Is the HTC Droid Incredible for Verizon Wireless as Incredible as its name? Find out in our comprehensive review of the new HTC Droid Incredible.
HTC Droid Incredible Overview
HTC has finally knocked some Sense into Android, as the HTC Droid Incredible for Verizon Wireless is the first smartphone to feature the latest Android 2.1 platform and HTC Sense tag team. Throw in a 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and a 3D chip to run the show and we've got one of the quickest phones on the market today. The HTC Droid Incredible (full specs) also got a bright 3.7-inch AMOLED screen, 8-megapixel camera with dual LED flash, and an avant-garde styling in back. We got 8GB of built-in storage and a 16GB capacity Micro SD card slot. For navigation, we're treated to a new, flickable optical joystick in addition to touchscreen Sense. Check out the HTC Droid Incredible in action:
HTC Droid Incredible Design
For the scrutinizing mobile user, the Incredible is a whopping 0.01-inch thinner than the iPhone 3GS, which will give you tons of free pocket space. It also rocks a 3.7-inch WVGA AMOLED capacitive touchscreen LCD, which is the same technology as the iPhone, except the Incredible's AMOLED technology will produce brighter colors. Not only did it produce brighter colors, but the display was crisper and easier to read. After an afternoon with the HTC Droid Incredible, looking at our iPhone screen was like going from Nintendo 64 to NES. The Incredible's Wide VGA is the new high-end resolution for both Android and Windows Mobile, and Apple is going to have to lay some more chips on the table in order to compete with this technology.
The back of the HTC Droid Incredible hits the catwalk with an asymmetrical panel design that houses the lens for the 8-megapixel camera and dual LED flash tagteam. We'll get to the photo and video analysis in a moment. This is the first time HTC has diverged from the path that caters to the average business user and focused on a topographic design aimed at style-conscious consumers as well. Keep in mind that the camera lens does not have a cover.
The rest of the Incredible's architecture is comprised of a new optical joystick/mouse pointer that enables you to flick scroll directly on the screen. The optical pointer was a nice alternative, but the Sense UI was really all we needed in most applications. As a Camera button, the optical joystick was most useful.
Integrated shortcut buttons span across the bottom of the screen to give you quick access to Home, Menu, Back, and Search. Ports consist of a 3.5mm audio jack, microUSB terminal for data transfers and charging, and a 16GB capacity Micro SD card slot that is embedded inside the phone, requiring us to remove the back panel in order to access it.
HTC Droid Incredible Sense UI
The ability to pinch and zoom while browsing was implemented on the HTC Droid Incredible. While pinching and zooming is not the latest thing on the block, we liked the fact that Sense formatted the text and columns accordingly at any zoom ratio. We also loved Leap, which allowed us to minimize all of our seven home screens into one screen with icons representing each one, obliterating the need to scroll from one side all the way to the other.
Google Voice Search worked very well, and we were jazzed about the keyboard. Most entries were recorded without any major mishaps, and we liked the ability to record a word on the spot manually in order to add our favorite slang words to the HTC dictionary for future uninterrupted usage. All of the widgets were customizable and could be transplanted onto a home screen with ease. We still got the helpful little status bar at the top, which functioned as a live feed of all of the Incredible's notifications from emails to texts to Facebook updates.
Speaking of Facebook, the HTC Droid Incredible featured Friend Stream, which clustered Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr accounts into one for a megamix of status updates, photos, and shared links across all three accounts.
HTC Droid Incredible Other Features
Call quality and reception was great. We never experienced a dropped call and voices were crisp, clear, and offered plenty of volume. Furthermore, the HTC Droid Incredible's Speaker mode was louder than the iPhone's when we compared the two. One thing to note is that the Camera sucked up 45% of the Incredible's battery after only ten minutes of intermittent usage. At the moment, we're not sure if that's a software bug or if the camera really is that demanding of power. Playing Rolling Thunder on the Incredible really showcased what the 3D chip was capable of, so we recommend downloading that game to get a sense of what this smartphone is capable of graphics wise. Overall, the HTC Droid Incredible oozed with beauty and functionality, proving to be the definitive Swiss Army Knife of the current Smartphone brigade.
HTC Droid Incredible Photo Quality
The HTC Droid Incredible's 8-megapixel camera was hit or miss when it came to still images. We shot at the largest resolution and in the highest quality—there are three settings: Normal, Fine, and High, and images can be taken at 8 M (3264 x 2448), 5 M (2592 x 1952), 3 M (2048 x 1536), 1 M (1280 x 960), and Small (640 x 480, or VGA). We found that the camera used up 45% of the phone's battery after only 10-15 minutes of continuous usage, so don't get too snap happy.
Sometimes the Droid Incredible would capture images that rivaled entry-level point-and-shoots, exhibiting minimal noise, crisp lines, and an impressive attempt at settling any dynamic range battles, which can be displayed in our first image sample. Since we had the ability to boost Saturation, Contrast, and Sharpness, we were able to obtain a stellar color palette from the HTC Droid Incredible, as evidenced in our fourth image sample. The built-in image filters were a lot of fun, giving us Grayscale, Sepia Tone, Solarize, Posterize, Negative, and Aqua to choose from.
We were forced to abandon all hope upon our analysis of the remainder of the Droid Incredible's sample images, most of which would make Georges Seurat proud. Despite the camera's sporadic need to spew minute specks of compression-laced noise all over our images, it was not Sunday on La Grande Jatte we were looking for. Some images were so engulfed by rampant noise that it looked as though we were viewing them through corrugated plastic that met up with a belt sander.
As a result, we cannot suggest the HTC Droid Incredible's camera as a viable alternative to a low-end point-and-shoot digital camera. However, if your main objective is to snap images and upload them directly to facebook, flickr, Picassa, email, or MMS, then the HTC Droid Incredible's phone will do you just fine.
While we had mixed emotions regarding the HTC Droid Incredible's still image quality, it was a unanimous collection of grumbles when it came to the phone's ability to capture decent video. There are four different resolutions to record in—WVGA (800 x 480), VGA (640 x 480), CIF (352 x 288), and QVGA (320 x 240). You can also choose between MP4 and H.263 for compression, but H.263 only offers CIF and QVGA resolutions.
So, we stuck with WVGA MP4 files and uploaded directly to YouTube. By golly Miss Molly. Compressed audio that sounded like it was being slung around in an old sock and projected from a 1920's Victrola in a stadium three miles away. Overall lack of sharpness and omnipresent noise that never really seemed to stop stalking our image. We could deal with the Standard Definition image quality, but it was the audio that really made us cringe. The good news is that we were able to record in all of the fun filters offered in Photo mode, and take advantage of the same manual controls like Brightness (Exposure), Metering, and Touch Auto Focus. Touch Auto Focus was one of the gleaming jewels in the HTC Droid Incredible's bag of photo and video tricks.
Price and release date
The HTC Droid Incredible will be available for Verizon Wireless on April 29, selling for $300 with a two-year contract. A $100 mail-in rebate will be given when signing up for a qualifying plan. Verizon Wireless will start taking pre-orders on April 19.
HTC Droid Incredible Overview
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