HTC Droid Incredible 4G LTE (Verizon) review

HTC continues their trend of making their Incredible line of mid-range cell phones that are also packed with features at an affordable price. What this means is a phone that feels fairly chunky and functional, but won't give you the whistles and bells of a razor-thin, cutting edge piece of tech in your pocket.


But, chances are you're eyeing the HTC Droid Incredible 4G LTE (Verizon) for the $149.99 contract price and features, not because you want a phone that looks like a samurai sword.

You don't get a huge screen here either, since this Incredible only has a four-inch screen, despite having an extremely long name. With a 1700 mAh battery inside, the phone could be fairly thin, but with the Beats Audio feature wrapped around the back and top of the phone, the first thing you'll be aware of is its relative thickness. Not that it's extremely bulky or distracting; you'll just feel it in your hand. It's actually a bit reassuring, as that nearly five ounces of heft makes it feel like a fairly solid piece of tech.

The back of the phone itself is molded plastic with a texture on it that makes it easy to grip, and you can easily see the rear speaker on the upper right, with the red-ringed camera and flash on the upper left. It's also relatively logo free, with a muted 4G LTE logo at top right, the red Beats logo at lower right.


In fact, the only real obtrusive branding is the Verizon logo on the front of the phone above the screen. The only real reason that can be a distraction is because the blinking LED light on the front is set right above the stylized V, almost as though it's a punctuation.

The rest of the front side contains the four-inch touchscreen, the front camera, and the three always present buttons at the bottom: back, home, and recent apps. The left side is fairly bare except for the charging port, and the right side is equally as bare with only the volume rocker switch, which is almost mounted too flush with the housing, making it difficult to find with your fingers. Rounding out the minimal sides is the bottom with only a microphone hole, while the top is the busiest of all with the power/lock switch and 3.5mm headphone jack set just above the red grill earpiece.

You'll have to pop the rear cover off via the provided notch at the bottom of the phone to access the micro-SIM and the microSD slot. While we appreciate the extra storage, it's not that much fun to pop the back cover off every time you need to get to it, although we do like the fact that this also means a user-replaceable battery that is easy to get in and out.

Overall, the case design is pleasant, and better looking than the average cookie-cutter devices you see everywhere. The extra splashes of red are a nice touch, and the curved, textured backside feels good in the palm of your hand. The only drawback is the plastic housing, which tends to feel a bit flimsy, especially when popping the back cover off.

Interface :
Under the hood, the HTC Incredible 4G LTE (Verizon) sports a 1.2GHz dual core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor with 1GB RAM, and 8GB of internal memory, some of which is used by the system, although with the microSD slot supporting up to 32GB of memory, this isn't really an issue. On the plus side, the phone runs Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.3, and the dual-core processor also handles the HTC Sense 4.0 interface.


This allows most tasks on the phone to speed along at a good clip, and it's powerful enough to handle animated wallpapers and multiple running apps like the weather widget, which can take over your whole screen with animated clouds and forked lightning.

Camera
For an inexpensive smartphone, the HTC Incredible 4G LTE packs a decent onboard rear eight-megapixel camera. It offers a lot of functions ranging from HDR to panorama photos, and a bunch of built-in Instagram-style filters.

The controls are snappy and responsive, and you can take great looking photos in low light or bright sunshine. You'll find a multitude of options in the settings menu for the camera, ranging from white balance to ISO, and you can even set it to auto capture photos when smiles are detected.

Video
For the pocket Spielberg, the phone can capture video all the way up to full HD 1920 x 1080, and the supplied Movie Editor program can output very slick but simple videos with soundtracks and transitions. You can also shoot video in slow motion via a menu choice, but be prepared for it to chew up your free space, especially if you're shooting in full HD.

The front-facing camera is very low resolution, and should only be used for video conferencing, or taking self-portraits without the "Here I am standing in the bathroom mirror" reflection effect.

Music and Movies
There are multiple options on the Droid Incredible 4G LTE for playing back music or video right out of the box, which is where Verizon falls into the bloatware trap. As soon as you boot up for the first time you can launch Music, Play Movies & TV, Play Music, Slacker Radio, Slingbox, TuneIn Radio, Verizon Video, Watch, and YouTube. It's a lot of options, and it pulls you in 12 different directions.

Battery Life
Despite the Droid Incredible 4G LTE's 1700 mAh battery, we managed to average five hours of solid usage out of it every day before needing to recharge it.

That's constantly watching videos, using 4G or Wi-Fi, taking photos, streaming music, downloading apps, talking on the phone and surfing the web at a steady pace. Not too bad for a battery that small.

Both the Ice Cream Sandwich operating system and Sense 4.0 user interface combine to give you a user experience that feels fast and very responsive, and the phone never felt laggy or slow. Switching applications on the fly and multitasking was easy, and the phone seemed to be able to handle anything we threw at it, thanks to the dual-core processor.

Despite it's four-inch size, the Super LCD screen impressed with it's crisp colors and clarity, and if you don't own a tablet, you won't mind pulling this out of your pocket to keep you entertained for a five-hour flight. Once you arrive, you can use the very effective Maps or VZ Navigator apps to get where you're going.

when you get a Video Converter for Mac , or Video Editor for Mac you might be capable of watch several videos on the smart phones.