In a Wednesday announcement, Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse said that the much-awaited HTC EVO – the first phone to run on Sprint’s high-speed fourth-generation (4G) mobile data network – will hit the stores on June 4.

Along with boasting 4G support, the EVO is also attractively priced at $199 – giving Sprint the hope that the new handset will help it win back some of its subscribers who have switched over to bigger carriers, like Verizon and AT&T, in the last few years.

Though the EVO users will have to entail a monthly $10 additional fee that Sprint will charge in both 3G and 4G markets, resulting in an extra $120 a year; the handset will still be competitive enough against its bigger rivals due to the fact that Sprint’s $79.99 monthly service plan is perhaps one of the cheapest.

Sprint claims that the EVO has been developed entirely “from the ground up”; and is not merely an updated version of a 3G handset. The 4G network of the phone will give the users the unparalleled advantage of seamless multiplayer gaming; full unadulterated Flash video; as well as high-paced live streaming.

Noting that the forthcoming HTC EVO will also attract mobile users of social networking websites such as Facebook, Matt Carter - head of the 4G business at Sprint – told Reuters that the company believes EVO will “appeal across a number of fronts.”