HTC DROID INCREDIBLE 4G LTE hands-on

HTC DROID INCREDIBLE 4G LTE hands-on

One phone. One name. 22 capital letters. Verizon Wireless announced launch details for its first One-series HTC phone on Monday morning, and the upcoming HTC DROID INCREDIBLE 4G LTE arrived at our offices shortly thereafter. Verizon’s version of the HTC One S — which just so happens to be my favorite Android smartphone at the moment — features a number of key changes compared to the original model. For one thing, it includes 4G LTE connectivity for use on Verizon Wireless’s lightning-fast 4G network. For another, it’s pretty ugly.

The DROID INCREDIBLE 4G LTE trades the One S’s remarkably slim unibody aluminum body for a stubby case that feels very thick in the hand despite measuring 11.7 millimeters around the waist. The added thickness (HTC’s One S is just 7.8 millimeters thick) completely changes the look and feel of the phone, but it was likely a necessity in order to accommodate the 4G LTE radio.

This latest addition to Verizon’s DROID INCREDIBLE lineup also won’t be winning any beauty pageants any time soon. It’s not the ugliest smartphone I’ve seen in recent history, but the asymmetrical design on the back of the device is a bit jarring at first, as was the case with other Incredible phones. Most of the rear case is made of soft-touch rubbery material that feels great in the hand, but one single corner carries the glossy hard plastic from the phone’s bezel to the back of the phone. It’s unique, but very odd.
Moving past superficial matters of taste, the new INCREDIBLE fits right in among the high end of mid-range Android smartphones of late. The phone features a 4-inch Super LCD display in place of the One S’s Super AMOLED panel, but the resolution sits at the same 540 x 960 pixels. Since the DROID INCREDIBLE 4G LTE display measures 4 inches diagonally, however, the screen comes in at 275 pixels per inch compared to 256 ppi on the One S. The result is a display that is slightly sharper than T-Mobile’s version of the phone, but the colors aren’t quite as vibrant.

The 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon chipset is a bit slower than the 1.5GHz model used in the One S, but any difference in terms of performance is not distinguishable. The DROID INCREDIBLE 4G LTE uses the same fantastic 8-megapixel camera and ImageSense software as the One S and One X, and it also runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich as well as the latest version of the HTC Sense 4 UI and service layer. Also of note, this phone features Beats audio tuning but does not ship with any headphones, Beats-branded or otherwise.

I’ll have plenty more to discuss in my upcoming DROID INCREDIBLE 4G LTE review but in the meantime, be sure to check out the photo gallery linked above. Verizon’s latest HTC smartphone launches on July 5th for $149.99 on contract after a $50 mail-in rebate.

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HTC DROID INCREDIBLE 4G LTE hands-on

HTC DROID INCREDIBLE 4G LTE hands-on

One phone. One name. 22 capital letters. Verizon Wireless announced launch details for its first One-series HTC phone on Monday morning, and the upcoming HTC DROID INCREDIBLE 4G LTE arrived at our offices shortly thereafter. Verizon’s version of the HTC One S — which just so happens to be my favorite Android smartphone at the moment — features a number of key changes compared to the original model. For one thing, it includes 4G LTE connectivity for use on Verizon Wireless’s lightning-fast 4G network. For another, it’s pretty ugly.

The DROID INCREDIBLE 4G LTE trades the One S’s remarkably slim unibody aluminum body for a stubby case that feels very thick in the hand despite measuring 11.7 millimeters around the waist. The added thickness (HTC’s One S is just 7.8 millimeters thick) completely changes the look and feel of the phone, but it was likely a necessity in order to accommodate the 4G LTE radio.

This latest addition to Verizon’s DROID INCREDIBLE lineup also won’t be winning any beauty pageants any time soon. It’s not the ugliest smartphone I’ve seen in recent history, but the asymmetrical design on the back of the device is a bit jarring at first, as was the case with other Incredible phones. Most of the rear case is made of soft-touch rubbery material that feels great in the hand, but one single corner carries the glossy hard plastic from the phone’s bezel to the back of the phone. It’s unique, but very odd.
Moving past superficial matters of taste, the new INCREDIBLE fits right in among the high end of mid-range Android smartphones of late. The phone features a 4-inch Super LCD display in place of the One S’s Super AMOLED panel, but the resolution sits at the same 540 x 960 pixels. Since the DROID INCREDIBLE 4G LTE display measures 4 inches diagonally, however, the screen comes in at 275 pixels per inch compared to 256 ppi on the One S. The result is a display that is slightly sharper than T-Mobile’s version of the phone, but the colors aren’t quite as vibrant.

The 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon chipset is a bit slower than the 1.5GHz model used in the One S, but any difference in terms of performance is not distinguishable. The DROID INCREDIBLE 4G LTE uses the same fantastic 8-megapixel camera and ImageSense software as the One S and One X, and it also runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich as well as the latest version of the HTC Sense 4 UI and service layer. Also of note, this phone features Beats audio tuning but does not ship with any headphones, Beats-branded or otherwise.

I’ll have plenty more to discuss in my upcoming DROID INCREDIBLE 4G LTE review but in the meantime, be sure to check out the photo gallery linked above. Verizon’s latest HTC smartphone launches on July 5th for $149.99 on contract after a $50 mail-in rebate.

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HTC One V Now Available on Virgin Mobile

 HTC One V Now Available on Virgin Mobile

The sleek looking HTC One V is now available on Virgin Mobile in the US. It may be an entry level phone, but it’s packing the beautiful Ice Cream Sandwich firmware with HTC’s Sense UI. The build quality looks superb and has that wonderful design that reminds me of the HTC Legend. The One V is available for a contract-free price of $199 which is not too bad at all for the quality of a phone you’re getting. Any Virgin Mobile users out there thinking of picking this up? You can also check hands on video of the One V at CTIA to help you make your decision.
source: Virgin Mobile

HTC One V Now Available on Virgin Mobile

 HTC One V Now Available on Virgin Mobile

The sleek looking HTC One V is now available on Virgin Mobile in the US. It may be an entry level phone, but it’s packing the beautiful Ice Cream Sandwich firmware with HTC’s Sense UI. The build quality looks superb and has that wonderful design that reminds me of the HTC Legend. The One V is available for a contract-free price of $199 which is not too bad at all for the quality of a phone you’re getting. Any Virgin Mobile users out there thinking of picking this up? You can also check hands on video of the One V at CTIA to help you make your decision.
source: Virgin Mobile

HTC One Note Rival the Galaxy Note II

 While the web is abuzz with the HTC One XXL handset, we present you a phablet made by HTC, obviously in concept phase. Hasan Kaymak created the HTC One Note, a rival for the Galaxy Note II, with some very realistic expectations and specifications.

The device comes with a 1080p LG True IPS display, a Qualcomm S4 processor, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, 4G connectivity and a special Pen, like the S Pen from Samsung. The new stylus here uses magnetic field and the display at the same time. Other specs of the HTC One Note include a 3.520 mAh Li-Ion battery, wireless charging, an 8 megapixel camera with 60 fps capture and dual LED flash. USB 2.0 and 3.0 connectivity is here and the OS of choice is Android Jelly bean (aka Android 4.1) with HTC Sense 4.0.
A good thing is that you can deactivate HTC Sense UI if you want. Obviously you have Beats Audio speakers and a new Music feature, for a new way of listening to tunes – shake the smartablet to post the song on your Twitter/Facebook account. And finally, there’s a HTC Voice app, that allows you to control features on the device. So, which name would suit this product better: HTC One Note or the HTC One XXL?

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HTC One Note Rival the Galaxy Note II

 While the web is abuzz with the HTC One XXL handset, we present you a phablet made by HTC, obviously in concept phase. Hasan Kaymak created the HTC One Note, a rival for the Galaxy Note II, with some very realistic expectations and specifications.

The device comes with a 1080p LG True IPS display, a Qualcomm S4 processor, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, 4G connectivity and a special Pen, like the S Pen from Samsung. The new stylus here uses magnetic field and the display at the same time. Other specs of the HTC One Note include a 3.520 mAh Li-Ion battery, wireless charging, an 8 megapixel camera with 60 fps capture and dual LED flash. USB 2.0 and 3.0 connectivity is here and the OS of choice is Android Jelly bean (aka Android 4.1) with HTC Sense 4.0.
A good thing is that you can deactivate HTC Sense UI if you want. Obviously you have Beats Audio speakers and a new Music feature, for a new way of listening to tunes – shake the smartablet to post the song on your Twitter/Facebook account. And finally, there’s a HTC Voice app, that allows you to control features on the device. So, which name would suit this product better: HTC One Note or the HTC One XXL?

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HTC Desire C Review

With Nokia switching most of their efforts to Windows Phone there’s very few “featurephones” coming onto the market. It’s left the door open for cheaper Android smartphones which, despite dropping a few specs here and there, still give owners access into the dizzying array of apps and games within Google Play.
Equipped with a 3.5″ HVGA screen, 512MB of memory, a 5 megapixel camera, WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, Android 4.0.3 and HTC Sense 4.0, this runs on a 600MHz CPU. Yeah, I know – 600MHz. It might seem a little slow, but the HTC Sense interface seems to work well enough and I didn’t jitter a great deal.
Made from polycarbonate, the red-coloured rear and outer section feels both tough and smooth – I liked the thin silver border around the screen too, it gave it an air of quality.
Around back, that 5 megapixel camera with fixed focus. No flash here, but it seemed to deal with low-light well enough and even if you’re snapping shots in the pub they should come out reasonably well. It was responsive too, taking shots quickly and offering up some of the same filters we saw on the HTC One range. Video quality only cranked up as high as 640×480 unfortunately, so don’t expect your childs sports day to come out in glorious HD.

To the left of the main camera is the external speaker.
On the top of the handset, the power key for waking the device and a 3.5mm audio port for your headphones. The Beats Audio technology is in the phone and it should make music sound “as the artist intended” but unfortunately there’s no free “Beats” headphones included – only standard ones. That said, the music does sound better with the Beats technology turned on.

The microUSB is to the left, and on the bottom edge there’s the microphone.

On the right side of the phone there’s the volume up and down key – this is colour coded. Unfortunately there’s no dedicated camera key.

The touch-sensitive buttons up front let you move back, home and finally switch programs and apps easily.

The earpiece has those tiny drilled holes, just like the HTC One range. Again, this gives it a real air of quality.

So as you can see the build quality and design of the Desire C is pretty much spot on. In length it’s about the same as your average wallet – 107.2 x 60.6 x 11.95mm – and also reminds you of the Wildfire S quite a lot and doesn’t feel cheap at all.
Inside
There’s 4GB of on-board storage and a microSD card slot under the rear panel for additional room. As with most of the new HTC devices there’s also 25GB of cloud storage via Dropbox, so you can send shots directly over the WiFi or 3G to the “cloud”.
The 600MHz processor does a fairly good job of running Ice Cream Sandwich and the HTC Sense GUI, with only mild stutter when you’re running several apps and trying to push things a little too far (which us geeks tend to do in these reviews). It’s Android, so all your contacts are sync’d and if you’re moving from another Android you’ll find that everything comes with you. The Desire C can pull in contacts from other places too, such as Facebook, but you can also store your contacts on either the phone or in the Google cloud – ideal if you ever lose your phone. The Google Calendar does the same – add a meeting on your phone and it’ll sync with your Google Apps or Google account to remind you and keep your life in check.

The Sense 4.0 interface and the Android “tabs” will let you drag shortcuts, widgets and apps to your main screen and position them as you se fit. A long-press on the screen will take you into the selection of either widgets, apps or shorcuts and you can search through them with a search function too. It’ll show you how big each widget is too, so you know in advance if it’s going to fit in the position you’d like.
Apps include Adobe Reader, Facebook, Google+ and an FM radio. You’ll need the headphones connected for this to work as it’ll use the cable as an antenna. The programs list is devided up into “All, Frequent, Downloads” so that you can quickly access the most frequently-used apps without getting lost in a sea of other games and shortcuts. HTC also have quick-access to the Play Store at the top of the screen and a search function so that you can seek out that all-important app even if you have thousands to choose from. In addition you’ll also be able to sort, manage (remove or clear the cache) and even rearrange the afore-mentioned tabs. You can also share your favourite apps with friends.



HTC have added their Friend Stream app. Facebook have, if I’m honest, made their own app so good now that this really isn’t needed any more, but you can have a Friend Stream widget on the main screen which looks pretty nice and this also ties in with Flickr.
The browser is, as with all Android handsets, pretty spot-on. You can double-tap to zoom in on text and it’ll instantly re-arrange the words to fit on the screen. Although it’s a slightly lower-resolution screen you still manage to fit a whole site on one screen and there isn’t a great deal of “blurring” as higher resolution parts try and squeeze onto the screen.

The main lock screen, like of HTC devices, lets you hop straight into the most regularly used apps – you can dive straight into the camera. Once you’re into the phone you can quickly personalise the handset with your own background, lock screen and a dizzying array of sounds for ringtones and email / text sounds.

HTC Desire C Camera examples

Conclusion
The HTC Desire C is currenly selling unlocked for around £189, and meanwhile you can get the all-new HTC One V for £230. Although there’s a £50 difference I’d definitely hunt around for some good deals or save the £50. Sure, the HTC Desire C is a great budget phone and I won’t criticise anyone who buys it – it’s easy to customise, great to look at, sturdy and easy to use. The HTC One V however has a 1GHz CPU, 3.7″ screen and a better camera with flash.
Overall, if you can get a good deal on the HTC Desire (have a look in our mobile deals section) then the Desire C is a decent enough budget smartphone. Camera quality was fairly OK, but not great. The CPU wasn’t perhaps as fast as it needed to be at times. However, the Beats Audio technology was a nice addition and the Sense interface seemed to run smooth enough for the most part and the screen was decent enough to deal with everything we threw at it.
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HTC Desire C Review

With Nokia switching most of their efforts to Windows Phone there’s very few “featurephones” coming onto the market. It’s left the door open for cheaper Android smartphones which, despite dropping a few specs here and there, still give owners access into the dizzying array of apps and games within Google Play.
Equipped with a 3.5″ HVGA screen, 512MB of memory, a 5 megapixel camera, WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, Android 4.0.3 and HTC Sense 4.0, this runs on a 600MHz CPU. Yeah, I know – 600MHz. It might seem a little slow, but the HTC Sense interface seems to work well enough and I didn’t jitter a great deal.
Made from polycarbonate, the red-coloured rear and outer section feels both tough and smooth – I liked the thin silver border around the screen too, it gave it an air of quality.
Around back, that 5 megapixel camera with fixed focus. No flash here, but it seemed to deal with low-light well enough and even if you’re snapping shots in the pub they should come out reasonably well. It was responsive too, taking shots quickly and offering up some of the same filters we saw on the HTC One range. Video quality only cranked up as high as 640×480 unfortunately, so don’t expect your childs sports day to come out in glorious HD.

To the left of the main camera is the external speaker.
On the top of the handset, the power key for waking the device and a 3.5mm audio port for your headphones. The Beats Audio technology is in the phone and it should make music sound “as the artist intended” but unfortunately there’s no free “Beats” headphones included – only standard ones. That said, the music does sound better with the Beats technology turned on.

The microUSB is to the left, and on the bottom edge there’s the microphone.

On the right side of the phone there’s the volume up and down key – this is colour coded. Unfortunately there’s no dedicated camera key.

The touch-sensitive buttons up front let you move back, home and finally switch programs and apps easily.

The earpiece has those tiny drilled holes, just like the HTC One range. Again, this gives it a real air of quality.

So as you can see the build quality and design of the Desire C is pretty much spot on. In length it’s about the same as your average wallet – 107.2 x 60.6 x 11.95mm – and also reminds you of the Wildfire S quite a lot and doesn’t feel cheap at all.
Inside
There’s 4GB of on-board storage and a microSD card slot under the rear panel for additional room. As with most of the new HTC devices there’s also 25GB of cloud storage via Dropbox, so you can send shots directly over the WiFi or 3G to the “cloud”.
The 600MHz processor does a fairly good job of running Ice Cream Sandwich and the HTC Sense GUI, with only mild stutter when you’re running several apps and trying to push things a little too far (which us geeks tend to do in these reviews). It’s Android, so all your contacts are sync’d and if you’re moving from another Android you’ll find that everything comes with you. The Desire C can pull in contacts from other places too, such as Facebook, but you can also store your contacts on either the phone or in the Google cloud – ideal if you ever lose your phone. The Google Calendar does the same – add a meeting on your phone and it’ll sync with your Google Apps or Google account to remind you and keep your life in check.

The Sense 4.0 interface and the Android “tabs” will let you drag shortcuts, widgets and apps to your main screen and position them as you se fit. A long-press on the screen will take you into the selection of either widgets, apps or shorcuts and you can search through them with a search function too. It’ll show you how big each widget is too, so you know in advance if it’s going to fit in the position you’d like.
Apps include Adobe Reader, Facebook, Google+ and an FM radio. You’ll need the headphones connected for this to work as it’ll use the cable as an antenna. The programs list is devided up into “All, Frequent, Downloads” so that you can quickly access the most frequently-used apps without getting lost in a sea of other games and shortcuts. HTC also have quick-access to the Play Store at the top of the screen and a search function so that you can seek out that all-important app even if you have thousands to choose from. In addition you’ll also be able to sort, manage (remove or clear the cache) and even rearrange the afore-mentioned tabs. You can also share your favourite apps with friends.



HTC have added their Friend Stream app. Facebook have, if I’m honest, made their own app so good now that this really isn’t needed any more, but you can have a Friend Stream widget on the main screen which looks pretty nice and this also ties in with Flickr.
The browser is, as with all Android handsets, pretty spot-on. You can double-tap to zoom in on text and it’ll instantly re-arrange the words to fit on the screen. Although it’s a slightly lower-resolution screen you still manage to fit a whole site on one screen and there isn’t a great deal of “blurring” as higher resolution parts try and squeeze onto the screen.

The main lock screen, like of HTC devices, lets you hop straight into the most regularly used apps – you can dive straight into the camera. Once you’re into the phone you can quickly personalise the handset with your own background, lock screen and a dizzying array of sounds for ringtones and email / text sounds.

HTC Desire C Camera examples

Conclusion
The HTC Desire C is currenly selling unlocked for around £189, and meanwhile you can get the all-new HTC One V for £230. Although there’s a £50 difference I’d definitely hunt around for some good deals or save the £50. Sure, the HTC Desire C is a great budget phone and I won’t criticise anyone who buys it – it’s easy to customise, great to look at, sturdy and easy to use. The HTC One V however has a 1GHz CPU, 3.7″ screen and a better camera with flash.
Overall, if you can get a good deal on the HTC Desire (have a look in our mobile deals section) then the Desire C is a decent enough budget smartphone. Camera quality was fairly OK, but not great. The CPU wasn’t perhaps as fast as it needed to be at times. However, the Beats Audio technology was a nice addition and the Sense interface seemed to run smooth enough for the most part and the screen was decent enough to deal with everything we threw at it.
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HTC One XXL is a 5.4 Inch Galaxy Note Rival

 While people are dreaming about the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, we take some time off and dream about a rival for that made by HTC. And here comes Hasan Kaymak, envisioning said HTC concept, that he turned into the following design: HTC One XXL. Let’s see what this is all about…

The HTC One XXL comes with a 5.4 inch Full HD display, 2 GB of RAM and 32 GB of ROM, plus a microSD card slot with support for 64GB more. Inside we have an Nvidia penta core processor, a pretty big and impressive 2750 mAh Li-Ion battery with wireless charging and Android 5.0 Jellybean with HTC Sense 4.0. All of these are realistic specs, so nothing sci-fi here. We could even see a model like this being announced before the summer is over. LG announced a full HD 5 inch display today and put big pressure on HTC and Samsung to deliver something new in the 5 inch device area.
I like the One XXL, as it borrows from the One Series personality and supersizes everything for a better experience. There’s also a cool new feature: the ability to slide from left to right to open your AppWall, using the capacitive button area at the bottom. Would you buy a HTC Note-style device or would you wait for the Galaxy Note 2?

 

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