Despite the Customs Debacle surrounding HTC phones recently, it seems enough have made it into the country for Spring to warrant an actual release date. In their community forums, Sprint says that the EVO 4G LTE should arrive "on or around Thursday, May 24 to customers who pre-ordered the device online from Sprint."

This doesn't tell us much for those who didn't pre-order and wished to walk into a store to buy one. It also doesn't tell us why it states "on or around", nor does that sound promising. It could just be that shipping would delay your order by a few days, but we'll find out soon enough.

Source: Sprint forums

A ruling made by the U.S. International Trade Commission back in Dec. 2011, has resulted in a ban of importing and selling HTC phones. This issue was initially addressed due to Apple filing a complaint that HTC phones violated one of its patents regarding how data is stored and interacted with.

That same ban, which started on April 19, has now proposed a problem for the release of HTC's latest phones, the One X and EVO 4G LTE. Some units of the One X were shipped before the ban occurred, but now extra stock can't pass customs. HTC released a response on the matter:

"The US availability of the HTC One X and HTC EVO 4G LTE has been delayed due to a standard U.S. Customs review of shipments that is required after an ITC exclusion order. We believe we are in compliance with the ruling and HTC is working closely with Customs to secure approval. The HTC One X and HTC EVO 4G LTE have been received enthusiastically by customers and we appreciate their patience as we work to get thesep roducts into their hands as soon as possible."

The EVO 4G LTE was supposed to launch today, but HTC (and several customers, including one of our own staff members who had pre-ordered a unit) has confirmed that the phone will not be available for purchase in stores today, while pre-orders have also been placed on hold.

Sources: thedailybeast, blackmediascoop, engadget (1), engadget (2)