Droid Incredible Review

This Droid Incredible Review will give you a look inside what HTC’s Incredible smartphone offers, and how it compares with competition. But before going further, please note that all US residents can have a shot at a FREE Motorola Droid Incredible for a limited time by clicking here. Nothing to lose… Have a good read!

Responsiveness and fluidity of the interface

What’s really striking about this mobile the first time you use it is the performance of the operating system. The phone is very fluid and you can switch from one application to another without slowing down. On top of that, the new HTC Sense graphics overlay makes the whole the experience of Android 2.2 a lot better, without impacting at all on the performance and speed.

The phone is capable of handling this overlay with a Snapdragon 1 GHz processor from Qualcomm. The screen offers a very beautiful color rendition for both videos and pictures. HTC has opted for a size of 4 inches and a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels. We can comfortably read a digital book, surf the web without too much scrolling or use the zoom function … On the technology side, HTC has used the Super LCD and not the AMOLED. Thus, The brightness is excellent, which allows you to read the screen even in direct sunlight.

HTC Sense: a customizable and practical system

HTC’s graphics overlay is especially useful to customize your phone for your own needs. You use your phone a lot for music and videos? All you need to do is choose a multimedia theme so that your 5 home pages become shortcuts to your favorite music, personal photos or your favorite pages on the Internet. You’re more into texting, Twitter and Facebook? The social theme locates automatically these functions and sets them up on your home page.

We can even combine all the functions and move regularly from one theme to another. For example, if you use your phone for both work and personal, you can split your contact names and details in 2 different themes. The same can be done for applications, games, videos, everything…

In the same topic, you can create your own shortcuts to anything you want: to an application, to a phone function, to a widget, to a folder… This customization to the extreme gives you a phone that suits you, and it’s very pleasant.

HTC Sense has two specific applications: HTC Hub is a boutique to enhance the customization options of the phone, and HTC Likes is a program offering a selection of practical applications for your phone, just to get lost in the Android Market and its thousands of applications.

Camera and Internet browsing

The Incredible is also distinguished by its high quality camera. The sensor has a very good autofocus, which greatly limits the blur caused by movement of the subject, a feature that most other camera smartphones do not usually have. The color balance is quite wrong, however, and depends on your exposure and ambient light. The sensor is very sensitive to light, and tends to overexpose dark scenes. But overall, the images obtained are not too damaged by the different light sources. The overall quality of pictures is good, but without reaching the level of mid-range digital camera.

We also appreciate the function of automatic face detection. The camera places the autofocus on the person you want to photograph, and you can then move the frame. One can also focus manually by pressing a displayed item on screen. The presence of a two LEDs flash (three levels of intensity), a zoom and automatic functions (dark edges, vintage effects, sepia …) makes the incredible belong to the best camera smartphones.

On the Internet, the browser is responsive and good readability is guaranteed when holding the phone horizontally. Videos in Flash (eg Youtube) are managed, as well as banner ads (unfortunately).

Other phone features

Droid Incredible has a media player that can handle audio and video formats. Aac,. Amr. Ogg,. M4a,. Mid,. Mp3, wav.. Wma, .3 gp, .3 g2,. Mp4,. wmv (Windows Media Video 9). avi (ASP MP4 and MP3). Xvid (MP4 and MP3 ASP). The phone has a GPS chip, and can be used as a tool for location-based or calculation of routes through the Android navigation application. Geolocation tools are used to find bars and restaurants, the closest shopping centers, points of interest (monuments, parks …), shops, gas stations, parking places, hotels or the nearest hospitals.

There is also a function camcorder, tape recorder and FM radio.

Our opinion

Droid Incredible is probably one of the best Android Phone at the time. Powerful, responsive, it is large but thin and relatively light considering its size (135 grams). Its main default is probably related to the autonomy of the battery (1 day and a half day in standard use), but this problem concerns all smartphones. Readability is good on the Internet and video, and AFN offers nice enough snaps with its autofocus.

We especially appreciate the HTC Sense interface which offers shortcuts to phone features and applications that interest you most, and customization to the extreme of the interface. In our opinion, it is more pleasant to use daily that the Nexus S, even if it’s using Android 2.3.3.