Before I get into the meat of my review, let me preface it by telling you that I’m a card carrying Apple ballwasher of the highest order.
Yes, I’m one of “those people” who turn their nose up at anything that’s a P.C., I look forward to Steve Jobs’ press conferences like they’re the Superbowl, and I will not budge on my stance that Apple’s iPhone is the greatest cellphone ever produced, and it will never be topped by any company no matter how hard they try.
Apparently, I was very, VERY wrong.
After about a week of use, I have no doubt in my mind that the HTC Incredible is the fastest, most user friendly cellphone I’ve ever gotten my mitts on, and, it destroys my iPhone 3G.
*Feels awful for betraying my beloved, but now slow as a snail iPhone*
The HTC Incredible is so lightning fast, thanks to its 1GHz Snapdragon processor.
This means that everything, from watching YouTube videos, to sending an email, to posting on Facebook, to downloading new apps, happens almost instantaneously. And that’s WITHOUT the use of WiFi. With it, the speed of this phone is absolutely mind boggling.
Also helping this phone’s speediness, and helping me to forget about using my iPhone, is it’s software. The Incredible uses the new HTC Sense UI, and its ease of use can’t be put into words. So instead, here are some of the highlights of this operating system that I think you should know about.
- There are SEVEN home screens. You can pinch the home screen to view “cards” of all the home screens at once. Flickr is included and can be synced with your album on the phone
- The keyboard is awesome (more on that in a bit)
- Flash lite is included with the browser
- Integrated Twitter app
In regards to the HTC Incredible’s browser, it works great and renders web pages very fast. As I noted above, you DO get Flash lite, but not the full version, so don’t be surprised when every flash page that you go to doesn’t work properly. That little annoyance aside, I loved how easy everything is to use. You can “pinch-zoom” pages in as far as you want, you get a nice screen shot of bookmarked pages, and they can all be viewed in landscape or vertical configurations.
If the HTC Incredible’s speed and ease of use isn’t enough to get you salivating (and it should be) its sleek looks and feel might be the thing to convince you to purchase one. This is the thinnest smart phone I’ve ever held, and its styling is fantastic. It’s slightly curved, and rubberized on the back, adding a “grippy” feel to the phone, which is great for a klutz like me, who’s constantly dropping everything I touch.
The Incredible’s 3.7 inch, 480×800 WVGA AMOLED touch screen is also pretty bad ass. It’s super bright, very responsive, and has the perfect amount of haptic feedback.
Because of the Incredible’s responsive screen and large size, the phone’s keyboard is much easier to use than my iPhone 3G’s. It’s way faster (again, see the theme here?) and I loved how the user can hold down a key to get the “shift” row. I also liked how the manufacturer fit a comma and return key in place of a dedicated “smiley face” button. Oh, and if that’s not all cool enough, the HTC Incredible also has built in voice input on any text field, and much to my surprise, it actually works and I wasn’t able to trip it up!
And now, let’s get to the HTC Incredible’s camera.
Sorry iPhone 3G.
You’re being left in the dust, yet again. The Incredible’s camera is 8 megapixel, and has two LED flashes. The photos I took were the sharpest I’ve ever seen taken by a smart phone, and bursting with color and contrast. They’re also incredibly (pun intended) easy to take, what with the phone’s track-pad button or by simply pressing the screen. Zooming in and out, turning off the flash, and making any kind of adjustment to your snapped photo (brightness, saturation, etc..) is also a cinch, as is sending out any photo via text or email.
Oh, wait. I almost forgot — it makes phone calls, too.
For the week I used the HTC Incredible, I was reminded just how much I missed Verizon’s service, and just how shitty AT&T’s really is. I didn’t once have any issues with dropped calls, or any annoying “Can you hear me? HELLO!??” moments, like I’m wont to do with my iPhone 3G.
OK, enough gushing about this phone, and let’s just get to the bottom line. The HTC Incredible beats hell out of any other smart phone available as of this very moment.
If you’re a Verizon customer, and you’re looking to upgrade, get this phone immediately. If you’re a Verizon customer, and you’ve been seething iPhone envy, same thing. Buy it now. You’ve finally got something that’ll make a devout Apple dork like myself rethink their purchase of the once mighty iPhone.
Let this be a lesson, Steve Jobs. You’d better knock my socks off with the iPhone 4G this summer, or else I’m buying me an Incredible.