Droid Incredible review
At this point, the HTC Incredible should seem like pretty familiar territory to our readers. We first caught wind of the device in a ROM leak back in December
of 2009, and shortly thereafter saw lots of little snippets on the
phone that made it clear it was headed our way. Of course, it's a potent
combination that's been put together here -- an HTC-made,
Verizon-locked device sporting a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, 8GB of internal
storage, 748MB of ROM, a microSD slot
(with support for up to 32GB cards), an 8 megapixel camera with dual
LED flash and autofocus, 480 x 800 AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, and
most importantly, Android 2.1 with HTC's Sense UI on-board. The combo of
America's largest (and some say best) 3G network with a super-fast,
Sense-equipped Android phone is a match made in nerd heaven. We've seen a
near-exact device in the HTC Desire -- basically the Incredible for the
European market -- and the internals and screen technology are almost
identical to the Nexus One, but the Incredible has a personality that's
all its own. So is this the next killer device on the US market? Or have
we heard this tune before? Read on for the answers you seek!
Droid Incredible review
At this point, the HTC Incredible should seem like pretty familiar territory to our readers. We first caught wind of the device in a ROM leak back in December
of 2009, and shortly thereafter saw lots of little snippets on the
phone that made it clear it was headed our way. Of course, it's a potent
combination that's been put together here -- an HTC-made,
Verizon-locked device sporting a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, 8GB of internal
storage, 748MB of ROM, a microSD slot
(with support for up to 32GB cards), an 8 megapixel camera with dual
LED flash and autofocus, 480 x 800 AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, and
most importantly, Android 2.1 with HTC's Sense UI on-board. The combo of
America's largest (and some say best) 3G network with a super-fast,
Sense-equipped Android phone is a match made in nerd heaven. We've seen a
near-exact device in the HTC Desire -- basically the Incredible for the
European market -- and the internals and screen technology are almost
identical to the Nexus One, but the Incredible has a personality that's
all its own. So is this the next killer device on the US market? Or have
we heard this tune before? Read on for the answers you seek!
Droid Incredible hands-on
Hardware
As you've seen in the leaked photos (and more recently, press photos),
HTC and Verizon have teamed up to make what looks like it would be a
fairly tame, streamlined device into something decidedly edgier. Instead
of going for a predictable smooth back, HTC has given the Incredible a
tiered, weirdly angular soft-touch casing which the company says is
meant to evoke the styling of a race car. We weren't immediately psyched
on the concept, but after getting it into our hands, we'll admit that
the decision wasn't completely crazy. It not only sets the device apart
from its slate touchscreen contemporaries, but actually gives you a
little something to hold onto when you've got the device in your grips.
While it looks like this odd decision could add thickness to the phone,
when we compared it side-by-side with the iPhone 3GS and Nexus One, they were all about even.
Beyond the racing flair, HTC has added some subtle red highlights on the
phone (around the camera lens and on the ear-piece), but it's kept
things pretty clean around the sides. Up top there's a sleep / power
button on the left-hand side, a standard headphone jack on the right,
and along the left side of the phone you've got a volume rocker and
Micro USB connector. We definitely miss the inclusion of a dedicated
mute switch on the recent crop of Android devices, and we wouldn't have
complained about a camera button -- but those two minor niggles are
certainly not deal breakers.
On the front of the device you've got that big, beautiful WVGA display,
four touch-sensitive hard buttons (here arranged in HTC's familiar home,
menu, back, and search configuration), plus an optical trackpad
standing in for the typical trackball found on earlier phones. We were
pleased to discover that the wonky sensitivity on the hard buttons we
experience on the Nexus One were nowhere to be found here.
All in all, the Incredible
looks and feels like a modern, sophisticated smartphone with a lot of
that masculine edge that Motorola imparted to the Droid along with the
curvy smoothness the Droid Eris sports. It's almost like the two devices
mated (which kind of makes sense). It's a handsome phone, though we
suspect some people will be bothered by the Verizon-inspired tweaks that
have been made here.
Display
In general, the Incredible's display was very reminiscent of the Nexus
One screen -- that should come as no surprise, they're identical --
though the touch response seemed notably better here, likely a software
issue. Because these displays are the same, it means they share the same
issues; we disliked the color intensity on the Incredible just as we
did on the Nexus One. Reds and oranges, in particularly, look
overwhelmingly saturated here, and other colors aren't truly
represented. It's just
too colorful, if you can believe it.
Another somewhat major issue that we struggled with on the Incredible
(just as we did on the Nexus One) was the awful screen visibility in
bright daylight. We had numerous occasions where we simply could not
answer a call or take a picture due to the AMOLED display's poor showing
outdoors. In overcast settings (such as the one above) it was usually
bearable, and If you crank the brightness all the way up on sunnier days
you can get
some visibility, though once you're outside and
can't see the display, that's a bit of a challenge. In all honesty, we
love certain aspects of these screens, but we're perplexed as to why HTC
continues to use this same display when it's clear the daylight
performance is hamstrung.
Camera
The camera is one of the big selling points of the Incredible. At 8
megapixels, it's obviously one of the highest resolution smartphone
shooters on the market -- but is it any good? In our tests, we found the
Incredible's camera capable of taking stunning photos -- particularly
in daylight settings -- though it also has a few drawbacks that made it a
little less usable than we would have liked. First the good though.
Unlike other HTC cameras, there doesn't seem to be any color spotting or
weird splotches here. When we took a snap, the reproduction was true to
the source (or certainly as true as other cameras we've tested). The
shutter speed is fairly quick, though by no means Palm Pre quick, even
with the review option switched off. You take pictures using the
trackpad button, though we would have liked an option to take pics with
an onscreen trigger as well, as pushing in the rather shallow trackpad
caused the camera to shake a bit. Another issue we had was that the
autofocus seemed to shoot first and ask questions later, meaning that on
a number of occasions it appeared to have locked on to its subject and
snapped a photo, but the results were rather blurry. We had a similar
issue with the flash, where we felt it was jumping the gun just enough
to blow out a lot of the images we tried to take. Those issues aside,
the more time we spent with the Incredible's camera, the more used to it
we got, and by the end of this review period (which admittedly wasn't
as long as we would have liked), we were getting pretty handy with it.
We had particularly good results when we switched the metering mode to
centered.The Incredible also does fairly high resolution video -- up to 800 x
480. We would have liked to see a 720p option here, but we realize we're
being hopeless romantics. Regardless, the higher res video did a
decent, if somewhat pixelated and slightly stutttery, job at capturing a
beautiful Brooklyn sunset. We had better results at VGA resolution, but
both modes were more than acceptable for basic shooting. Just don't
expect this to stand in for your HD camcorder, and you'll be all set.
800 X 480
640 X 480
Sound quality / speakerphone
As you may know, we loved the sound quality on the Motorola Droid. In
fact, we think it's probably the best sounding phone we've ever used. We
didn't get quite as excited about the Nexus One (tinny, not loud
enough), but the Incredible has seriously jockeyed for Moto's spot here.
The earpiece on this device is loud and clear, but never painful on the
'drums, while the speakerphone is excellent for both conversations and
video / audio playback. It's a really solid speaker which should be more
than sufficient for conference callers and voracious media snackers
alike. Bravo guys!
Storage
In a somewhat new move for Android phone, HTC has equipped the
Incredible with 8GB of internal storage as well as a MicroSD slot which
can handle an additional 32GB -- giving you a whopping potential 40GB of
space for your goods. We love the idea of a hardwired option for
content storage, but HTC has some problems with this implementation.
Firstly, many apps currently available in the Android Market which
utilize an SD card for offloading data aren't able to see the internal
storage at all, which means if you drag some APKs you want to install or
want to download some data when you're in an app, you're out of luck.
It just simply doesn't see it. This was especially problematic with the
NYC Bus & Subway Maps application which requires a download of the
train maps, and when we tried to run Nesoid (a popular NES emulator), it
not only couldn't find ROMs saved on the phone's storage, but it force
closed when we tried to move up a directory! This may not seem like a
big deal, but more than once when using the phone we hit this brick wall
by not having an SD card present. For the $199 price tag on this thing,
it wouldn't have killed HTC or Verizon to throw in even a 2GB card to
make the transition easier.
Software
We're not going to go into excessive detail on Android 2.1 and the Sense
UI present on this phone, as you can read all the details on the
software in our previous reviews of the Desire and the Legend, though there are tweaks and additions here that are worth making mention of.
Firstly, we need to talk about the differences between Android 2.1 with
and without the Sense UI. If you've looked at a Nexus One (or own one),
then you probably know that the experience with the UI is a mixed bag.
Some portions of the software have been dramatically cleaned up, while
others seem to be left on the cutting room floor. That's absolutely not
the case with 2.1 and Sense. Basically, the Incredible -- and all
devices with that combo -- feel like complete, polished, modern
smartphones, with none of the perks or features missing. In particular,
the homescreens have been massively expanded here, giving you seven
screens in which to store icons and widgets... and there are a lot of
widgets. HTC has included a handful of its own widgets alongside some of
the familiar stock ones which Google offers. Of course, the widgets
(and their corresponding apps) which HTC offers generally offer far more
functionality than Google's options, and they're also tied together
with Sense in way that makes the experience of using them within the OS
feel complete -- something notably missing from the Google-only
experience. To say that this UI is competitive with something like
iPhone OS 3.1 (or 4 for that matter), or Palm's webOS is an
understatement; in many ways it's superior to what Apple and Palm are
offering.
HTC has done a marvelous job in tweaking Sense in all the right places. The first Sense device we tested
was the Hero, which we found to be seriously lacking in the horsepower
department, resulting in an experience that was sluggish and
disappointing. The performance of the Incredible couldn't have been more
opposite. The phone never hiccuped, and scrolling between pages or up
and down long lists happened without hesitation. Not only was the UI
blazingly fast and responsive -- even with all seven homescreens running
heavy widgets -- but as we mentioned previously, the touchscreen
response on this phone seem remarkably better than its contemporaries,
which leads us to believe that HTC has honed the software in this regard
as well. That sensitivity comes in especially handy when using HTC's
new pinch feature on the homescreens, which brings up a "card" view of
all your pages. The only spot where we noticed any kind of slowdown was
when using the live wallpapers -- we're not really big fans of the
concept to begin with, but it did seem to make the homescreen frame rate
visibly more sluggish. Besides just the cosmetic stuff, HTC has also
done seriously heavy lifting in the details department, continuing to
improve the music, video, and photo browsing options on their devices,
as well as making their fantastic on-screen keyboard even better in this
higher resolution version. We found finger tracking and typing speed to
be considerably improved, as well as word prediction and correction.
Apple, watch your back... HTC has done a damn good job of sneaking up on
your tech, and maybe improving on it. We can't stress this enough: HTC
has made a really good OS (Android) into a truly amazing and competitive
OS. HTC has even improved upon the copy and paste functions of the
phone, making the process much more iPhone-like, but expanding on that
with options to share and look up your selections via a context menu.
Oh, and did we mention the amazing new text flow in the browser? No
matter how far you zoom in, HTC's software will reflow the text you're
looking at to make it zoomable. It's pretty amazing, actually. We don't
know why Google doesn't just collaborate with the company in a more
formal fashion, because no one else has been able to deliver this
cohesive and enjoyable of an experience with Android.
It should also be noted that the browser on these phones is equipped
with Flash lite, though we had lots of trouble getting videos to play on
many of the sites we visited (Engadget included). If someone was hoping
to convince us that Flash could work on a device like this, consider
the job unfinished.
Verizon and HTC have collaborated on a few perks in the OS as well,
cleaning up the Google Navigation, er, navigation, and also collapsing
Visual Voicemail into the messaging app on the phone, making it easier
to get at all your communications at once. We're Google Voice users
(which of course perfectly integrates with the device), so we didn't
spend much time with Verizon's version. HTC was also happy to point out
that its email app supports multiple Exchange, POP, or IMAP accounts
with a unified inbox -- something that should please a number of
enterprise users. Other bundled apps include Quickoffice, a PDF viewer,
HTC's Teeter game, and Peep, the company's built-in Twitter client. A
note about this latter application; we're big fans of HTC making Twitter
an integrated part of its UI, but this app has the annoying habit of
auto-updating your timeline
and jumping to the most recent
tweet, which makes this "solution" less than appealing. We ended up
sticking with Seesmic, and probably will until HTC addresses this minor
issue. One other item that cropped up -- which may or may not have to do
with this being an unreleased device -- is that we got very different
results for apps in the Market. Some programs we were looking for just
simply didn't show up in our searches. We had the same problem with the
Desire and Legend when testing, and HTC says it's looking into this
problem, though we have yet to hear a proper explanation from the
company on why this is occurring.
Overall the experience with 2.1 and Sense was a complete pleasure --
using the phone felt fast and efficient. We'd like to point out that
we've been running the Incredible without any third party task managers,
and without manually killing any applications. Android is designed to
multitask without the need for utilities of the sort, and based on Steve
Jobs' words
from the recent iPhone OS 4 event, we were extra curious to see how
this brand new build of the software would fare. We can tell you this --
it hasn't let us down yet, and we're not seeing any sluggish behavior
or force closes on apps. If this OS has a need for management of its
processes, we haven't experienced it yet.
Network / Battery life
As usual, Verizon's network was outstanding. We know everyone already
accepts how rock-solid Big Red's connections are, but we'd like to point
out that at various times while riding an NYC subway
underground,
the Incredible managed to squeeze connectivity out of the big V. In
fact, when we first took the phone out of its box we were riding the
train, and it picked up enough data to auto-update our time and
location. Now that really is something.
As we said previously, we didn't have an enormous amount of time to test
this device, but in the handful of days we had, we found battery life
to be good, but not outstanding. In comparison to the Nexus One, it
seemed to fare a bit worse; we could get through a day, but things were
down to the wire by the end of the night. It's obvious that a lot of
these widgets and background processes HTC is running are going to put a
strain on your device, and given that we're pretty active with our
smartphones, something is bound to give. Now keep in mind there's
nothing really abnormal about the battery life on the Incredible -- it's
just not going to wow you.
Wrap-up
Let's just put this out there: the Droid Incredible is the best Android
device that you can purchase in America right now. It's better than the
Droid, better than the Nexus One, and certainly beats the pants off of
any previous generation handsets like the Eris, myTouch, or Cliq. It's
not just a very, very good Android phone (though it is); it's also an
excellent smartphone no matter how you cut it. If you're on Verizon
right now, you're finally getting really great options for phones, but
the Incredible is currently sitting at the top of that heap with a good
bit of distance to the next in line. Sure, there are still issues like a
lack of quality titles in the Android Market, and if a hardware
keyboard is a must, this won't do the job for you. Also, while Sense is
truly great on this phone, there may be users who prefer a more
streamlined, stripped down experience. Still, if you're looking for an
ultra-fast, extremely capable smartphone that has the guts and gleam to
go the distance, the Incredible just might be the Droid you're looking
for. Yes, we made that joke.
In Draw Something, you take on multiple opponents in asynchronous matches, which you can drop in and out of at will. If an opponent successfully guesses your creation, you get the chance to guess theirs. A match continues until somebody gives up.
When it's your turn to sketch, you're greeted by a screen that contains three different words to choose from - all of which vary in difficulty: Easy, Medium, and Hard. The amount of coins you earn depends on the difficulty level you choose to undertake.
If you don't think you can transform any of the words into a glorious picture, you can use your limited supply of bombs to get three fresh choices. Or you can simply close the app, remove it from your multitasking dock, and then fire it back up again to be greeted with three new words. The choice is yours.
Purchase at least one new pack of colours (by tapping the '+' symbol next to your existing colour palette) using the coins you save using that cheeky cheat in the above paragraph. We suggest you stump up the cash for the Mardi Gras package early in the game, for it features a nice selection of colours that you don't have access to from the off.
Take your time while you're drawing: this game is a marathon, not a sprint. Don't just blob a ton of colour onto the playing field and hope for the best. A thin black pencil and a little outline can go a long way.
Finally, try to colour the objects you're drawing with a high degree of verisimilitude - it makes life a lot easier. Have you ever bumped into a purple hamster in the real word? Thought not.
The guessing game
There aren't many tips we can give you for guessing your opponents's drawings. To be frank, some of them are shocking. However, Draw Something does give you a helping hand.
For starters, the game lets you know exactly how many letters make up the word that your partner is attempting to convey.
It also gives you 12 jumbled-up letters with which to construct this word, so you're not entirely on your lonesome here. If you're still stuck, bombs can be used to remove the letters that you don't really need.
Cheaters never (read: always) prevail
If you're still left scratching your head after you've exhausted the above avenues, there's only one thing left to do: cheat.
We don't normally condone cheating here at Pocket Gamer Towers, but there are plenty of ways to dirty your Draw Something hands out there on that thing we call the internet.
Firstly, you can simply head on over to the Win Every Game website, which is a website designed to help Scrabble players get one over on their intellectually gifted opponents. Just enter the letters that you've been presented with in Draw Something on this website, and it'll give you a list of anagrams - it's that easy.
Alternatively, you can head on over to Apple's App Store and download the aptly named Draw Solver Pro - Cheat at Draw Something! application for the small sum of 69p / 99c [
