HTC Incredible Full Review [Verizon/Android]

I’ve fiddled with the HTC Incredible a heck of a lot over the past week. Hands down, it’s the best smartphone on the market for me but it’s not flawless. I’ll tell you what I like and what I dislike about the HTC Incredible.

Likes:

• Hardware Overall: The phone feels very good. It’s like holding a well balanced kitchen knife. It’s a solid build with good weight and shape. The screen is made of Gorilla Glass which resists scratches and allows for a very good touchscreen experience.
• Software Overall: This is my first Android phone and it can do some amazing things. It comes preloaded with Google Maps with Navigation and a few other goodies. However, the beauty of Android is how well the 3rd party apps complement the phone. Also, widgets on the home screens (all 7 of them) spruce up the phone quite a bit and make it much more functional. I have a music screen, a calendar screen, an email screen, etc. With a swipe or two, I’m looking at what I want.
• Screen: AMOLED screen is a piece of beauty. It produces vibrant colors and displays videos well.
• Phone: Sound quality and reception are very good. The speaker in the earpiece is quite loud, perhaps too loud at full volume. The phone gets knocked for its reception. Here’s why: “bars” on a phone are not a standard measure. This phone will show fewer bars with a very strong signal than a competing phone. People have confirmed this by testing the raw numbers. Even at one “bar”, reception can be very good. It has an equivalent signal strength to the Blackberry Tour which had a great antenna.
• Browser: The stock browser is good, roughly comparable to Apple’s Safari iPhone browser. However, the Market has some free browser replacements that really shine. The revised Dolphin HD is the best mobile browser I have ever used. It supports gestures, it can be reskinned, there are many plugins, the app exits properly (more on this later) and it renders pages properly. Both the stock browser and Dolphin HD can display the flash-based category cloud in the right column of this page. I made Dolphin HD my default browser. Another good, free browser alternative is SkyFire which is in beta.
• Music Player: The stock music player is very functional but doesn’t have any pizazz.  Check out Cubed (3) in the Market for a nice 3D navigation system. Other good music players in the market include MixZing and Meridian. Also, one nice thing about Android is that you can make a 3rd party app default for a certain action.
• Video Player: Nothing wrong with the stock video player but some people prefer Meridian.
• Email: The Gmail app (which I prefer to the Sense mail program) is very good if you use Gmail (and why don’t you, I ask?). Some people have problems with some other email systems but, based on my skimming of the Android forums, these problems can be solved.
• User Interface: Sense UI is splendid. I played around with some alternative UIs using the app Home Switcher and Sense UI is the best in show.
• Keyboard: How can I forget this one? The stock keyboard is acceptable. Swype is a keyboard replacement that eats it for lunch. There’s a problem, however. If you want to do voice commands, there’s no button on Swype to listen for a voice command. You need to revert to the stock keyboard and then speak your command. Frankly, I think voice commands are overrated. With Swype (which is not available in the Market, you can find it here), I can type much faster than I did on the Blackberry by dragging my finger key to key until I swiped a word out. After a couple days of practice, this method of input is a breeze.
• App Development: It’s like being a kid in a candy store if you’re coming from a Blackberry. I think when you factor in the quality of the apps, the App Store and the Market are very comparable. And, toss in that the Market is basically wide open for all kinds of apps. On the iPhone, you can’t replace a keyboard, music player, video player, SMS interface, etc.

Dislikes:

Overall

The HTC Incredible is the best smartphone on the market that is available on any carrier. Not perfect. 4.7 out of 5.0. This will be Verizon’s best offering for a very long time because the 4G network won’t be deployed until 2011 and the next gen iPhone won’t be available to 2011 at the earliest, according to credible rumors. If you’re in the market for a new phone, you will probably be very, very happy with the HTC Incredible.

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