Review: HTC Droid Incredible
Screen
The Incredible has a 3.7-inch AMOLED display that packs in 480 x 800 pixels. It looks great. Colors are rich and text, icons and graphics are smooth. Finding rough, pixelated edges anywhere is a challenge. Indoors, it looks fantastic, and outside it was surprisingly readable. The Droid is awful outdoors, the Incredible is a great improvement there. It isn't going to boggle your mind, but it is usable, and that's more than we can say for most displays when out catching some rays.
Signal
Signal was sorta iffy with the Incredible, much to my dismay. Sitting next to a Droid, the Incredible captured 2 bars to the Droid's 5, or 1 bar to the Droid's 3. It always stayed connected to Verizon's EVDO 3G network, though, and didn't drop down to Verizon's 1X network in the time that I tested it. In the real world, it didn't drop any calls, nor did I miss any. Some data sessions gave me serious hang time, though, and stalled when loading some web pages. Troubling.
Sound
Phone calls with the Incredible were crystal clear. I had no problem hearing people, and they had no problem hearing me. I didn't run into any interference or weird noises. The earpiece was reasonably loud. With the volume set all the way up, it is more than enough to overcome noise in a car or taxi. The speakerphone was also loud enough. It will work well in a closed office or in a bedroom as you scurry about, though don't expect it to be able to fill an executive board room. Ringtones and alerts were just barely loud enough. I didn't miss any calls, but I wouldn't be surprised if you pulled the Incredible out of your pocket to find a missed call — not from signal issues, but because you didn't hear it.
Battery
The Incredible is a highly connected device. Not only does it offer 3G, but it also has Bluetooth, GPS and Wi-Fi radios stuffed in there. It needs a lot of juice to run. You're going to have to plug it in every night. I easily chewed through the battery in a single day, especially with HTC's FriendStream software running. Most users should get a full 16- to 18-hour day out of it, but power users might run into trouble at the end of the day. Unfortunately, this is simply how phones like the Incredible behave.
Verizon Wireless Launches New Droid, HTC Droid Incredible
HTC Droid Incredible
