Mobiles Unleashed

HTC Desire review

GhenMoKai — Sat, 12 Sep 2020 18:29:41 GMT

Following the Legend, HTC continues its Android 2.1 lineup with the Desire -- a gorgeous cousin of the renowned Nexus One. We can trace our drool all the way back to the Desire's leak in December, but there have been some changes since then that made it slightly less desirable -- DivX support and 720p video capture never made it to the final build, but it's not like the company laid down any official promise on them, right? Anyhow, there's still plenty to be loved here, namely the speedy 1GHz Snapdragon, the large AMOLED screen, and HTC's latest revision of Sense UI that we've already seen on the Legend. Now, there are probably two questions floating in the minds of our readers: is the Desire worth the extra moola over the Legend? And is it any better than the Nexus One? Let's all find out together.

Hardware

The Desire has so much in common with the Nexus One that it feels like we've seen it all before. Spec-wise these two Android 2.1 phones have the same processor, 1,400mAh battery, 3.7-inch 800 x 480 AMOLED screen, 5-megapixel autofocus camera and 512MB of ROM, while externally they have very similar CMF (industrial shorthand for "color, material and finish") and weight (4.76 ounces). As for differences, the Desire packs 64MB more RAM than the Nexus One (512MB), lacks a second mic on the back for noise cancellation (more on this later), and dons physical buttons plus a clickable optical trackpad below the screen. We certainly prefer these real buttons since the Nexus One's touch-sensitive keys do sometimes miss our inputs; on the other hand the Nexus One may offer a better single-hand operation with its keys closer to the screen. Funnily enough, it looks like the Legend has the best of both worlds.

A closer look will also reveal the general structural differences between the Desire and the Nexus One -- in theory, the latter's unibody frame should be stronger than the Desire's old-fashioned assembly, but we haven't dared to apply more force on either solid devices to prove this (unless our good friend Peter Chou gives us his blessing). That said, if you're into hardcore tight jeans, then the stone-cold Legend should probably outlast the other two phones with its greater unibody coverage on the back.

To get to the battery, SIM card slot and the spring-loaded microSD slot, you need to rip open the back cover using the top slit, just like on the Hero. It's not a pleasant experience, as you'll see in the video below -- in the early days it felt like either our fingernail or the cover could break, and we'd kill for a slide-and-pop mechanism like on the Nexus One's smaller cover. Leaving this annoyance aside, both covers have similar "soft touch" suede-like textures -- certainly a warm welcome in the cold mornings, and it gives a comfortable grip as well.

Underneath the cover you'll see that the camera, LED flash and loud speaker are at the same positions on both devices, except for the missing noise-canceling secondary mic on the Nexus One. Are we missing much with just one mic? Not really -- in our comparison test, we noticed that calls made on the Desire (using the same O2 SIM card) are muddled only ever so slightly, and the phone certainly doesn't peeve your ears with distorted background noise as produced by the Nexus One.

While we're on the topic of audio quality: both speakers on the Desire do their jobs well -- we had no problem with the earpiece for phone calls, and the loudspeaker on the back is, well, pretty loud and clear. The handsfree kit, however, fails to impress as it barely fits in our ears, and the sound quality is on par with the cheap iPod earphones -- it lacks bass and clarity, making the stylish three-button remote control (backward, play / pause / call, forward) a bit of a waste. Too bad this is also bundled with the Legend and the Nexus One.

The Desire's screen needs no introduction -- we've already gone through the ups and downs of AMOLED in our Legend and Nexus One reviews, plus it appears to be identical to the Nexus One's anyway. Just for comparison's sake: the Desire offers sharper image than the Legend due to its higher pixel density (240 dpi versus 160 dpi), but both screens are equally hopeless when used in daylight -- basically, you'll most likely be seeing your own face while you try to watch the Trololo guy on YouTube. Let's hope that HTC will hook us up with some Super AMOLED love in the near future.

For our battery tests, we followed a similar routine as we did with the Legend -- occasional web browsing on 3G connection, took some photos and videos, almost continuous music playback (with the occasional FM radio), Twitter auto-updating, Gmail push notifications and no live wallpaper. This way we managed to squeeze six hours out of the battery, which is coincidentally what we got from the Legend and the Nexus One as well. We also did tests based on a more realistic usage -- same background apps, occasional web browsing on WiFi and no or little music playback -- and this got us two more hours. Needless to say, it's best to keep the charging cable handy throughout the day.

Camera

Given that all three phones have a 5-megapixel autofocus camera, we expected the same picture output from them all, but HTC's full of surprises. For starters, the Desire captures 5:3 wide still images, while the Legend does a narrower 3:2 and the Nexus One takes the good-old 4:3. Similarly, for video capture the Desire, Nexus One and Legend offer 800 x 480, 720 x 480 and 640 x 480 resolutions respectively. There's a mixture of color accuracy as well, with the Nexus One performing the best out of the three, whereas the Desire's photos tend to have a colder tint. That said, one thing that they all have in common is the weak filming performance in dark environments -- as with the Legend, you'll see reduced frame rate in videos recorded by the Desire under low light level. This could be HTC's attempt to compensate darkness by extending the exposure time, but we're pretty certain that many would prefer a smoother video.

In general, the photos were of fair quality despite the aforementioned color issues. Daytime photos were slightly under-exposed but reasonably sharp, while nighttime shots looked great but also marked with a bunch of noise lines. Close-up shots were surprisingly good (see the keyboard photos), especially when you could go all creative using the tap-to-focus function in the camera app -- something badly needed on the Nexus One. All in all, you can't expect premium photo quality from the Desire (or any HTC devices, it seems), but the camera's there if you need it.

Software

We don't need to say much here as we've already praised the latest Sense UI's new features -- the Friend Stream app, Leap (homescreen switcher, as pictured below), great keyboard and the enhanced text highlighting tool -- in our Legend review. Similarly, the Desire and the Legend both support the same wide range of audio file formats (AAC, AMR, OGG, M4A, MID, MP3, WAV and WMA) -- note that the Nexus One doesn't support Apple's M4A. Update: turns out the Nexus One supports M4A as well, but this wasn't mentioned on either Google's or HTC's spec pages. Given how smooth the general Sense experience was for us last time, we haven't noticed any significant performance increase on the Desire. That said, with the Desire packing 576MB of RAM while the Legend only has 384MB, it's safe to say that the big daddy can handle more apps at any time. We've also spotted some minor differences between the Desire's build of Android and the Legend's -- like the Nexus One, you can apply live wallpapers on the Desire as well, whereas the slower Legend lacks such option (although the Legend is the only one out of the three that lets you have a dedicated lock screen wallpaper). As with most sophisticated eye-candies, the live wallpapers do make the OS slightly choppy from time to time, and needless to say they'll have an impact on the battery life as well, so it's not something you'd want if a charging source is out of reach for some time.

Like the Legend, you'll also get the Flash Lite plugin on the Desire. As you might've already seen in the video earlier, Flash definitely performs better on the Desire thanks to the faster Snapdragon processor, but there's still a lot of work to be done here. Out of the several sites that we tested with, only the videos on BBC News' website had an acceptable frame rate, so using Flash on the Desire is pretty much a gambling game on the video data rate. (You can see our Flash plug-in hands-on in the first video.) On a similarly annoying level, the Desire lacks voice-to-text input as found on the Nexus One and other "Google experience" phones -- not the end of the world for us but some drivers may miss it.

Wrap-up

The Desire is yet another fine piece of work from HTC – build quality is top notch as usual, and there's little to complain about the software except for the Flash performance. Some may argue that the Desire lacks freshness since the Nexus One's already shown it all, but we'd disagree – at the end of the day it's mainly about the software and service, plus the Desire is available from more carriers to begin with (outside the US, anyway).

So, circling back to our earlier questions, for the extra cost of the Desire over the Legend you get a larger and sharper screen, faster processor, live wallpapers and video capture at a slightly higher resolution. On the other hand the Legend's button positions may provide better single-handed operation, and some may even prefer its silver metallic look and feel to go with certain Apple products (sorry, it's unavoidable), so you'd best get your hands on the two devices before handing over the cash. As for the Nexus One, despite the fancy dual-mic noise cancellation, unibody frame, touch-sensitive buttons and a trackball that glows, the only real advantages we see in it are its voice-to-text input and its slightly better camera (and this might only apply to certain batches since HTC might be sourcing from multiple sensor suppliers). We prefer the Desire with its more natural call voice (with its single mic), buttons that respond better, durable optical trackpad (which may not be everyone's cup of tea), and an excellent social networking aggregation service.

Of course, if you're really into the Nexus One's little glowing ball and touch-sensitive buttons, you can always try flashing the Desire ROM onto it (at your own risk, naturally). Have fun!

I want my account closed

mcdragos1 — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 09:28:45 GMT

Forum: Cellphone reviews
Thread starter: mcdragos1
Last message posted by: mcdragos1
Number of replies: 0

Htc evo shift review

mettle — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 08:38:18 GMT

Specs
QWERTY keyboard 5MP camera with flash, WiMAX connectivity and runs Android 2.3 (gingerbread)
Weighs 5.90 oz or 167 grams.
Resolution is 480 by 800 pixels.
Processor Single core Qualcomm MSM7630, 800 MHz.
Memory 512 MB RAM

enough with that mumbo-jumbo
my review.
i currently have a Samsung transform as my primary phone. when I play with my evo shift. It blows my transform away like it was Atari vs Xbox. So I wonder to my self. "Why don't I use this phone more?" Well for me. its the keyboard. different layout. before i came to the transform i had a Samsung exclaim and the trans and the exclaim had the same keyboard so I decided to not change =p Also my transform is way more hacked the my boot loader locked evo shift. It wasn't till a few weeks ago that a perm root was found. i Just haven't had the time to do it =p This phone has never lagged on me never needed to be Battery cycled due to freezing (which i do on my trans every day almost) This phone could have more ram with what it currently holdin.
this phone is a 8 out of 10 in my book. Though. It should have shipped with 2.3 it took htc to long to update it.

Samsung Transform Review.

mettle — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 13:34:11 GMT

Ok Lets start out

The samsung transform Ill call it the trans or the transform from here on out.
The transform has a qwerty keyboard and 3.5 hvga display also packs a 3.2mp camera and a front-facing vga camera. It carries a 800MHz processor. along with wifi and gps.

The phone is quite light even with the qwerty keyboard weighing in at 5.37 oz or 152 grams.
Resolution is 320 x 480 pixels not to small not to big.
Memory 256 MB RAM and 512 MB ROM

Enough with about the phone

heres what i think.

As a new android user. I felt that the transform was a great starter phone. Im not much of a game person so I really don't play games on it. but when I do they play pretty fine (some lag here and there from texts/Pandora etc) The transform is rooted with android 2.2.2 and has a ported version of Clockwork mod recovery. Currently Running EF09 ( a update that sprint never released because it had problems with the market) this is a lowend android phone at best. i have itouch that can run more then the transform can. That's pretty sad. This is my primary android phone even though i have the htc evo shift running gingerbread. When rooted you can Wifi tether. install roms themes mods. rooting this phone can be a bit scary but if anyone else here has this and wants it rooted I sure can post how.

as a overall rating i give it a 6.5 out of 10
the phone uses what it has really well and with root it just makes it so much better.

Samsung Transform review

GhenMoKai — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 13:20:45 GMT

With Epic 4G styling, a front-facing camera and a $150 post-rebate price, it's easy to mistake the Samsung Transform for a high-end phone. Don't. The reality is that it's a evolution of Samsung's mid-range Moment and Intercept more than anything else -- you're paying an additional $50 here to get a front-facing camera, an LED flash and a few welcome tweaks, but the same ho-hum performance plus a few new annoyances to boot. Where does it improve and where does it fail? Find out in our full review.

Hardware

There's really no faulting the Transform's design, assuming you're a fan of the Epic 4G -- it's a handsome phone done up in glossy black with a tastefully thin chrome band running down the center of the device. The Transform's just a little bit thicker and more squared off than its Galaxy S inspiration, and while it feels a good bit cheaper and more plasticky than some high-end Android devices, it's actually got a very solid build. The chassis has little creak, the spring-loaded sliding hinge is strong, the hardware buttons are lightly textured and easy to find and press one-handed, and the QWERTY keyboard may actually be the best we've seen on a mid-range Android device. Oh, and it's got a little sliding door for the micro-USB port -- always a nice touch.

Though the keys themselves are a little bit shallow and don't make a satisfying click, the layout here is very good, with the whole alphabet accessible in the familiar desktop arrangement rather than haphazardly rearranged around the space bar and function keys as it was with the Moment and Intercept keyboards. (Tween text fiends will be happy to hear the dedicated emoticon key returns.) In case it gives you any indication of how easy it is to learn and use, we just typed the last two paragraphs of this review on the Transform itself. If only the capacitive digitizer was as easy to like -- it's not bad, but a little bit laggy and occasionally missed our inputs.

The rest of the Transform's components are decent for a mid-range device, though we wouldn't call any of them good -- like the 3.5-inch, 320 x 480 LCD screen, which is fairly bright and clear enough, but also a bit washed out. The 3.2 megapixel auto-focus imager in back took reasonably good shots outdoors, even as indoor snaps showed considerable noise, and the VGA webcam up front added a yellow tint to all the self-portraits we tried. Last but not least, if noise cancellation is present, it doesn't work very well -- though call quality was fine on our end, call recipients told us they could hear plenty of background noise while we spoke.

Software and performance

The Samsung Transform runs on Android 2.1 -- though Sprint promised us it would see Froyo later this year -- with a novel carrier feature called Sprint ID on top. Rather than covering the entire phone in a custom UI like Sense, TouchWiz or what have you, Sprint ID installs a custom button on the home screen (you can see it immediately above) which lets you swap between sponsored packs of applications, settings, wallpapers and widgets. While this was pitched to us as a reasonably compelling idea that would help newcomers to find some of the best Android has to offer, and let power users like us switch between multiple profiles on the go, that's not how it worked out in our tests. First off, the more Sprint ID packs we installed, the slower our phone got, because the system doesn't actually shut down apps from profiles not in use -- it just hides them from view while they continue to run in the background. Second, Sprint ID doesn't necessarily install and set up everything it suggests to the user, as certain packs will just dump a bunch of shortcuts on the screen, which lead you right back to the Android Market to install the app for yourself. Also, and this may be obvious, but don't expect companies to sponsor packages that give you paid apps for free -- the Games by EA pack, for instance, includes demo versions of Tetris and Scrabble, but it's primarily designed to advertise product for you to purchase later on.

Carving down Sprint ID to its least intrusive state and nuking the remaining background apps, we found the Transform's Android experience to be decently speedy, though the data connection was relatively slow even over Sprint's typically excellent EV-DO Rev. A network; graphically intense web pages like Engadget took a fair bit of time to load. Battery life might also be a concern, as our device didn't last a full day on a charge with normal use. There's some sort of bug with the phone's landscape mode at present, as the home screen won't switch orientation even when the keyboard is slid out, and we had a few complete system freezes when typing text messages and email in that mode. (Sprint says fixes are on the way.) We also noticed that 3D apps chugged tremendously, and certain games (including Angry Birds) wouldn't run at all. We ran a few tests but soon got confirmation from Sprint itself: the Transform's S3C6410 processor doesn't support hardware acceleration for OpenGL.

Update: Angry Birds runs on the Transform as of 10/15/2010.

Perhaps most confusingly, the front-facing camera totally failed to respond to any of the video chat applications we tried -- Qik, Fring and Tango all failed, and one of the three actually stated that required hardware wasn't present on the phone. Tango's a bit of a newcomer, sure, but Qik and Fring are de facto video chat applications of choice on Android, and we were shocked to see neither working on a front-facing camera device.

Wrap-up

The Samsung Transform has the potential to be a solid Android device at $50 or perhaps even $100 if the issues get ironed out, but we can't imagine paying the $150 Sprint's presently asking for a buggy, hamstrung HVGA smartphone. As it stands the phone has the price, bullet points and styling to deceive customers into thinking they're getting something akin to an cheaper Galaxy S experience -- even if that isn't Sprint's intent -- but in its current state it's much, much farther than $50 behind the current crop of $200 smartphones, and we honestly believe you'd be better off saving those pennies rather than buying something you might regret.

Droid Incredible review

GhenMoKai — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 18:04:02 GMT

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!

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.

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.

HTC Wildfire review

GhenMoKai — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 00:11:17 GMT

Introduction

Occasionally HTC takes a little break from high-end smartphones and dips its toes in the waters of the lower midrange. The HTC Wildfire is a down-sized, down-clocked and down-priced version of the HTC Desire. If Sony Ericsson can do it with the X10 mini, then HTC have all the right in the world to make a Desire mini too.

But while the Desire was something that easily snatched everybody’s attention, the Wildfire is a bit more toned down despite its fire-some name.

Key features

* Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
* 3G with 7.2 Mbps HSDPA
* Android OS v2.1 (Éclair) with Sense UI
* 3.2" capacitive touchscreen of QVGA resolution
* Multi-touch support
* Qualcomm MSM 7225 528 MHz CPU, 384 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM
* 5 megapixel auto-focus camera with LED flash and touch focus
* Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g and GPS receiver
* Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate
* Turn-to-mute, lift-to-tone-down
* Proximity sensor
* Smart dialing
* Standard miniUSB port for charging and data
* Bluetooth with A2DP, file transfers
* microSD card slot, a 2GB card in the box
* Standard 3.5mm audio jack
* Social network integration: Facebook, Twitter and Flickr through Friend Stream
* Flash-enabled browser
* Direct access to the official Android repository
* Stereo FM radio with RDS

Main disadvantages

* Poor screen image quality, QVGA doesn’t do Android OS and the display size justice
* No video-call camera or videocalling whatsoever
* CIF@15fps video recording (352 x 288 pixels) is below par
* No voice dialing
* No DivX or XviD video support out of the box
* No TV-out port

The Wildfire is certainly the right phone for those who like to always stay in touch. The high-end connectivity is all there, along with solid social network integration and browsing. It seems the display and CPU are the only downgrades from the Desire.

But that’s still a lot. Android phones with QVGA screens have failed to impress and the size of the Wildfire’s display gives no reason to be optimistic here.

On the other hand, the Wildfire boasts the premium finish of the Nexus One and the HTC Desire. Not only is a touch of style always welcome in the lower tiers of the market but users will probably appreciate the compact size too.

So, repackaging a flagship device to sell to a wider range of customers is easier said than done, so let’s see what the Wildfire has to offer. By the way, choosing a name that’s so much catchier is a good way to start.

We’re back after the break with a spin and a closer look at the HTC Wildfire exterior.

Retail package: good enough

Considering the lower price range, the HTC Wildfire’s package is fairly complete. It has the essentials and a couple of small perks: a 2GB microSD and a one-piece headset with music controls. The headset uses the a standard 3.5 mm audio jack so you can use your own instead, but you will have to live without the remote.

The microUSB cable plugs into the charger so you will need both to charge your HTC Wildfire the old fashioned way. USB charging is enabled too. A bunch of manuals complete the list of items in the box.

HTC Wildfire 360-degree spin

Keeping it compact was high on the Wildfire designers’ priority list. At 106.8 x 60.4 x 12 mm the device can easily slip in any pocket – let alone a purse. The phone certainly hopes to appeal to both male and female customers, and has the color range to do it. The Wildfire will be available in white, black, brown and red.

And while some may frown at the relatively heavy weight of 118 grams, we actually think it’s a benefit. The nice solid feel we’ve come to expect from high-end phones brings the Wildfire another step closer to the HTC Desire.

Design and construction

So, the Wildfire is a pretty close replica of the Desire (and the Nexus One). It doesn’t have the kind of looks to make your heart skip a beat, but it’s a subtly stylish and solidly built phone – and that’s nothing to be ashamed of.

Ok, it’s a phone that will grow up wearing its older brother’s old clothes. But we don’t have to worry about its self esteem. The designers were after decent functionality in an attractive looking package and we think they’ve done a pretty good job. The only thing to be concerned with is the screen. WVGA AMOLED was a treat in the Desire, but sadly the Wildfire is nowhere near that.

At 3.2” and QVGA resolution, the HTC Wildfire touchscreen offers the lowest pixel density we have seen lately and that’s a real disadvantage for the picture quality. 125 ppi is pretty good for a computer screen but you look at it from a much greater distance. The Wildfire you are meant to hold in your hands.

The contrast levels of the LCD unit are also quite underwhelming and we’re particularly disappointed with the depth of blacks on the Wildfire screen. The brightness levels are good but they are not enough of a boost for the overall poor picture quality.

And the Wildfire isn’t any better when exposed to direct sunlight either. You will struggle to find a proper angle for working with the phone when outside on a bright sunny day.

In general, the screen is where most of the cost-cutting has been done on the Wildfire. This doesn’t seem like a particularly smart move. The fact is, on a full-touch device the screen is almost all you look at and use. Having such a relatively large yet low-res screen creates a rather negative effect for the whole user experience.

On a positive note, the sensitivity of the capacitive touchscreen is excellent, plus 3.2” is more than enough space to press on. But still, a smaller display to make the low resolution less prominent might have made more sense, and the device would’ve been even more compact too. We just can’t see the point of making such a big QVGA screen. Neither Android nor HTC Sense looks good on it.

Below the display we find four capacitive controls. They are in charge of bringing you back to the homescreen, opening the context menu, taking you a step back in the menu navigation and getting you to the quick search box.

Sufficiently spaced and sensitive enough, those cause no usability problems whatsoever. The transition between them and the screen is seamless.

Under those four keys we find the optical joystick, which by the way is of pretty limited use. It will work in some menus to replace sweep gestures and can be used to take the occasional photo but that’s about it. Most users would probably never notice even if it didn’t work at all,– you can get by just fine without it.

Above the display we see the earpiece, the proximity sensor and the status LED.

The left side of the Wildfire features the large volume rocker and the exposed microUSB port. The right side of the device is completely bare. A dedicated camera key would have certainly been nice.

At the top there are a couple of elements to note. The silver key in the right corner is the power/screen lock button, the 3.5mm audio jack is at the other end.

The tiny mouthpiece is the only thing of interest at the bottom.

The 5 megaxpixel camera lens is near the top of the back cover, flanked by the loudspeaker grill and the LED flash. The lanyard also attaches at the back, near the bottom of the phone. You do need to remove the cover to attach it though.

Under the cover you will find the microSD card slot and the 1300 mAh battery. The Li-Ion unit is quoted at up to 480 hours of stand-by or 7 hours and 20 minutes of talk time in 2G networks, and 690 hours and 8 hours in 3G mode.

Those are some impressive numbers indeed but here’s one case perhaps where the low-res screen does count in its favor. The Wildfire did last for about three days of moderate use (10 minutes of calls and just under an hour of using the other features a day), which is still good but not that great.

The HTC Wildfire feels nice in the hand. Its size is just perfect for single-handed use and the screen sensitivity is a point in favor too. It’s ultimately the same screen though that puts the whole package in question. Users coming from touchscreen feature phones will probably not notice anything wrong. But upgraders from the Magic or the Tattoo might be disappointed.

We have no arguments with the build quality and the finish. The Wildfire is a solid looking and stylish phone that will suit conservative tastes. There’s a selection of paintjobs too for those looking for something more expressive.

Now let’s go through the software side of things.

Eclair and HTC Sense deserve a higher-res screen

HTC Sense and Android have had a god run so far. From the Hero to the Desire, users have been treated to a wealth of graphics and features. Even the entry-level HTC Tattoo has the company’s custom interface, which we found to blend well and do a good job. It just didn’t look its best on the QVGA screen.

If you’ve been paying attention, you’d know the HTC Wildfire is having the same problem. And this time, the same number of pixels is stretched over 3.2 inches.

The Wildfire still has a clear advantage over the Tattoo. The capacitive display has excellent response. You’ll find the latest Sense UI too on the HTC Wildfire.

The main differences between this version of the Sense UI and back on the Tattoo are the new context icons, a few new wallpapers and the unified Widget section. Whether you are using the People, Mail, Music or Gallery Tabs, the scrollable icons at the bottom will please you with new color skins. We like it this way – the old ones looked a bit dull against the otherwise graphically rich and colorful UI..

The left key at the bottom of the screen launches the main menu. This time around you simply tap to get to it, you can't drag the menu out, though you can drag it back in.

The middle key is a shortcut to the Phone app and the right key brings up the "Add to Home" menu. And there's plenty to add to the homescreen but more on that later.

The scrollbar at the bottom is just an indication of which homescreen you’re on - it can't be used for actual scrolling. HTC have extended the homescreen to a total of seven panes instead of the usual three. With all those widgets at hand (which are quite useful too) they may not even be enough.

The HTC Sense UI revolves around Scenes, which are essentially six custom homescreen setups (Work, Travel, Social, etc). Each scene changes the wallpaper and the widgets on the homescreen - for instance, the Work scene has a stocks widget, while the Social offers a Twitter widget.

You can't modify the scenes but if you rearrange the current homescreen you are prompted to save changes as a new scene.

The Clean slate scene lets you start from scratch - it's just the default Android setup with a Clock and a few shortcuts underneath.

Switching between scenes takes a couple of seconds but sure allows wide customization - the business and personal modes that some competing phones offer seem quite limited compared to the HTC Scenes.

Now back to the other stuff beyond the homescreen and the available Scenes. The changes brought by the Sense UI go deeper than just the homescreen.

For instance, the main menu has the typical grid layout, but you can switch it to a list similar to in TouchFLO in HTC WinMo phones. With it, you can use an alphabet scroll, which makes locating apps faster.

The widget section has been revamped since the HTC Tattoo and now both types of widgets (custom HTC and stock Android) are placed on one page. There are so many of them that you may find the seven homescreen panes insufficient.

When you select a widget you are prompted to choose between several versions – most widgets have at least two styles. The different versions typically offer at least two sizes of the widget and a different look (There are twelve different clocks. That's right, twelve!).

And some widget styles even offer different functionality. Take the Twitter widget for instance - one version will show updates for the people you follow, while the other version only lets you tweet from the homescreen. There's nothing stopping you from using both of course.

The HTC widgets offer a better level of interaction than the stock widgets – there's a Favorites widget that keeps a list of your favorite contacts you can scroll through, meaning there’s no need to dip into the contacts list.

You can pinch to “zoom out” on any of the homescreen panes but tapping on a screen will do the trick too.

The Android 2.1 in the Wildfire packs the app sharing application for posting your impressions on mobile applications via Twitter, SMS or email. It’s very simple but helps you share or receive app impressions from various social services.

Leap View was available back on the HTC Desire – it’s nice to have it in the budget package too. However, one thing the Wildfire obviously lacks is Live Wallpapers. The weaker CPU and the QVGA screen just can’t handle them.

Well, that’s about the part of the Sense UI that’s closest to the surface. There’s more to it but we’ll discuss those bits and pieces throughout the review.

The HTC Wildfire UI is fast enough, the only place to notice lags is in widgets that need internet connection to refresh content.

The trackpad is an auxiliary navigation tool here – given the responsive capacitive touchscreen. You can swipe, scroll and precisely select elements with the trackpad but we were barely using it except in the camera app. It serves as the shutter key there but it’s far from essential, as the touch focus works well.

Two more things - most apps won't run without a microSD card inserted and screen vibration feedback works on the virtual QWERTY keyboard but not elsewhere throughout the homescreen.

Socialized phonebook

HTC Wildfire features the same powerful phonebook we first saw on the Hero. It resembles the one from the HTC TouchFLO but considerably extends its functionality.

Selecting a contact displays the basic details: name and photo, numbers, emails and such. What you'd notice though is that there are another five tabs at the bottom and you're just viewing the first of them.

The next tab holds the messages received from the contact – it would have been a lot more useful if it held the entire conversation, but for that you’d have to go to the Messages app.

The third tab holds a list of emails you've exchanged with the contact. The next two tabs are quite interesting and can turn the Wildfire (or in fact any phone running the Sense UI) into a powerful social networking tool.

The first holds Facebook contact updates, and the other - called "Albums" - pulls the albums that contacts have created on Flickr and Facebook.

The last tab shows the call history for the contact.

The entire People app (the phonebook) is tabbed too and with more tabs than the stock Android. You have all contacts, groups (including favorite contacts there), as well as a call log and "Online directories". The latter holds information for all your buddies’ online profiles.

With Android 2.1, the HTC Wildfire packs the new Quick contacts feature. It lets you use the contact photo in the phonebook and call, text, or email the person with a single click.

The contact editing screen looks exactly as in the HTC Desire. There's no plus key to add a new detail of a certain type, just a delete detail key. This saves some space (one line per each category) but you have to scroll down to the bottom every time you want to add a new detail.
There is a lot of information you can store per contact as usual, and searching the phonebook is very easy - just press the search button.

Telephony

Voice quality in calls is good and the volume levels are excellent. We experienced no reception issues with the HTC Wildfire.

The dialer features a keypad, a shortcut to the call log and a list of contacts beneath (you can hide the keypad). Smart Dialing is also enabled.

Thanks to the built-in accelerometer, the HTC Wildfire has turn-to-mute enabled. You can mute the ringer by simply turning the phone face down on the table. There’s an extra feature too – the ringing volume will go down as soon as you lift the handset up.

Telephony

Voice quality in calls is good and the volume levels are excellent. We experienced no reception issues with the HTC Wildfire.

The dialer features a keypad, a shortcut to the call log and a list of contacts beneath (you can hide the keypad). Smart Dialing is also enabled.

The HTC Wildfire doesn't have voice dialing but what at least some users are more likely to miss is video calling.

We conducted our traditional loudspeaker test and here is how the Wildfire stacks among some other handsets.

Final words

You can't help we guess, but love the sound of it. Wildfire is a strong and beautiful name. The thing is it raises no less expectation than names like Legend or Hero. But we're talking entirely different leagues here. So a simple Desire mini would've told the whole story - and caused no confusion.

Or maybe it's us making it look too complicated when it isn't. There is no doubt the HTC Wildfire is aiming lower and it may as well be competitive enough. It's nearly an HTC Desire save for the screen and processing power.

They didn't even try to be creative. HTC just went on to repackage an existing product for a different target market. You can be sure the HTC Wildfire wants to play by the book and avoid complications. It comes to inherit the Magic and the Tattoo and keep the likes of Samsung Galaxy 3 at a safe distance. It can't be too hard now, can it?

Sony Ericsson already did it with the XPERIA X10 mini. This one is in the same price bracket but still waiting for its Eclair upgrade. What makes it unique is the level of miniaturization - the X10 mini is unmatched in the ultra compact class. It's worth noting too that a QVGA screen makes a lot more sense in a package so small.

The Samsung I5800 Galaxy 3 is another mid-range droid, which isn't ashamed to be seen in QVGA. It's Wide QVGA to be precise but not that big of a difference. Powered by Eclair, the Galaxy 3 is about to start shipping. Native DivX/XviD support is one thing you can sure expect in a Samsung droid. The Galaxy 3 will cost some 300 euro at launch - that's a bit more than the Wildfire.

If you are running a tight budget, a few older Droids might fit the bill. The Samsung Galaxy Spica and the HTC Tattoo are upgradable to Android v2.1 Eclair, while the LG Optimus still runs on the 1.6 Donut.

Over at the Symbian camp, the Sony Ericsson Vivaz will charge the same as the Wildfire but bring better specs, higher-res (though resistive) touchscreen and an excellent camera with 720p video. If you care about imaging, you should definitely check this one out.

Of course, the Wildfire is trying to come across as the budget package. But we do need to define budget here. The simple truth is an HTC phone will never beat the price of a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. On a second thought, the Wildfire is not trying perhaps to match the record of this absolute best-seller.

The way we see it, Wildfire's fits perfectly in HTC’s Android lineup. It’s not the cheapest Droid out there and it has its compromises but it seems as the cheapest and fastest route to Android 2.1. We don't think any of the Hero, Tattoo or Magic users will see it as a viable upgrade though. For us, the HTC Wildfire is more like the first-timers' Android smartphone.

HTC EVO 4G review

GhenMoKai — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 23:45:11 GMT

As a mobile platform, the EVO 4G's Android foundation is still an infant -- well, okay, perhaps it's a tweener -- but in its two-odd years in the public spotlight, the list of truly revolutionary devices to use it has been a significant one: the G1 for being the first to market; the Nexus One for ushering in a new (and subsequently killed) retail model; perhaps the CLIQ for introducing Motorola to the platform or the Droid for bringing the company some desperately needed, long overdue success. For the moment, anyway, a whopping fraction of the world's most important phones are running Google's little experiment.

Needless to say, Sprint, HTC, and quite frankly, many of us have come to expect the EVO 4G to join that short list for some obvious reasons. Put simply, its magnificent list of specs reads as though it was scribbled on a napkin after a merry band of gadget nerds got tipsy at the watering hole and started riffing about their idea of the ultimate mobile device: a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 4.3-inch WVGA display, 8 megapixel camera with 720p video recording, HDMI-out, and WiMAX compatibility. Of course, the list of potential deal-breakers for a phone is as long as the EVO 4G's display is wide; to put it another way, there are countless ways HTC, Sprint, or even Google could've screwed this thing up. So does this moderately intimidating black slab of pure engineering and marketing -- this high-profile bet on Sprint's future -- deliver the goods? Read on.

Packaging

Handset packaging has evolved significantly in the past two to three years -- a nod to the fact that consumers do care, in fact, about the environment (go figure) and take notice when manufacturers package a 4-ounce phone in a box big enough to swallow a laptop whole. We've seen the boxes get a whole lot smaller, but the EVO's isn't just small -- it's also... well, weird. Our own Vlad Savov described it as resembling a microwaveable meal, and we think that pretty much sums it up: it's like an egg carton material surrounded by a bit of decorative cardboard that can be slipped off, and from a distance, it looks like you might peel the top off and expect steam to billow out. Rest assured, if steam actually billows out of this thing when you open it, you'll want to promptly return it to the store.

Inside, you'll find just the bare essentials under a recycled flip top: a package containing the usual assortment of manuals and documents, a recycling envelope for your old phone (which, let's be honest, is probably better off being sold or handed to a family member than recycled), a Micro-USB cable, USB wall charger (without a second cable, unfortunately, so you'll need to find one if you want to leave cables plugged into both your PC and charger), a 1500mAh battery, 8GB microSD card, and of course, the EVO itself. Our EVO arrived with the battery already installed and charged to about 50 percent, but it was a review unit -- your experience may vary.

Hardware

Alright, enough with the pleasantries; what about the phone itself? Well, it's certainly imposing -- there's just no way around it -- and HTC didn't try to tone things down, coating it head to toe in a mix of gloss and soft-touch black with red accents. Actually, most of the visible red accents left on the production device are beneath the kickstand (more on that in a moment) and around the camera lens; the pre-production unit that we played with back at CTIA also featured a red earpiece grill, which we thought was both edgy and tasteful... but someone at Sprint must've disagreed, because it's just a muted silver now.

Microsoft has said that its mantra for the design of Windows Phone 7 has been "content, not chrome," and we'd argue that the EVO 4G basically exemplifies a hardware version of that philosophy. Every square millimeter of the EVO serves (or seems to serve) a purpose -- nothing is there simply for the sake of design. On the one hand, it's a no-frills device, but on the other hand, the sheer magnitude of its specifications mean that what little design is there still makes an incredibly powerful statement. In other words, wherever you go, people notice this phone. They notice it against your face, they notice it set on a table. In fact, it's hard to not notice. We find it to be an extraordinarily sexy device, and passers-by we encountered seemed to agree.
Though the phone generally feels extraordinarily solid and substantial (there aren't any major moving parts, after all), we did have one minor niggle with build quality. When the capacitive buttons below the display are lit, there's a ton of light leakage along the bottom edge of the phone where the display meets the plastic surround. Obviously, that's not an issue in bright lighting, but in dimmer environments, it's definitely enough leakage to notice and give the phone a visibly cheaper look to it. Then again, this might not be endemic to the entire production run -- and even if it is, it's not going to make or break anyone's decision to buy the EVO, nor their ability to enjoy the living daylights out of it.

The edges of phone are simple affairs. Like the Nexus One, the EVO lacks a dedicated camera button, but it changes the position of the volume rocker from the right side to the left; we're not sure if that was necessitated by the phone's internals, if Sprint specifically requested it be that way, or if there are other dark forces at play. The rocker is quite pronounced, so it's plenty easy to find with your thumb while you're on a call. Around bottom, you'll find a left-oriented mic hole (biased for right-handed talkers, we figure) along with two ports side-by-side in the middle: the standard Micro-USB connector, which is used for both data connections and charging, plus a standard HDMI Type D micro connector that's perfect for outputting those 720p videos you've shot on the phone. It would've been pretty sweet if Sprint had thrown a compatible HDMI cable in the box since odds are good you don't have one of these lying around, but we can understand why they didn't -- we've no doubt their per-unit costs are pretty high on this one as it is. The top of the phone features your typical 3.5mm headphone jack along with a power button toward the right side, which brings us to another one of our complaints: the button is basically flush, and the surface on which it's mounted is angled slightly forward, which makes it surprisingly difficult to find and push the button without looking for it -- especially one-handed. Even a quarter- or half-millimeter of height above the edge's surface would've solved this.

Turning our attention back to the front, Nexus One owners feeling burned by the finicky capacitive buttons can put their minds at ease, because the four examples below the EVO's display work just beautifully. Interestingly, we're not sure how much of the improvement is actual and how much is simply psychological, because they're only marginally larger and lower than the Nexus One's; if anything, we suspect that surrounding each icon with a circle probably increases the odds that we're hitting the buttons exactly where they need to be hit. Of course, the aforementioned light leakage is another matter altogether -- but in terms of raw functionality, we found that the buttons are perfectly usable.

The rear of the handset is comprised of a single curved piece of black soft-touch plastic that features the red-rimmed 8 megapixel optics next to a pair of white LEDs and the speakerphone port. What really concerns us here is that the phone rests directly on the lens, which is pretty unheard of; modern smartphones with decent cameras have a tendency to either recess the lens or conceal it with a sliding cover, but you won't find any of that with the EVO, so it'll be interesting to see whether users' photos become cloudier over time as the glass gets scratched up. Needless to say, we'd probably recommend against placing the phone on hard surfaces -- particularly face-up -- but we suppose the silver lining here is that the protruding lens brings the speakerphone off the surface for maximum volume.

Down below, you've got an inlaid chrome HTC logo, which does a good job of communicating the high-end nature of the beast -- this is no third-rate silkscreen job here, folks -- followed by the kickstand, a feature first seen in HTC's US line on the Imagio. This seems like more of a novelty in smaller devices, but when you're talking about a display this expansive, it actually makes a lot of sense -- we can totally imagine propping this up on our desk and watching some Sprint TV (though we weren't totally stoked to discover that you've got to disable WiFi to watch it). It also saves you a few bucks on a desktop dock (as long as you're cool plugging in the Micro-USB cable by hand) that's perfect for use as a table clock or radio -- and heck, it's good for just getting the EVO off its camera lens. The kickstand has a very strong, positive spring loaded action and feels like it's made of solid metal, so we wouldn't be too worried about breaking it; if we had one complaint, it's that there doesn't appear to be a way to set the phone to perform an action when you open the kickstand (a la Nokia N86). But seriously, we're really reaching for a reason to complain here.

The EVO plays along with one of HTC's more recent design memes kicked off by the HD Mini earlier this year: brightly-colored innards. Boy, does it ever play along! Popping the battery cover off (yes, you pop it with your fingernail -- it doesn't slide) reveals a fire engine red interior complete with matching battery, just like you'll find in the Droid Incredible. Sure, granted, if you replace the pack with a third-party model down the road, it won't likely match -- but then again, this is about as superfluous and hedonistic of a design element as we can possibly imagine, because it serves precisely zero function and is almost never seen by the user. Heck, it's such a covert feature, it's practically a private joke of HTC's... and we can appreciate a good private joke now and again.

The microSD card lives underneath the battery, so we'd probably recommend just getting a nice big one (good luck finding a 32GB!) and leaving it put -- especially since HTC has chosen one of the most unusual slot designs we've ever seen on a phone. Basically, the card rests loosely in a trench and is secured using a plastic peg overhead; press it down to hold the card in place. A fingernail is enough to pop the peg up again, and the card just falls right out. It's such a bizarre design that we can only assume it was necessitated (versus, say, a conventional spring-loaded slot) by virtue of the EVO's tightly-packed circuitry. Nothing a good, old-fashioned teardown won't definitively answer, we're sure.

Comparisons are inevitably going to be made to HTC's other 4.3-inch beast -- the Windows Mobile 6.5-based HD2 -- but when you get into the details, the phones are actually almost completely different animals. The HD2 clocks in at 11 millimeters thick, roughly 2mm thinner than the EVO, and it's just enough of a difference to notice; we've always thought that the HD2 feels almost impossibly thin, while the EVO is a bit more substantial. Mind you, the EVO's gargantuan surface area erases any notion that it's a "thick" phone, but it does feel perceptibly beefier in the hand than either the HD2 or the 11.5mm Nexus One.

Speaking of the HD2, the EVO's display is probably sourced from the same supplier, as far as we can tell -- most importantly, it's bright and it feels good to the touch. It doesn't feel utterly unmovable like you'd expect a glass display to, but it's far from flimsy; you can just barely detect a hint of give if you really press it. Frankly, it's surprisingly similar in terms of color saturation to the Nexus One's AMOLED display when both are set to full-tilt brightness, which suggests that AMOLED's perceived advantage in mobile devices might not really exist; we're certainly not blown away by the Nexus One's battery life, for example, and it's practically useless in sunlight. The EVO fared a bit better in bright sunlight with the automatic brightness control turned on -- it didn't hurt to have a hand cupped over the display, granted, but we could definitely make out what was going on (and here's a little bonus: it's usable in all orientations while wearing polarized sunglasses).

Software

So the EVO 4G is very much a Sense-powered Android 2.1 device, and by and large, that's the experience you're going to get; there aren't any surprises to speak of as far as the UI goes. Like the Droid Incredible and the Desire, it runs almost eerily smoothly -- and if you like Sense, this is exactly the kind of processor (you know, the 1GHz kind) that you want to be running.

It's not so much the overall Sense experience we're interested in here, but rather, two specific components of the EVO 4G's ROM that take it to another level: Sprint's Hotspot app and YouTube HQ. Actually, there's a third huge custom add-on here that we want to explore -- Qik-powered two-way video chat using the EVO's front cam -- but it wasn't ready in time for this review; we're told we'll have it in our hands in the next week or two, so we'll be sure to update you as soon as we've gotten some face time with it.

Anyhow, Hotspot seriously couldn't be easier to use: you activate it either through a dedicated Launcher icon or the EVO's settings menu (or a home screen widget, if you're into that sort of thing), you set your SSID name, your encryption type, and your password -- and that's it. Boom, you're surrounded in a cloud of life-giving WiFi. We connected the EVO to a couple of laptops we have lying around, and it worked great over both 3G and 4G. In fact, it worked so well that we'd argue it obsoletes dedicated mobile hotspot devices like the Overdrive and MiFi, because we were getting speeds as high as 7.5Mbps down and nearly 3Mbps up on WiMAX (granted, roughly 3.5Mbps down was more of the norm, but we saw some amazing peaks).

We know what you're thinking, though: what about battery life? Amazingly, we got some three hours and 13 minutes of run time while using the EVO continuously as a 4G hotspot -- and when we say "continuously," we mean we were streaming high-quality audio the entire time. What's more, the phone wasn't even fresh off the charger when we started; it had been on and in heavy use for two hours and four minutes prior. Bottom line, this thing seems to be a champion on a 1500mAh battery; we can't even begin to fathom what a massive aftermarket pack would do to it.

YouTube HQ does exactly what it advertises -- it significantly boosts your video quality on a high-speed connection. We played a few high-def clips, and the difference is patently noticeable; not only are they smoother and crisper, but they actually take up all of the EVO's huge display rather than being needlessly constrained to a smaller box. What sucks is that HQ's a bit of a tease -- it doesn't work over 3G, even though it seems like EV-DO Rev. A should have plenty of downstream bandwidth to handle what YouTube's trying to do here. Instead, you'll need to be connected to WiMAX or WiFi for things to get interesting. [Update: We've tried it a few more times, and it seems you can actually enable HQ over 3G, it just takes a while to toggle and play -- you can see evidence of that in our video above.]

4G

Of course, the EVO's 4G access isn't just about the Hotspot app (though that's arguably its single most valuable function). The phone's WiMAX radio can be controlled independently of the CDMA / EV-DO, Bluetooth, and WiFi radios -- which will certainly be a boon for customers in 3G-only markets and for anyone looking to max out battery life -- but we tested the EVO in Chicago, where Sprint's (and Clearwire's) 4G signal is alive and well.

When we got a signal, it was amazing. Hell, it was straight-up epic -- full, desktop-caliber websites and apps like the Market loaded with honest-to-goodness WiFi-like speed, and we were able to make calls over CDMA at the same time (this was a feature that Sprint said was on the bubble back at CTIA, so we're happy to see it made it in). Of course, we imagine this is partially a function of the fact that Sprint's 4G network is practically a ghost town; Clearwire's most recent quarterly report clocked less than a million subscribers nationally, and we're sure we'll see some performance degradation as insanely hot hardware like the EVO starts infiltrating Sprint stores and power users get hip to the knowledge that WiMAX is the bee's knees.

The other issue we had was... well, put simply, staying covered. Chicago is an urban canyon in every sense of the word, and Clearwire operates in a high spectrum slot that doesn't share the building penetration characteristics of 700 and 850MHz networks. In other words, we found ourselves getting four bars of 4G walking down the street, then ducking into a coffee shop and dropping to just one or even no bars at all.

Wrap-up

Let us be crystal clear: we love this phone. Nay, we adore it. But the fact remains that it's still very much an Android device -- which means that if you don't like Android now, odds are good that even Android executed on the most amazing hardware to date won't do much to change your opinion of it. You've also got to be concerned about upgradeability; Froyo is almost certainly around the corner now, and HTC hasn't done anything to suggest it's able to push Sense-powered updates in a timely fashion.

That said, this is truly one of the best smartphones ever made, and even spotty 4G -- a reality of a young technology that's going to take years to properly build out -- probably won't do much to hamper your enjoyment of this thing. It's reasonable to assume that phones like the EVO will ultimately come to every carrier over the next few months... but hey, if you jumped ship for Sprint to pick up this monster, we wouldn't be able to blame you.

HTC Wildfire review

GhenMoKai — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:01:48 GMT

If phones could make babies, then this HTC Wildfire would indubitably be the love child of the Desire and Nexus One. But of course, the humdrum reality is that 'tis just an Android 2.1 replacement for the entry-level Tattoo -- same 528MHz Qualcomm MSM7225 processor, 3.2-inch 320 x 240 capacitive LCD touchscreen instead of 2.8-inch resistive, 384MB RAM instead of 256MB, and a 5-megapixel camera instead of 3.2 (although quality matters more, obviously). So can this affordable handset provide enough bang for the buck to satisfy Europeans and Asians? Can the aging processor keep Sense UI well oiled? All will be revealed after the break.

Hardware

At first glance, the Wildfire's a pretty handsome and familiar-looking device, but if you're not a fan of this subtle brown finish, there are three more color options. You can see several elements borrowed from the company's two other Android handsets -- touch buttons and the reassuring back texture from the Nexus One, although the buttons don't work as well on the big daddy; optical trackpad, earpiece, chin, and body frame from the Desire (read: not unibody à la Nexus One). The back is styled like the HD2 with a wide metallic band, but it's not the metal that you take off for the battery bay -- the actual cover needs to be peeled off with some effort from the top (like the Desire). When held in hand, the phone feels like a shorter Desire but equally as sturdy.

The chin below forms part of the back cover, but this is where we spotted the Wildfire's first physical flaw: we saw an uneven cut between the body frame and the chin. This does no justice to HTC's impressive build quality on most of its other devices, but as an entry-level device, we'll need to go easy with this level of detail. Swinging around to the left side you'll see the shiny volume rocker -- which feels well-built -- and micro-USB port, and on the back you have the five-megapixel camera sandwiched by the loudspeaker and LED flash.

To meet the lower price point, HTC's opted for the good ol' LCD instead of AMOLED on the Wildfire. Sadly, the infamous mirror effect is still present albeit not as strong the Desire's and the Hero's. See for yourself in the video below where we compare this with the screens on the Desire, Hero, Dell Streak and iPhone 4 (HD playback highly recommended for more realistic results). Whilst on this topic, we're also a bit upset that due to the low 320 x 240 resolution, some apps -- including our own -- did not appear in the Wildfire's Market. Ah, the good ol' fragmentation problem. For future reference, potential Android users should look at devices with a minimum resolution of 480 x 320 to get the most support.

Performance

The Wildfire's been given the same HTC Sense UI blessing as its other 2.1 siblings -- highlights include Leap for switching between homescreens, FriendStream widget for stalking your friends, an intuitive text highlighting tool (which is dangerously similar to the iOS's), built-in Flash Lite, and a keyboard that many have shown preference to over the stock version. Like the Legend, live wallpapers are -- no pun intended -- sensibly disabled on the feeble Wildfire. Still, we noticed the occasional hiccups every now and then, and we've had a few crashes from the internet browser plus the slow camera app. Looks like the CPU's the main culprit here, considering the Legend also rocks 384MB of RAM but doesn't suffer from such issues. On a similar note, Flash web content took minutes to load on the Wildfire, and even if you have the patience, the low frame rate leaves a lot to be desired. You can see this demoed in the video above.

Despite the list of issues, we managed to get almost twelve hours of battery life on just 3G data connection, while enjoying the occasional music, photo-snapping, video recording, Twitter, FriendStream, and web browsing. Pretty impressive considering we only got about eight to ten hours on our Legend (also donning a 1,300mAh battery but with a newer and supposedly more efficient CPU) -- perhaps HTC's AMOLED screens do suck up a fair bit more juice than LCDs. Adding to the list of positives are the vast range of supported audio file formats, stereo Bluetooth audio (which worked flawlessly for us), and built-in FM radio. We wouldn't recommend using the rear loudspeaker for audio entertainment, but the supplied handsfree kit's pretty decent -- too bad it isn't the noise isolating-plug type, nor did its mic perform well in our noise test .

We've already praised HTC's multimedia apps in our Desire and Legend reviews. Nothing much has changed for the music player -- still as intuitive and stable as before. On the other hand, the gallery app is notably slower at loading pictures, and video playback is much worse -- we can understand that 720p playback isn't feasible with the old CPU (in fact, all our 720p clips froze up the gallery app), but with 640 x 480 MP4 clips coming out at low frame rates, you'd have to wonder who on Earth would buy this when there are featurephones that can do much better. Sorry HTC, but this smartphone ain't working out for us.

Moving on to the keyboard: if you ask the Android community, many would say HTC has one of the best virtual keyboards, but we have a feeling that the Wildfire won't make it to the list. No, it isn't to do with the slightly more crammed keys -- we were still able to type well with that; we're just annoyed by the slow response to our typing. That said, we must commend HTC for yanking the hide keyboard button -- the Back button below the screen does the job anyway -- to extend the space bar, plus the keyboard settings button now prompts a customizable list of international keyboards for quick switching. Not that this means we'd be less frustrated by the laggy keyboard, though.

Camera

Just like any other HTC device, don't expect mind-blowing picture quality -- especially in low-light condition -- from the Wildfire's five-megapixel camera, but indoor shots like the one above look pretty good. As for outdoor usage, the still camera either struggled with the white balance or consistently under-exposed the shots. Still, they are nowhere as bad as the videos recorded -- they're capped at a 352 x 288 resolution with a sad frame rate, and you'll get an even lower frame rate if you record in the dark. What a bummer.

Wrap-up

Well, we didn't have high expectation for the Wildfire to begin with, and having played with it we were even less stoked. In general, this handset's seriously lacking in multimedia features, and then we have the screen problem plus the occasional lag. That said, we can't really walk away hating the Wildfire in its entirety -- the battery life's good, plus it is after all a £230 ($346) device if bought off the shelf, or for free on T-Mobile's £20 ($30) per month two-year contract. In comparison, the Legend's about £360 ($542) SIM-free, but it's also available for free on Vodafone's £20 plan with significantly fewer minutes. Needless to say, your choice will greatly depend on your phone usage and carrier preference, but we'd gladly sacrifice some call time and go for the faster AMOLED-donning Legend. If you're looking for a basic off-contract Android smartphone but still want the Desire / Nexus One look, then the Wildfire's the way to go. You'd just quickly realize that you want more.

HTC Desire (US Cellular) review

GhenMoKai — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:30:31 GMT

TC's Desire is undoubtedly one of the headline Android devices of 2010 so far -- and heck, when you're using the already-great Nexus One as a starting point and re-upping it with an optical pad, physical buttons, and Sense, it's hard to argue otherwise. US Cellular has now become the first carrier to bring the device to the States (nearly five grueling months since its first spats of international availability, we'd like to note), and because USCC's a CDMA carrier, this is naturally a slightly different device than you're getting elsewhere. Don't get us wrong, most of the thoughts in our first review of the Desire still apply -- but needless to say, this launch is notable enough to warrant a second look. Read on!

Given the trend toward ultra-efficient (read: environmentally-conscious) packaging in phones of all sizes and categories, we were surprised to see HTC and US Cellular opt for a relatively gigantic two-piece sliding box here. It's not a big deal, obviously -- and we always recommend that you hang onto your original packaging rather than tossing it anyhow -- but there's no question the could've stepped down to something smaller (just take a look at the Droid 2 and Droid X boxes for good examples of how to get it done). That said, the Desire's packaging is of a high quality and includes the usual suspects: a USB charger, micro-USB cable, headphones, and the typical assortment of documentation. In our case, the battery and 8GB microSD card were both pre-installed.

Without having seen this phone, you might have easily assumed that US Cellular would've altered the ID in some way; carriers like to make tweaks to their branded handsets more often than not, after all, and very rarely does a phone survive the jump from GSM to CDMA (or vice versa) without at least a few alterations -- look no further than the HTC Hero for evidence of that. Here, though, the phone we pulled out of the box was all but identical to the very first Desires we saw back in February at MWC, and we'd argue that's a very good thing -- the GSM Desire is an extremely attractive piece of kit. Everything from the colors to the soft-touch rear to the tasteful red ring around the camera lens carries over; to the untrained eye (and even to the trained one), the small US Cellular logo on the bottom rear is the only indication you have that this is a branded device. Interestingly, we had a hunch that this model was both heavier and slightly thicker than its GSM doppelganger, but it was just our mind playing tricks on us -- the specs have them listed as the same thickness, and the CDMA model is actually allegedly a few grams lighter. We're not sure we buy that, but regardless, the fact remains that this is a very faithful reproduction of the Desire you're already accustomed to.

Or is it a faithful reproduction? One feature that the US Cellular Desire quietly adds is the new 3.7-inch WVGA SLCD display that's going to be shoring up the AMOLED shortages that HTC has been wrestling with since it introduced the Nexus One and Desire earlier this year -- and we'll admit, if you've spent time looking at an AMOLED version of the phone, you'll likely notice the difference almost immediately. Thing is, we wouldn't say that's necessarily a bad thing. Yes, granted, this SLCD is less insanely contrasty with colors that almost seem to jump off the screen, but it still looks fantastic -- and more importantly, it doesn't completely wash out in daylight. Seems like a fair trade to us. And if you've never owned an AMOLED phone before, it's a complete non-issue -- all you'll know is that you're using what is probably the best display hands-down you've ever seen on a handset (stay tuned for a head-to-head comparison of an AMOLED and SLCD Desire to see exactly what we mean, by the way).

Perhaps the best single feature of this phone is actually the lack of a feature: crapware, that is. USCC has really held back on the Desire, limiting customizations beyond Sense itself to nothing more than a unique default wallpaper and three apps that we can see: City ID (a subscription service that maps phone numbers to locations; Verizon also bundles it), My Contacts Backup, and the carrier's Tone Room Deluxe service for buying ringtones. It's refreshing to see a branded device ship this closely to the way the manufacturer intended; of course, the jaded longtime smartphone user in us knows it's only close to stock because USCC hasn't developed as huge of a crapware ecosystem as its larger rivals -- but whatever the reason may be, it's a Good Thing and we should take a moment to sit back and enjoy it. Unfortunately, this phone ships with Eclair -- even when most other Desires have gotten a bump to Froyo already -- and we suspect it'll be harder for a phone with this small of a deployment footprint to get updated as quickly or consistently. We'll see. Linpack scores ranged between 6.7 and 7 MFLOPS, about what we'd expect for a Desire running 2.1.

Like the GSM Desire, US Cellular's flavor uses a 1,400mAh battery -- and we got pretty similar performance out of it in our informal testing as we did both with the original Desire and the Nexus One. In other words, you can eke it through a day if you're careful and you don't go crazy -- but for the sake of safety, we'd personally make sure that we're within range of a power outlet or a spare battery at all times.

Also the same as the GSM Desire? The camera, it seems, which features 5 megapixel resolution, autofocus, and a single LED flash. Like the GSM model, you've got access to both 4:3 standard and 5:3 widescreen still shot modes; there's no dedicated macro mode here, but we were really impressed with our touch-to-focus capabilities right down to the point where the lens was practically touching the object we were trying to shoot. Overall, our photos in decent lighting were clear, bright, and didn't suffer from the egregious compression you occasionally see in these kinds of devices; we wouldn't dare blow up a shot taken with the Desire and turn it into a poster, of course, but you can easy scale it down and make a passable wallpaper for your computer or the like. Low light, though, was another story; the Desire is more than happy to kick in LED assist for autofocus, but the problem is that it doesn't seem to give itself enough time to establish focus with the LED on before snapping the shot, leaving virtually all of our flash-on shots blurry (of course, considering the harshness and uneven nature of the typical cameraphone LED flash, that's not much of a loss). Oh, and as always, we'd like a physical two-stage camera button -- but considering how closely HTC followed the standard Desire recipe in every other way, we're not surprised that they didn't make any changes there, either.

Video quality was a similar story: decent, but nothing to write home about. Notably, US Cellular has shoehorned 720p capture into this phone, even though it's only running Android 2.1-update1 -- on global versions, users have had to wait for 2.2 to move out of the VGA realm. As usual, it's not going to replace your high-def camcorder (except maybe a Flip), and truth be told, for the kinds of quick and dirty videos you'd be taking with this phone, we'd probably end up recording at VGA most of the time anyway. We'd actually argue that the roadblock here isn't video quality, but audio quality; sound on our videos came across muffled with an almost AM radio quality to them.

Wrap-up

Make no mistake: if you're a US Cellular customer looking for the best phone the company has to offer, the Desire instantly becomes the no-brainer choice now that it's been released at retail. And actually, looking at all of the larger regionals, you could make an argument that this is perhaps the best device any of them are currently offering. HTC has done a tremendous job carrying the Desire's personality over from the GSM realm to CDMA, and if you can get over the lack of Froyo and the occasional less-than-perfect shot from the camera, you can't really go wrong.