My OperaThe INCREDIBLE Review
Wednesday, April 28, 2010 11:37:47 PM
It's thin, sleek and powerful. But is it really Incredible?
Let me start by saying that I am a lover of all things electronic. I've been scoffed at for the ownership of a ZUNE and I've been scoffed at for the ownership of an iTouch. But this morning at 7AM, I picked up one of the first HTC Droid INCREDIBLE handsets from the Verizon Wireless store in town and I doubt I'll get scoffed at for carrying this piece of fine art around. But 12 hours in, the honeymoon stage is already over and it is obvious that while Google and HTC have done an excellent job, there is still some work to be done.
If you don't know already, the HTC Incredible is the latest in a slew of super-powered Android phones to hit the market. It sports a 1GHZ Snapdragon processor, 8GB of internal memory, a ridiculously vibrant touch-screen and a whopping 8 megapixel camera. It comes with Android 2.1 and HTC's Sense UI on top to smooth out the rough edges. All of this is railed on Verizon's CDMA network which is arguably the best in the nation.
All of that sounds good on paper but how well does it all come together? The answer is a complex one. The INCREDIBLE has a terrible habit of performing feats of pure phone genius one moment and then doing things in the next that simply don't make sense. This process isn't more evident than in the voice recognition features of Android 2.1.
Press a button, say something like "Papa Johns pizza, Syracuse New York" and viola, the INCREDIBLE gives you exactly what you're looking for. The voice recognition is so good in fact, that I kept increasing the complexity of my verbiage just to see how far I could take it. The software finally failed when I threw, "terrible transvestites titillate triple tempura" at it. In all honesty though, it is without a doubt the best speech recognition software I've ever had the pleasure of using.
Unfortunately, after finding Papa Johns spot on, you have to click no less than five buttons to get directions to said location. It's cumbersome, unnecessary and simply annoying. This is a theme that repeats itself throughout the software. The hardware isn't without it's problems either. Sure the back of the phone looks cool; unfortunately the camera lens is the highest level item on the surface and doesn't come with a lens cap, so any time you set your phone on a surface face-up, the lens rubs against it. Only time will tell if the material is affected by this or if it can stand up to it just fine but it's a simple design flaw nonetheless.
Hardware: The HTC Incredible is simply put, a hardware work of art. It's fast, sleek and put together very well. I'd love to see a lens cap though.
Software: Android + Google Cloud + App Marketplace = Awesome. Better control of the software stack would allow a more seamless user experience though and certain features simply feel clunky. This is contrasted by apps that look beautiful, run great and put other apps of their type on other devices to shame. It is difficult as a user to reconcile these two facts.
Overall: The HTC Incredible is a fantastic phone with a fantastic carrier. While it is hard to find many flaws with it, there are some, just as there are with any device. Users looking for a powerful smart-phone on Big Red have an easy decision to make. Those of you who are less concerned about carrier might want to hold your cash a few months and see what the EVO turns out like as well as other offerings coming out this year from Microsoft, Dell and others. For more detailed reviews, head over to any of the links below.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/19/droid-incredible-review/
http://gizmodo.com/5520071/htc-droid-incredible-review-more-like-impressive
http://www.infosyncworld.com/reviews/cell-phones/htc-droid-incredible/10909.html
Let me start by saying that I am a lover of all things electronic. I've been scoffed at for the ownership of a ZUNE and I've been scoffed at for the ownership of an iTouch. But this morning at 7AM, I picked up one of the first HTC Droid INCREDIBLE handsets from the Verizon Wireless store in town and I doubt I'll get scoffed at for carrying this piece of fine art around. But 12 hours in, the honeymoon stage is already over and it is obvious that while Google and HTC have done an excellent job, there is still some work to be done.
If you don't know already, the HTC Incredible is the latest in a slew of super-powered Android phones to hit the market. It sports a 1GHZ Snapdragon processor, 8GB of internal memory, a ridiculously vibrant touch-screen and a whopping 8 megapixel camera. It comes with Android 2.1 and HTC's Sense UI on top to smooth out the rough edges. All of this is railed on Verizon's CDMA network which is arguably the best in the nation.
All of that sounds good on paper but how well does it all come together? The answer is a complex one. The INCREDIBLE has a terrible habit of performing feats of pure phone genius one moment and then doing things in the next that simply don't make sense. This process isn't more evident than in the voice recognition features of Android 2.1.
Press a button, say something like "Papa Johns pizza, Syracuse New York" and viola, the INCREDIBLE gives you exactly what you're looking for. The voice recognition is so good in fact, that I kept increasing the complexity of my verbiage just to see how far I could take it. The software finally failed when I threw, "terrible transvestites titillate triple tempura" at it. In all honesty though, it is without a doubt the best speech recognition software I've ever had the pleasure of using.
Unfortunately, after finding Papa Johns spot on, you have to click no less than five buttons to get directions to said location. It's cumbersome, unnecessary and simply annoying. This is a theme that repeats itself throughout the software. The hardware isn't without it's problems either. Sure the back of the phone looks cool; unfortunately the camera lens is the highest level item on the surface and doesn't come with a lens cap, so any time you set your phone on a surface face-up, the lens rubs against it. Only time will tell if the material is affected by this or if it can stand up to it just fine but it's a simple design flaw nonetheless.
Hardware: The HTC Incredible is simply put, a hardware work of art. It's fast, sleek and put together very well. I'd love to see a lens cap though.
Software: Android + Google Cloud + App Marketplace = Awesome. Better control of the software stack would allow a more seamless user experience though and certain features simply feel clunky. This is contrasted by apps that look beautiful, run great and put other apps of their type on other devices to shame. It is difficult as a user to reconcile these two facts.
Overall: The HTC Incredible is a fantastic phone with a fantastic carrier. While it is hard to find many flaws with it, there are some, just as there are with any device. Users looking for a powerful smart-phone on Big Red have an easy decision to make. Those of you who are less concerned about carrier might want to hold your cash a few months and see what the EVO turns out like as well as other offerings coming out this year from Microsoft, Dell and others. For more detailed reviews, head over to any of the links below.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/19/droid-incredible-review/
http://gizmodo.com/5520071/htc-droid-incredible-review-more-like-impressive
http://www.infosyncworld.com/reviews/cell-phones/htc-droid-incredible/10909.html
