HTC Droid Incredible Review
HTC Droid Incredible
May 10, 2010
By Masayver
It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed a product, so this isn’t going to be Incredible or anything…just my impressions of this phone as a consumer. First a little background of where I’m coming from and my perspective. I’ve been using a Motorola i870 for the past few years with Nextel. I recently moved where I only had service in one corner of one room. Also, people always complained they couldn’t hear me and I always had to shout into the mic. Needless to say, it was time for a new phone and carrier. Update: I was originally going to post this a few days into owning the phone but then decided to slax0r so I’ve gotten much more time with my phone, so I’ll go through and add updated notes to most of the sections.
What was I looking for? I was looking for a phone that had a good internet browser that played Flash videos, played music, could be used as a GPS, could take decent pictures, was good at texting/e-mail, had decent battery life, had good voice quality/coverage, and was stable.
I didn’t like how the iPhone was locked down by default (yes, I know you can jailbreak the phone, but I just can’t be bothered to tinker with shit in my old(ish) age) and the hardware was getting a bit outdated. I didn’t want to wait for the iPhone 4 either, as my phone situation was pretty bad. I didn’t want a Windows-based phone because Windows Phone 7 is just around the corner as well (though I admin, I like the 4.3” screen of the HTC HD2). I saw the Verizon pre-release announcement for the Incredible and decided to do internet research—which, frankly, I’m glad I did, as this phone is really good. It met all my criteria except for battery life.
Specifications
- 3.7″ 480×800 WVGA OLED Touch screen
- Virtual QWERTY Keyboard
- Camera: 8MP camera w/auto–focus and video capture
- OS: Android 2.1, Google Experience Device
- Integrated Google, Exchange & Facebook contacts
- User Interface –next generation Sense UI
- Push Gmail and Exchange
- 8GB internal memory
- 1 Ghz Snapdragon processor
- Speakerphone
Exterior
There’s not much going on with the exterior of the phone. You have a Lock/Power button on top, along with 3.5” headphone jack. Volume up/down and micro USB port are on the left side. The face has the 3.7” touch screen with a Home, Menu, Back, and Search buttons that are part of the touch screen near the bottom. There is a track pad (and not a track ball, thankfully) at the bottom of the face that works, I guess; I mostly navigate the UI with finger swipes and presses. The back of the phone has a dual LED flash, speaker, and the 8MP camera. It’s worth mentioning the back has odd contours and is not flat. I’ve used various BlackBerrys for work and I can’t say the odd ergonomics of the Incredible are better or worse when you’re holding it...it just feels different. Update: I’ve been reading other reviews and I keep reading how other people think the phone feels a bit cheap (build quality). I must agree, the back cover does feel a bit flimsy…especially with the back cover off. It still feels good in my hand, though.
UI
You get seven screens which you can use to place icons and widgets on and you can navigate them with a flick of the finger or with the track pad. In addition to the seven screens, you have at least six pre-made scenes, which are basically UI profiles for those seven screens. This means you can have seven screens for a work scene, seven screens for a personal scene, seven screens for a travel scene, etc. You can also create your own scenes, which I haven’t bothered to do as the default scene worked fine for me and I customized a couple of the screens.
You get a notification bar at the top of the screen, which notifies you of text messages/e-mail, missed calls, and other important events. You can also see if GPS, Wi-Fi, and BT are turned on, 3G connectivity, signal and battery levels, alarm enabled, and the current time. I found it a bit difficult to open the notification bar at first, but then got used to it.
The Home button always takes you back to your primary (center) screen. It will also show you all seven screens at once for quicker navigation. Menu will bring up different options depending on what screen you’re on. Back will take you back a screen if appropriate in an application (like a web browser). Search will search your entire phone (and the web, if configured) for whatever phrase you type in or speak. By default, the four buttons provide haptic feedback, so the phone vibrates slightly when you press them, which is pretty neat. When you’re on the main phone screens, you also get three soft buttons at the bottom, on top of the Home, Menu, Back, and Search buttons for a list of programs on the phone, to place phone calls, and to add a widget/program/shortcut/folder to whatever screen you’re on.
Overall, the UI is pretty intuitive and smooth. Some of the widgets (like the Weather one) are really pleasing to the eye. I’m not a big fan of the on-screen keyboard in portrait mode. I find myself typing the wrong characters all the time and the suggestion engine doesn’t work well if you type a lot of slang like I do. In the landscape mode, the on screen keyboard is big enough where I don’t make many mistakes. I did find the time it takes for the phone to switch from portrait to landscape a bit annoying…it’s a bit too slow in my opinion. Whether this is a software thing or a hardware issue, I’m not sure. I think I still prefer the hardware keyboard of a BlackBerry but the QWERTY on-screen keyboard is still way faster than my i870. Texting on that phone was torture, for more reasons that the keyboard interface. Update: I found that after I calibrated the G-sensor (in the Settings, Sounds and Display) the flipping between portrait and landscape happens slightly faster…almost to the point I’m not annoyed. I think about half a second faster would be ideal.
Web Browser
Apparently the browser is based on Webkit 3.1, whatever that means. All I know is that it plays some Flash videos (I’ve seen reports of problems with various sites and I couldn’t play embedded video on Engadget) and it supports multi-touch so you can use gestures to zoom in and out. I’m still getting used to the pinching gesture and found it hard to zoom in at times, but the text usually rearranges itself at different zoom levels, which is nice. YouTube videos played fine, from what I could tell. I hear that Android 2.2 is supposed to support full Flash so we’ll see what happens later this summer. Suffice it to say, this browser is way better than the crap on my i870 and I prefer it to the browser on BlackBerry OS 4.6/5.0.
Android Market
I haven’t spent as much time as I would have liked looking at all the applications that are available on the Android Market, but I did find a few free apps I might find useful such as a VNC client and some time-wasting games. I did like a game called Robo Defense so much I already purchased it. I didn’t like how I had to set up a Google account to purchase the game. I think I read on the Help section that some carriers allow the purchase to be billed to the customer’s wireless account, which was I was used to with Nextel. I’m on Verizon and currently don’t have that option, so whatever.
Audio Quality and Media Player
I don’t talk on the phone much and only spoke to a friend who uses an iPhone. He sounded very tinny and I don’t know if that’s my phone’s fault or his, or neither. I used both the speaker phone and the handset and he seemed to hear me fine. Music sounded acceptable from the speaker as long as the volume wasn’t turned up all the way. There is a radio app that works if you have headphones/ear buds installed. Reception was okay, but I was inside and live in a garden unit so I’m halfway underground so didn’t pick up a lot of stations. The standard music player can organize your music in a few standard ways. I kind of prefer how the BlackBerrys I’ve used have the Back/Play/Forward as external keys for more discrete playback and faster interaction. You can press Back/Play/Forward when the phone is locked, but have to do so from the touch screen. I found it hard to figure out how to play a video file. You must go into “Photos” app to find your VIDEOS…WTF? Had they just called it “Photos/Videos” or “Media” it would have made it much easier to find and I wouldn’t have had to resort to a Google search to figure it out. Video playback was smooth. I converted an .avi Top Gear episode into an mp4 using ConvertAVItoMP4. Overall, nothing bad to report regarding to hardware.
GPS
I had the unfortunate opportunity to head to the local (Chicagoland) DMV to get a new driver’s license and used the Google Maps turn-by-turn directions to get there. It worked flawlessly, but was a bit awkward to use without a stand. I hope someone releases a different back plate allows the phone to be mounted to a stand or windshield suction cup/arm thingy. I’d also recommend you use a car charger for extended trips as the GPS drained the battery fairly quickly. Update: I used the GPS again coming home from work and was delighted to see that Google traffic came up on some of the busier freeways and streets. That’s freaking awesome…free traffic-aware maps.
Camera
The 8MP camera takes decent still pictures. The pictures can get grainy certain conditions but the flash usually does a decent job in low-light scenarios. Videos I took were a little choppy and the camera is a little slow to adjust to different brightness levels. I’d say the video capture is good enough to capture a semi-important social event that needs to be uploaded to the Tube of You. You’ll probably be able to leave the point-and-shoot camera at home or maybe leave it in the car on the next social outing.
Stability
I’ve not had any hard lock ups in the three days I’ve been using the phone. In case you didn’t know, Android is based on Linux and we all know how stable Linux is, right? I have experienced a couple issues with the camera, however. When I took a couple pictures the application froze and did not save the last picture taken. I had to hit the Home button and then re-open the camera application to take another picture. There are reports of some people having random or constant reboots with their Incredibles and another report shows that an OTA software upgrade is already available to some customers. I did not experience any reboots and when I check for a software update my phone tells me I’m at the latest version, which is not the latest one shown in the previous link, so it might be a geographical anomaly. Update: I did receive an update to my phone (I think last week), though I’ve read reports that it was to fix other issues not related to the rebooting problem some people experienced.
Battery Life
The battery life is terrible on this phone. It won’t make it through a day with moderate use without a recharge. By moderate, I mean playing music, surfing the web, taking a couple pictures, and texting. I do have between one and two bars of reception in my place, so that might be part of the problem. Don’t try to use the voice recognition too much, either. I was trying it out while chatting with Tiger and the phone got pretty warm on the back and battery life took a hit. We found the phone likes to censor (or doesn’t understand) swear words. I have also discovered an addictive game called Robo Defense, which drains the battery pretty quickly. I’ve already found and ordered an extended battery (1750 mAh), though it won’t match the red internals of the phone (not that it matters much with the back cover on). Update: I just received the extended battery today (my delivery was delayed), so unfortunately I won’t have any extended battery comments in time for this review. If it’s amazingly different, I might update this section again.
Summary
I ended up typing more than I cared to type about this phone, but still feel like there is more to say. I like the phone a lot and the biggest downside is the battery life. Based on the previews I saw on the net, I wasn’t expecting it to die so quickly and it makes me wonder what other people use their phone for…especially if they’re reviewing the phone. I hope the extended battery I ordered gets me through one day without needing a mid-day charge. Reviewers of the battery say they get almost twice as much life over the stock battery. I would prefer a slide out physical keyboard over an on-screen one and wouldn’t mind the added extra thickness it would probably bring. However, I think we’re about one more generation of phone away before we can say we have an all-in-one phone, camera, GPS, music/video player, portable gaming device. The Incredible is a nice stepping stone to that versatile personal device.
I picked up my phone from Best Buy for $200 (no need to wait for a mail-in-rebate) and got a Zagg screen protector from them as well for $10. I don’t normally buy things from Best Buy because they are expensive, but in this case, the exception was worth it. I don’t like how it didn’t come with a micro SD card (I heard it was supposed to come with a 2 GB card, but did not see anywhere on the box saying it did come with a card) and how I had to spend another $50 on the extended battery. I’ll also have to spend another $20 on a car charger which may not mean anything to those who already have a micro USB car charger. I’m happy with my purchase and would recommend the phone to people who anyone even contemplating getting the phone. Just make sure you get another battery or have a way to charge the battery if you’re a power user. Update: I’ve been comparing my phone to an iPhone a friend at work has and the Incredible is just better in terms of usability and little features. I was able to map directions to a restaurant faster than him, the web browser is better than the iPhone’s, opening programs is faster on the Incredible…the Incredible is just better than the iPhone 3G in more ways than it’s not. I really do hope the next iPhone is better than the Incredible as it should push HTC and Google to try and make their future phones better. I hope the upcoming generations of smart phones focus on battery life and increased functionality.