Introduction
HTC’s Droid Incredible is essentially a jaguar-sleek version of the original Motorola Droid – comparatively the aging lion at this point. But the easily mockable moniker is not exactly appropriate. The iPhone was incredible. The original Droid was nearly incredible. This Incredible is more like the smooth, mature, professionally executed conclusion of all previous Android phones – the apex of the Android art. Apex – that would have been a good name. But it may not even live up to that description.
Features and Design
If you hold the original Motorola Droid and the Incredible side-by-side, there’s no contest, at least physically. Even though both occupy the same two dimensional area, the Incredible is about 13 percent thinner (0.47 inches deep to the Droid’s 0.54 inches) and more importantly, nearly an ounce and a half lighter than the pocket-sagging Droid. In some places, the Incredible is even thinner thanks to its sculpted, form-fitting rear cover, which is irregularly carved to match the battery compartment.
Both also run Android 2.1, which provides, among other things, seven roomy home screens compared to the Droid’s three. Tapping the Home key from any home screen gives you an iconic view of all seven.
Inside is where the Incredible raises the Droid bar. It’s powered by a swift 1GHz Snapdragon processor, compared to the Droid’s 550MHz engine, which means everything loads faster. YouTube videos load nearly a third faster on the Droid.
What the Incredible lacks is Droid’s slideout QWERTY, which is why the Droid is so bulky. Whether this is an improvement (beyond the weight issue) is a personal choice. If you don’t like touch keyboards, you won’t like the Incredible, especially considering its too-thin QWERTY in portrait mode, and vice versa.
The Incredible also includes an FM radio, lacking on the Droid. More importantly, Incredible includes 8GB of built-in memory, so you may be able to avoid prying open the battery cover to thread in a microSD card.
Buttons and Jacks
Like the Droid, the Incredible is largely devoid of external bulges and buttons. There’s a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a nearly flush power button up top, a similarly discreet volume toggle on the left perimeter, and that’s it. Touch keys for menu, back, home and search are positioned below the screen and above a tiny concave optical mouse, which functions like the trackpad on a laptop.
Display
Both phones sport a similarly long 3.7-inch, 480-by-800 pixel display (The Droid’s LCD is actually 800 x 854), the Incredible shows off an AMOLED, which is theoretically brighter and more battery-friendly than LCD, although you won’t see much viewing improvement considering Droid’s stellar screen. The Incredible’s AMOLED is a bit glossier, brighter and more colorful than Droid’s also excellent LCD, but these are slight differences perceived only by holding the two screens side-by-side.
There is an expanded battery that you can buy on Amazon for $41. It doubles the life of the original stock battery, and you don't have to have a replacement back cover either. I ordered one, though I have yet to receive my Incredible. The order was processed, and they're saying it won't ship until June 3rd. :( But I plan on keeping the stock battery as a backup. Just do a search for Seidio Innocell 1750 on Amazon.
I wish I'd read these comments prior to getting my droid Incredible!!! The battery life scares me as I really depend on my phone. WHY should I have to pay $50.00 to get a decent battery??? Should I send my Incredible back to Verizon??
I’m having the same discussion with myself before my 30 days is up. I love the phone but can’t deal with not having it last the day. My last attempt to fix is to add the Power Control Widget to a home screen which enables me to keep my screen on the medium brightness setting and easily turn it up if I need to. I’ll see how that goes. I had the Eris for a couple of weeks and that battery lasted longer but this is a better device otherwise.
The 8mpix camera takes sharp pictures. But, it hangs very often. The battery life is the family joke. My brother has an IPhone and his son has a Droid. His Droid lasts just about all day and he uses it often. My Incredible varies. Sometimes, I get 5 hours out of it. But, here is a more typical example:One day, I got up at about 9:30, checked a few Facebook messages, sent a couple of messages, surfed just a couple of web pages, put the phone down. A couple of hours later, I hit the road, again, checking messages before I left. I had a 10 minute phone call. That's it. There we were at 1:00 and my battery as just about to turn red. I had to download “Advanced Task Killer” and ALWAYS kill all running apps before putting my phone down. Right now, I have been on it about as much as I described above. I have been killing apps. It has been 2 hours and 52 minutes since unplugged and the battery is at about halfway. Well, it says it is a little over half. But, I know that the last half of the battery, according to the indicator, is really about the last quarter of it. I love the 8mp camera and hope/expect there will be a fix to stop the hanging. But, I wonder, should I continue to carry the family joke around? Oh, by the way, I used to have a Motorola 6800, Verizon, and the sound quality is poorer. I figure that Verizon had the power to the antenna lowered because of the battery issues. At my brother's house, it is a marshy area with poor reception no matter what service is used. However, he was surfing the Internet with his IPhone and his son was surfing with his Droid. I couldn't do that with the Incredible.
The Facebook data does integrate.
This phone is great except the battery life sucks because of all the running apps in the background and even when you have an app killer it only kills the running apps for a few minutes then even more apps pop up.
WHY should I have to pay $50.00 to get a decent battery???
The battery life scares,is bad simples
I just got back from vacation in Alaska and used the HTC Incredible for most of my glacier videos. Really an awesome phone!
I've posted my videos here so you can see some real world use as well: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimsandjoycesworld/4…
This phone does NOT sound bad on both ends of calls. The person who reviewed this phone is an idiot. It does sound a little choppy on your end but everyone I've spoken to on it can hear me with no problems. In addtion for all those who constantly complain about the battery life I have to ask what your prior phone was? A flip phone? Yeah its a mini-laptop in your pocket, most smart phones are, they eat battery life. There must be some give and take for what is packaged on these things and to think you wont have to charge it daily moronic. I'm tired of hearing this same nonsense. If you're that shocked that a 1ghz processor eats power than you need to get yourself a flip and text phone that teenage girls use cuz clearly you know very little (and havent read too much online) if you're “shocked” at how poor the battery life is.
Among many views considered before choosing our HTC Increds. Verizon was the only network that would reach w/in our homes (we tried 'em all). I wanted the EVO for it's forward-facing camera, but Sprint roamed 'til it found a Verizon tower, then lost reception. Also, roaming counts against anytime minutes. And, 4G? Not here, but would reportedly cost an extra $10/phone w/out any benefit.As for sound? It's a bit tiny at times, but still good enough for my failing ears. Stereo 44.1khz, in and out (I play music via headphones jack to amplified computer speaker system).I also activated a third phone, the military-spec. Rock, for $10/mo., as my own insurance (rather than givin' up $7.99/mo. per phone w/ no return).Yes, the battery issue sucks. Even as I type, I'm connected to a computer's USB. Funny that the phone warns that I need to switch to that wall charger, as the drain of ONLY this exceeds the trickle charge.I'm nearly impossible to satisfy, but l can live w/ this one for the next two long years FAR more easily than any of the alternatives of today. And, as for technology's quickest promises of tomorrow? Having this phone THEN will still be plenty good enough … sorta like havin' a slightly used Silver Shadow, when one w/ temp tags parks nearby: Mine is, and, still, shall be, a Rolls-Royce.
8 MP is silly, should first focus on putting in a 4-5 MP that has excellent quality (low noise, sharp, etc…). BTW, where is this shot… Poland? I mean, how much narrower of a train platform can an idiot build?
Love the phone, but the battery life is awful. They can make a phone like this, but can't make a battey to last the day! lol
I can totally agree with Cranky Geek above. I have had more problems than none with my Motorola Droid phone. Thank you for keeping it real. I am on my second Moto Droid and everyone is still complaining and the speakerphone sucks. In short, the Incredible is on its way! I had mine shipped out today!
It’s a nice piece of hardware. I’m writing this from an incredible and my iPhone sold for 400 on Craigslist in 5 minutes.
I got the HTC Incredible yesterday and cannot get the battery to stay charged for more than 3 hours…. is this typical? I'm ready to send it back!!!
My wife and I just got Verizon Incredibles. We really like them. Call quality is slightly tinny but quite clear, even in noisy places. Sound using a headset is decent. The FM radio is just about useless, but Internet radio works great, so there isn't much call for the FM radio. The screen is beautiful, we like the Sense UI, and over all it is a very nice smartphone indeed.
The voice quality is leaps and bounds above the Moto Droid, I just returned both my wife's and my Droid for the Incredible. Both Moto's were returned 3 times each and still could not get one that gave us a clear call. We tested out the Incredible for a couple of hours and made calls to multiple people to see if they could finally understand what we were saying during the call and everyone told us they sounded great compared to the old phones we used to have……I can also talk to my wife as we travel to and from work, which was something we couldn't do in the past because of the fustration factor……Don't get me wrong, I am not bashing the Moto Droid in anyway except for the fact that it's inability to be able to make quality phone calls. Everything else about the Moto was great, and I would have been very happy keeping it if it could do what it was made for…..Phone Calls…..Even though we have only had the Incredible's for a few hours since their release, we are both happy with them and wouldn't think of switching to another type of phone at this point…..the Sense UI make it look and feel more like a phone, with the options to make calls very easily as opposed to clicking through the contacts list hunting for the number you want to call. The Call Log is more detailed, you can see who called what time they called and how long the call lasted, something I could do on the Droid, maybe you could, but I never found call times and lengths on the Droid.If I were to recommend a smartphone to someone, I would definately point them towards the Incredible if they were concerned about voice quality, but if that wasn't a top priority for them, then I would say the Moto Droid and Incredible are pretty much equal in the ease of use and would tell them to go with what one felt better in their hand.
I switched from Motorola Droid to HTC incredible.Sounds of latter is horrible but everything else is much better than Motorola Droid.
My voice quality is fine. I have not yet experienced the poor quality noted in this review. So far so good on this phone. It is exceptionally fast.
FM reception is horrible and the phone keeps on freezing up
Is there any information on the sound quality and phone reception with the HTC Incredible?
Your links to buy take you to the wrong phone…
Speech therapy is good for you sir..