — a sizeable one-off appreciation and a widening of the bands between which the currency trades.

The implication is that Beijing will return to a pre-crisis policy of a crawling peg against the US dollar, possibly starting on Monday.

Obama praises China’s move to allow its currency to float

Beijing has plenty of excuses for caution. China’s exchange rate against the euro has already appreciated 15 per cent in recent months, raising worries about slowing exports to China’s biggest market. Inflation in China is higher than most of its trading partners, meaning that China’s real exchange rate is also rising.

Moreover, Chinese officials point to the sharp drop in the country’s current account surplus as evidence that substantial rebalancing of the economy is already taking place.

Andy Rothman, an economist at CLSA in Shanghai, said he expected appreciation against the US dollar in the short term of 0.2 per cent a month — well short of the likely level needed to appease critics in the US and elsewhere

Mr Li said the greater “flexibility” in the exchange rate could potentially include occasional periods of depreciation against the dollar.

The Chinese authorities are aware of the risk of setting up a “one-way bet” on the currency that ends up attracting capital inflows into the economy. By stressing that the renminbi will be managed against a basket of currencies, they have an excuse to weaken the currency against the dollar and punish speculators if the euro continues to depreciate.

“The greater two-way volatility between the renminbi and the dollar will help mitigate hot money inflows,” said Jun Ma, an economist at Deutsche Bank.

Just as before Saturday’s announcement, therefore, China’s currency policy will depend heavily on what happens in Europe over the coming months.

The central bank, which has been battling to strengthen the renminbi for some time in order to cool the economy and give it more control over monetary policy, has won a tactical victory over pro-export lobbies.

If the situation in Europe stabilises, the central bank could yet secure the political backing to resume a more decisive path of appreciation against the dollar. But until then, analysts say, its hands are likely to remain tied, despite the powerful political punch of its weekend announcement.

Big broadband providers like AT&T [T  25.43  -0.14  (-0.55%)   ],  Verizon Communications

[VZ  29.13  0.04  (+0.14%)   ]

and Comcast

[T  25.43  -0.14  (-0.55%)   ]

oppose the move by the Federal Communications Commission, fearing the agency may heavily regulate their businesses in way that could crimp profits and cast a cloud on investments.

In a statement, Verizon executive vice president for public affairs Tom Tauke said reclassifying high-speed broadband Internet service as a telecom service is one of FCC’s terrible ideas.

The FCC voted 3-2 to collect public comments on whether the agency should reclassify broadband regulation under existing phone rules—typically considered a stricter regulatory regime.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, a Democrat, wants the FCC to regulate broadband access to ensure the free flow of information and implement recommendations in its National Broadband Plan, which seeks to increase speeds and the number of users in the United States.

The measure to collect public comments, called a Notice of Inquiry, could help build a case to give the FCC the authority it lost after a court ruling earlier this year.

The FCC is seeking public comment until July 15 and reply comments are due Aug. 12.

In April a U.S. appeals court ruled that the FCC had failed to show it had the authority to stop Comcast from blocking online applications that distributed television shows and other bandwidth-hogging files.

To put its authority on more sound legal footing, the FCC decided it wants to regulate broadband access as a telecommunications service instead of as an information service.

• What’s Next for Broadband?

BP

The energy company has contracted to buy 32 centrifugal devices that can help separate oil from water at a rate of up to 200 gallons per minute.

The technology was developed by INL scientist David Meikrantz, who initially sought to use the machines to separate the components of nuclear substances.

In 1993, INL licensed the technology to Ocean Therapy Solutions, a company owned by actor Kevin Costner, who has invested more than $24 million to develop the centrifuge devices.

“The beauty of this technology is it’s quick, it’s easy, it’s simple,” said Meikrantz, who spent nine years helping Costner’s company further develop the technology for use on massive oil spills.

Costner testified before a U.S. Senate committee Thursday that all major oil companies should keep the machines nearby, just like fire extinguishers. The machines weigh about two tons and can fit on fishing boats or docks.

When in use, the oil-water mixture enters the separator through a skimming hose and passes into the centrifuge. After about a 30-second spin, the water is released on one side, the oil on the other. The oil content in the purified water is about 50 parts per million, Meikrantz said.

That isn’t as clean as the preferred federal standard of 35 parts per million, but Meikrantz said it’s a step toward cleaning the mess in the Gulf.

According to the Ocean Therapy Solutions website, the V20—the largest of the machines that come in various sizes—can clean up to 210,000 gallons of water per day and could potentially remove 2,000 barrels of oil in a 24-hour period.

The environmental disaster in unfolding in the Gulf may be motivation for improving the technology, Meikrantz said.

Cousteau, who is backing the use of the machines, or units, is on the advisory board of Ecosphere Technologies [ESPH  1.5  0.09  (+6.38%)   ], which makes them.

Cousteau, the son of legendary sea explorer and ecologist, Jacques Cousteau, said there are 24 to 26 units that are ready to go and in the region.  (Watch his comments in detail in the video below.)

The units are mobile water treatment plants, which use a nonchemical oxidation process, Charles Vinick, chairman of Ecosphere Technology, told cnbc.com later on Thursday. Vinick said the units can be placed on barges and taken out to sea. Each unit can process one million gallons of water daily, added the chairman.

Vinick said the units are especially useful in the Gulf spill situation because they don’t use chemicals, they break up hydrocarbons and they can handle high volume.

Vinick added that the oxygenation process brings much-needed oxygen to plant life in the marshes, which are robbed of it when they are coated with crude oil. The process of adding oxygen also revives sea life.

Cousteau said he has been talking with BP [BP  31.76  0.05  (+0.16%)   ] and government officials about employing the machines. The delay in putting the Ecosphere products to work, Cousteau believes, is not a matter of money, but of BP employees being busy considering many different options.

To handle the oil at the gushing leak site, Cousteau supports using another unit to be built by Ecosphere.

Instead of pouring chemical dispersants down a pipe at the leak, the Ecosphere unit would be used to inject millions of oxygenated microscopic bubbles through the pipe to drive oil to the surface. The oil can then be captured in a boom and collected on-site. That machine will be available in one to three months, said Cousteau.

Cousteau said the practice of dispersing chemicals into the Gulf has been a mistake because it kills marine life.

He called the Deepwater Horizon spill, which started on April 20, “more than likely the most dramatic disaster that has been man-made or man-provoked.”

The gulf region will suffer, added Cousteau, for decades to come.

“It’s [the oil spill is] a major, if I may say, kick in the butt,” said Cousteau, “that is going to make us people, our species, change and protect the sea’s life support system.”

It’ll get you when you buy a car. When you rent an apartment. When you sign a prenup.

Most of all, it’ll get you when you buy the new Sprint

[S  4.59  -0.05  (-1.08%)   ]

Evo 4G phone ($200, after rebate, with two-year contract).

It’s another great-looking, blazingly fast app phone made by HTC and running Google’s [GOOG  500.03  -0.05  (-0.01%)   ] Android operating system. Android gives the phone more complexity than the iPhone (its obvious rival), but also provides some sensational features: speech recognition that lets you type by speaking, almost anywhere; an excellent, free turn-by-turn GPS navigation program; and a wireless app store stocked with more than 70,000 little programs.

Of course, the Evo’s little brother, the terrific HTC Incredible, delivers all of that, too.

What makes the Evo seem even more spectacular are all the firsts and bests.

For example, the Evo has an enormous 4.3-inch touch screen that dwarfs those of most phones. You can turn the Evo into a pocket Wi-Fi hot spot, so up to eight people can get online with their laptops. The 8-megapixel camera has dual LED flashes and records hi-def video.

The Evo is also one of the first app phones that can run Flash videos and animations on the Web, which the iPhone, notoriously, can’t. There’s even a second camera on the front, so you can actually make video calls to other Evo owners. Now you, too, can play Dick Tracy, or at least show your Evo-owning grandparents the new baby.

Above all, the Evo is the first 4G phone in America. That is, it can exploit the fourth-generation cellular towers that Sprint has been building, to bring you much, much faster Web pages and e-mail, and skip-free Internet video.

Come on — all that sounds amazing. Who wouldn’t sign on the dotted line?

Unfortunately, these groundbreaking features come with enough fine print to give the White Pages an inferiority complex.

First, the screen. It’s big, all right, and bright and beautiful (480 by 800 pixels). The hugeness pays off when you’re looking at photos, videos or maps, and whenever you’re reading anything.

Unfortunately, physics has some fine print of its own — and one of the footnotes says that you can’t have a big screen on a small phone. The Evo is nice and thin, but it’s also tall and wide. It is not for the small of hand. People might mistake it for an iPad Nano.

The Wi-Fi hot spot business is slick. With a couple of taps, you can turn the Evo’s cellular Internet signal into a Wi-Fi hot spot. Now nearby laptops, game machines and even other smartphones can get online wirelessly through it. It’d be great on long car rides, slow-moving movie shoots and camping trips for those who can’t let go of their technology.

Actually, make that “short car rides,” “brief movie shoots” and “afternoon camping trips,” because this feature eats through a full battery charge in as little as one hour. (More on the Evo’s amazing disappearing battery in a moment.) And beware: the hot spot feature costs an extra $30 a month.

O.K., so what about Flash? Isn’t a big deal that the Evo lets you watch Flash videos that its rivals can’t?

Well, sort of. The Evo runs something called Flash Lite, which is marketing-ese for, “Sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t.” It plays videos on some sites that the iPhone can’t — on Engadget, for example, plus all the blinking ads (a mixed blessing). But it still can’t play the Flash videos on CNN.com or, sadly, TV shows on Hulu.com.

All right, what about video calling? Surely this is the killer app. Imagine: your friends and family can not just hear you, as with normal phones, but see you as well (assuming they also bought Sprint Evos, of course).

Well, let’s hope they’re NASA engineers, because this feature is head-bangingly unstable. After two days of fiddling, downloading and uninstalling apps, manually force-quitting programs and waiting for servers to be upgraded, I finally got video calling to work — sort of. Sometimes there was only audio and a black screen, sometimes only a freeze-frame; at best, the video was blocky and the audio delay absurd.

To make video calling work, you have to install an app yourself: either Fring or Qik. But we never did get Fring to work, and Qik requires people you call to press a Talk button when they want to speak. The whole thing is confusing and, to use the technical term, iffy.

But come on — this is the first 4G phone in America! That’s got to be better than 3G, right?

Hard to say, since I couldn’t find any 4G reception, even in weeks of traveling. My problem, evidently, was that I was visiting major cities like New York, Boston and San Francisco. So far, Sprint has installed 4G coverage in only 32 areas — and they’re bustling metropolises like Boise, Idaho; Wichita Falls, Tex.; High Point, N.C.; and Milledgeville, Ga.