Our previous review of the HTC One was an international model, running on AT&T’s network. We have now had an official U.S. model running on Sprint for the past week, so we felt it appropriate to go back and basically summarize our opinions for this device. We also felt it necessary to give a second opinion on it, since you know that no two persons are truly alike. It’s time for Tato’s take on the HTC One.

Before we begin, I should point out that the one downfall to this device is the fact that I don’t live in an area supported by Sprint’s 4G LTE, so the device is rather handicapped in that regard. Nevertheless, if you are still on the fence about picking up HTC’s 2013 flagship over any other device, read on. 

The Good

Hardware 

When looking at the device’s specs on paper, they definitely stand out in your average crowd of devices. The One features a 4.7″ 1080p display with 468ppi, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 2,300mAh non-removable battery, 4G LTE connectivity (where supported), an IR blaster for use as a remote, and comes packed with the future standard of WiFi, 802.11ac. Each one of these specs is packed inside a single piece of aluminum casing that gives off a smooth and hardened feel when handled. Possibly tied for the top spot with the One X, this is the nicest Android phone I have ever touched. It gives off just the right amount of weight, not so much to where you would call it heavy, but the perfect amount to know the device is solid and well constructed.

Camera 

The camera on the HTC One has been the source of many questions, given that it runs a single 4MP sensor. How could HTC put a lowly 4MP camera in their 2013 flagship against Samsung’s 13MP monster? In short without getting all scientific (since I know little about real cameras), it actually works well for this device and in the right circumstances, it works extremely well. When on a stroll through the park or inside the house, the One produces very good quality pictures, full of detail and crisp lines. You can tell that the Ultrapixel does let in good amounts of light, but it never makes a photo turn out bad by any means. The one true downside I noticed with the One’s camera is that if you zoom in beyond 45% or more, your picture will come out looking blurred and nasty. To sum up the camera, if you upload photos to Facebook and Instagram on a regular basis, it will treat you just fine.

Click each image for full resolution.

BoomSound 

If there was one feature that I showed off about this phone the most, it was BoomSound. The front facing speakers on this device sound fantastic with any type of music I played through them. I’m more of a rock/metal kind of guy and they had no issues balancing the right amount of highs and lows. While playing more bass-heavy tunes, the sounds were handled just fine and it was actually a pleasure to listen to music through. To say your phone has amazing external speakers is almost unheard of, so having BoomSound is a major advantage for anyone that loves watching media on their device or listening to music. Kellen mentioned in his review that we have never talked about the speaker experience on a phone before and that should give everyone a clue just how highly we think of them.

BlinkFeed

Kellen mostly avoided talking about BlinkFeed in his review, given that he didn’t use it all that much (until he changed his mind recently). The thing is, like he mentions, HTC sort of forces you into using it, as it is a part of your homescreen. There is no disabling it. So, I placed some basic feeds in there from car blogs and science blogs, and I actually found it somewhat useful. What I do like about it is that I am a very visual guy, so when I see the big and bright pretty pictures, I’m able to simply click on them and be taken to the story. It’s a no fuss experience. Plus, since you can add calendar events and even Twitter feeds, it’s just a simple way of staying up-to-date on everything that is going on.

The Not-so-Good

Carrier 

The HTC One that I have is on Sprint’s network and where I live, Sprint is pretty poor in terms of data speeds and mobile coverage. Like, really poor. Their service is so inconsistent that when I take my phone out with me, I have no idea if I’m going to a mobile dead zone when I leave my house. For example, I was with a friend at a restaurant in the middle of town and I couldn’t even send out a tweet. The phone showed I had 3/4 bars full of “3G” service, yet I couldn’t even send a tweet. When your device is rendered useless because of the network it’s on, that is sort of inexcusable for me. If Sprint has good coverage in your area, then hopefully your experience will differ greatly from mine. I noticed that when the device showed it was on “4G,” it worked just fine, but when on “3G” don’t plan on doing any streaming, Tweeting, or Facebook’ing.

Parts of Sense 5 

While the overall look of the Sense UI has improved greatly over the years, there are some parts of Sense 5 that are just awful. On stock Android, it takes just a single click to access the option if you want to choose a wallpaper, but on here, the option is hidden inside the settings menu. You have to drag the notification bar down, hit settings, find Personalize, hit wallpaper, then you can choose what you want to do. If you long press the homescreen on Sense 5, you can change widgets, add a homescreen, add shortcuts, but not even change the wallpaper. Why is that? It just seems overly complicated and unnecessary. To add to my frustrations with Sense, another key feature of Jelly Bean, expandable notifications, is not done properly.

In stock Android, your top notification tends to always be expanded while the older ones collapse automatically. With Sense 5, they are always collapsed and never auto expand, forcing you to always two-finger swipe down on them. Unfortunately, the gesture isn’t all that smooth and I sometimes have to swipe three times for it to work. As Kellen put it, “dealing with notifications went from being an amazing new experience, to completely painful.”

Buttons 

Navigation on the HTC One is sort of funky and to be honest, I couldn’t even find the recent apps function until just a couple of days ago. You access features with different long presses and double taps which is just crazy in my opinion. You long press the home button to access Google Now and you double tap home to bring up recent apps. And of course, that huge HTC logo doesn’t do anything at all. I am all for OEMs differentiating themselves from the competition, but it would be nice to soon have a standard from Google that says manufacturers must use on-screen buttons. That would be nice.

Device Gallery

Verdict

I believe it was on this week’s Droid Life Show when I said the HTC One is the – Best. Smartphone. Ever. I think a part of me truly does feel that way, but at the same time there a few things I would have changed. Stop making Sense so confusing, throw in a beefy 8MP or 13MP camera without the Ultrapixel marketing gimmickry, and get it onto Verizon’s network. At the end of the day, this is currently my favorite Android smartphone of all time, so that does count for something. It is an absolute dream to feel in the hands and the device is extremely pleasing to look at. It’s the ultimate sensory-pleasing package of a phone. If you are shopping for a new Android phone, you have to check out the One from HTC.

To get your full review dose, check out Kellen’s review here.

Quick Review: HTC One on Sprint is a post from: Droid Life

The Samsung Galaxy S4, aka the most anticipated smartphone of the year, is finally here. After showing itself at a questionably comical press event in NYC on March 14, many of us have been counting down the days to its arrival. There were so many new software features on display during the phone’s unveiling that only some serious time spent with the phone could allow us to digest even a sampling of what Samsung and the Galaxy S4 have to offer. But there are some serious questions that need to be answered with this phone as well. Is it a big enough jump from the Galaxy S3 to get anyone to upgrade? Is it better than the HTC One? Are all of these new software features gimmicks that no one will really ever use? Is the overall package enough of a jump to keep Samsung relevant?

We’ve had a review unit in hand for a week now, thanks to Samsung, and are more than ready to share as many answers to those questions as we can. Stick with us, it’s going to be a long ride. 

The Good

Hardware

In terms of hardware and specs, Samsung has done something pretty remarkable with the Galaxy S4. They managed to pack the latest and greatest mobile processor, display, camera sensor, and larger battery into a body that is actually slimmer, lighter, and smaller than its predecessor. We’re talking about a 1.9GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor, 5.0″ FHD Super AMOLED display (441ppi), 2GB RAM, 16/32/64GB internal storage options, microSD card slot, 13MP rear camera, 2MP front camera, and 2600mAh removable battery, all tucked into a body that is 7.9mm thick and weighs just 130g. You can argue all day long about this being a minor bump from the Galaxy S3 and whether or not you like the design, however, on paper, it’s really not that close.

On a related note, during a recent meeting I had with Samsung, they pointed out the fact that at this point in the smartphone game, they are really the only OEM putting microSD card slots in phones and allowing for removable batteries. As the industry moves away from each of these items, Samsung and their top selling phones all continue to feature them. While I wouldn’t necessarily say these are the two reasons for their massive success and the rest of the industry’s decline, they certainly are worth a mention. People like extra storage and they like to have backup batteries.

Design

I’m tempted to toss out the “you either love or hate Samsung’s plastic phone designs,” but in truth, it seems like the minority actually aren’t fans of it. Samsung is the top selling smartphone manufacturer in the world, and yes, they make their phones out of plastic that people tend to label as “cheap.” At this point, I’m not sure that the majority of people really care if their phones are made of plastic, aluminum, or glass as long as the price is right, there are software enhancements that cater to their lives, and the phone is thought to be the hot tech product of the moment. Since Samsung fits all of those categories once again with the Galaxy S4, I don’t see there being much of a fuss over its similar build quality to previous Samsung releases.

With the Galaxy S4, you get a similar package to what you had with the Galaxy S3, yet everything has been upgraded into a smaller body. Most importantly, you have more screen real estate on the front with less bezel, so you almost have a full-screen experience when interacting with the phone. The design sports a dotted patterned backside, and even subtler dotted pattern on the front trim. The Galaxy S4 is much squarer than its predecessor, but it still has rounded edges in all the right places to make it fit nicely in hand. I’d actually argue that the Galaxy S3 has a better feel in hand thanks to its pillowy curves, but the GS4 doesn’t necessarily feel bad by any means.

In fact, the overall design of the GS4 is much more appealing than the GS3. Gone is the incredibly cheap-looking wave-like side metallic band – in is a much more conservative and uniform band that stretches around each side of the phone. I believe it’s still plastic, but at least it looks metal. I even like the speaker placement better, as it matches up to the two-slit opening on the Note 2, rather than the fake metal grid found on the GS3.

The Galaxy S4 comes in both Black Mist (pictured in this post) and White Frost, though my Black Mist version tends to look blue-ish more often than black.

There aren’t a lot of stand-out design features with the Galaxy S4, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It still looks great, Samsung just didn’t take any risks.

Display

The Galaxy S4, to our knowledge, is the first in the world to use a Full HD (FHD) 1080p Super AMOLED display. Weighing in at 5.0″ and with 441ppi, it’s nothing short of stunning. The AMOLED displays used in many of Samsung’s devices tend to blow out colors more vibrantly than their LCD counterparts, show deeper blacks, and for the most part, take the opposite approach to displaying anything the way an LCD does, which is to look less natural. I tend to love AMOLED displays, because I like the somewhat cartoonish look you get at times. At this point in the game, though, I don’t know that you are going to find that big of a difference between either the new LCDs used in phones like the One or this new FHD Super AMOLED, but I’ll throw some thoughts out there anyway.

Color reproduction on both the AMOLED of the Galaxy S4 and the LCD of the One is excellent to me. With that said, I feel like you get deeper colors which in turn means greater detail in whatever you are viewing with the AMOLED on the Galaxy S4. For example, at full brightness and indoors, the HTC One’s LCD display appears washed out to me, while the Galaxy S4′s AMOLED display only gets better the brighter you go. I think Samsung plays to their strengths in the UI by offering up stock wallpapers that accent the great blues that an AMOLED can display, but it’s not just there that I’m seeing the benefits. From icons to Google Maps to this website, the colors all match what my naked eye sees on any other display or in reality.

Macro shots for fun.

Full resolution: GS4 icons | vs. HTC One

But again, you can’t go wrong with any of the current display technologies being used in high-end phones. The pixel densities are so outrageous, that you’ll never see a pixel even if the pixel arrangement appears to be odd. Take the Chrome logo macro shot I’ve included above, which if I’m not mistaken, shows some sort of diamond-like matrix arrangement from the AMOLED on the Galaxy S4. It’s not necessarily pretty under a macro lens when compared to the traditional arrangement on the LCD of the One, but none of our eyes see in macro. So as usual, we’re doing this for fun because to the naked eye, it’s a great display.

I will say that whites on the AMOLED are not as clear or bright as the LCD on the One. They look too grey for my liking, but by no means is that a reason to dislike this display. The only way you’ll really notice, is if you are sitting at a desk like I am, with both phones next to each other cranked to full brightness.

Software Enhancements

Thanks to an ultra-successful and innovative feature-set that was introduced with the Galaxy S3, we knew from the beginning that Samsung would try and drastically outdo themselves with the GS4. The jury is still out on whether or not they did, but we found a number of their gesture and Air View style add-ons to be quite useful. Samsung expounded on their previously introduced hover and movement capabilities in the Galaxy S4 by allowing you to navigate and perform a variety of tasks without actually placing even a fingertip on the device.

If you have used a Galaxy Note 2, then you are likely familiar with Air View, which utilizes the tip of the S Pen to hover over items on a phone and then return actions. For example,  you can enter the gallery and hover over thumbnails to view a bigger version of the image without actually entering into the full-screened view. You can hover over text in the browser to magnify it, over dialer shortcuts to see which numbers have been set, or even over calendar items to see a breakdown of your day. The beauty of this tech with the Galaxy S4, is that you no longer need an S Pen. All you need now is a finger that can be hovered.

Samsung also built in a number of new gestures that can be activated with a simple air swipe of the hand over your display. If you would like to wake your phone to a minimal overview of your device’s current state (includes battery level, text messages, calls, etc.), simply wave a hand over the top portion (where the sensors are located) and your phone will briefly wake itself (pictured above). If you are thumbing through gallery pictures, yet find yourself with greasy fry fingers while at lunch, wave your hand from right-to-left or left-to-right to change photos. This also works in the browser to change tabs and scroll through web pages, as well as in the ringer to answer calls.

All of these gesture and hover-based features can be enabled or disabled in the phone’s settings, so don’t feel like you have to use them. Also, most only work in Samsung-built apps, which is pretty disappointing. If you were hoping to gesture swipe around Chrome or hover in Gmail, it’s not happening. I asked Samsung if they had plans to open up these features to developers, and unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like it’s in the program at this point. They are working with specific app developers like Flipboard, though.

Battery

Battery life on the Galaxy S4 has not been an issue for me in the week that I’ve had the phone. I should note that I’ve had the Sprint version and live in Portland, so the device has been running on 3G CDMA the entire time, not 4G LTE. While I wish I could give you definitive battery tests with LTE running all day, that wasn’t in the cards this time around. As I get my hands on LTE versions (AT&T and Verizon), I’ll be sure to try and update this section should these numbers change in any way.

In the screenshots below (from left to right), you’ll see my battery life results from my first three days and three charges. In day one, I’d put usage level at moderate-to-heavy because of the setup process of the phone and traveling time. In the second screenshot, this was definitely my highest usage day, that included a solid 30-45 minutes of gaming. On the third day, I used the phone as I typically would throughout a day – WiFi on, grabbing it for a call here or there, checking some emails, updating apps, etc. By no means are my typical days “heavy.” During all three days, never once did I have to charge the phone in under 10 hours of use.

The good news, which I mentioned earlier, is the fact that the Galaxy S4 has a removable battery. Should you be a heavy LTE user, Samsung will eventually give you the opportunity to buy replacement batteries, potentially even an extended battery to help get you through a day. It’s a feature that Samsung has no plans to move away from.

Expandable Storage

Samsung continued their trend of including microSD card slots in flagship phones with the Galaxy S4. Should you choose to buy the 16GB model of the phone, understand that you can toss in a microSD card up to 64GB to expand that. It’s a minor detail, but it’s one that only Samsung continues to pay attention to. The rest of the smartphone world is trending towards not having SD card slots, yet Samsung is fully aware that its customer base is all about removable storage. For someone like me, who is constantly testing phones and never has to worry about storage limits, even I can see the benefits to having SD card slot support, especially for those who are attached to a phone for the life of a contract.

Camera

The camera section of this review is pretty far down the list of “good” things for a reason – it’s pretty good, but not great and definitely not bad. As you’ll see in the sample shots below, the 13MP sensor in the Galaxy S4 is capable of taking some (what I would consider to be) stunning photos in the right light. The picture of the Paulaner beer I consumed this weekend in particular, is one of my favorites. The color accuracy, white balance, and ability for the camera to adjust correctly to what I would assume to be a macro setting while on “Auto” seemed to play off perfectly. I also liked the sausage picture (consumed with the Paulaner) because it grabs a ton of detail, yet still doesn’t give off the oil-painting effect that I saw far too often with the HTC One’s camera.

Full resolution:  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

Obviously, it’s not all good for the Galaxy S4 camera, since I dropped it down this far. In low light, the camera is not great – actually, it’s not even good. The picture above of a glass of whiskey was in a decently lit lobby bar at a hotel in San Francisco and came out looking subpar and mushy (technical term) when compared to the previously mentioned photos taken with great outdoor light. The real killer here, though, is the HTC One comparison I took while in a dark storage room in the upstairs of my house. The Galaxy S4 wasn’t even able to capture anything other than a corner of a pillow – the rest is blackness. The HTC One on the other hand captured almost the entire room.

I’m also not a fan of the size of 13MP images in general. While I’m well aware of the fact that I can adjust that down to 8MP in the camera settings, by default, these things are enormous and almost impossible to share with social networks or via email. Most of the photos I took with stock settings started at 2.4MB and climbed all the way up to 4.4MB.

Low light comparison shot to the HTC One.

So again, the camera on the Galaxy S4 is pretty good, it’s just not great. With that out of the way, let’s talk software, since Samsung added a bunch of new features that may come in handy from time to time.

Camera Software

Samsung packed all sorts of new goodies into their camera software. The most notable change upfront is the UI, which they told us was tweaked to mimic that of the Galaxy Camera since they received such positive feedback from that product. It’s simple if you want it to be, plus the layout is easily managed while taking both photos and video. But along with the new UI, they added in camera modes like Drama (merge together action shots), Animated photo (lets you create GIFs on phone), Sound and Shot (record audio with photos), and Eraser (removes unwanted moving objects from photos). Most of these won’t get steady action from you, but the point is to have them there just in case. Call them gimmicks if you want, but to me, they are add-ons that will come in handy from time to time, and there is nothing wrong with that.

One of the bigger features Samsung is pushing with the camera is their picture-in-picture modes for both video and photos. You can really have some fun with this setting, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you even find practical uses for it. Using both front and rear cameras, the Galaxy S4 is able to record video at the same time or capture stills, no matter what you are doing. You can theme up the in-picture shot, go fully split-screen, or adjust the size of the box to your liking. It’s certainly silly and seems incredibly limited in its uses, but again, it’s there if you need or want it.

Overall, the camera on the Galaxy S4 has to be considered a positive just for the fact that it packs in so many features while still being able to produce great stills under the right circumstances. You could argue that even with all of the fluff it’s still not as versatile as say, the camera on the HTC One, and I wouldn’t fight you on that point. But no matter what, it’s serviceable.

Android 4.2.2

The Galaxy S4 is one of the first Android phones in history to launch with the most current version of Android. That version is Android 4.2.2, which Google only unleashed upon us back in February. There is a chance that Google releases an even newer version at its I/O developer conference in mid-May, but for the time being, Samsung is up-to-date. This may sound like something that should happen with all new phones, but manufacturers can’t seem to keep up even after years of practice. So in a way, this is an even bigger deal than putting in a 13MP camera or 1080p display.

Accessories

One thing Samsung has done over the last year and a half that we absolutely love, is release phones with one size and shape on all carriers around the globe. This allows accessory manufacturers to provide you with more accessories than you can possibly absorb. No longer are they forced to create special versions depending on the carrier – with the Galaxy S4, it’s one size fits all. Your choices will seemingly be endless, once this phone arrives, assuming accessory makes have begun prep work.

Outside of third party accessory makers, Samsung is planning to release their own suite of accessories for the Galaxy S4, ranging from variants of their popular Flip Cover to health accessories to universal docks to replacement batteries. Most will be available at launch, outside of the health accessories which will arrive later this year.

The Not-so-Good

Build Materials

Look, it’s 2013 and companies like HTC and Apple are making beautifully designed, high-end phones out of materials like aluminum, yet here is Samsung, pushing out another phone made entirely of plastic. Now, we’ve talked about plastic as a smartphone material and the fact that it serves a purpose, but at some point, shouldn’t Samsung try to step it up a notch? We can argue for days whether or not this new Galaxy S4 is a designers dream or not, but the truth is that it doesn’t even compare in style or build to what HTC did with the One. I’d be lying, as would anyone else, if they sat here and told you with both the One and Galaxy S4 in hand, that the GS4 is the higher-end or better looking of the two. It’s really not even close. The Galaxy S4 is a well made, plastic phone, it’s just not on-par in terms of design or build with the One. There are rumors floating around which suggest that Samsung has acknowledged this and will bring something new to the table with the Galaxy Note 3, but again, those are just rumors.

TouchWiz

In my HTC One review, I took HTC’s Sense 5.0 to task. I’m going to do the same with Samsung’s TouchWiz. As stock Android has grown into an incredibly polished and feature-rich mobile operating system, manufacturers continue to put their own spin on it with custom skins that tend to make things more difficult than they need to be. To be fair to the review process, I’ll also only pick five issues in particular that stood out to me as I did with the One, but like the One, I could probably go on and on.

First, creating folders is a mess as it almost always has been with TouchWiz. In order to create one, you need to grab an app and then drag it to the “Create folder” option that appears at the top of the screen. I can sort of understand how this might seem more user friendly to a novice user than the standard Android version of dragging apps on top of each other, but why did Samsung remove the traditional drag and drop altogether? Sure, once you create a folder using this “Create folder” option, you can drag items into it easily, but I’m still not seeing the point in removing the easiest way of all, which is to simply drag an app onto another app in order to create one. I can’t imagine that there is really some software restriction that is forcing us to do one or the other.

Second, the standard TouchWiz keyboard is the worst in the business. If you buy this phone, install Swiftkey or Swype or whatever other third party keyboard you like as soon as you can. Now, we should point out that Swiftkey’s technology is actually built into Samsung’s stock keyboard, but Samsung has still done their own thing with it. It doesn’t auto-correct as well in my experience with it, plus its key spacing gives me a headache when it comes to quick typing. It’s swipe-like or gesture typing isn’t half bad, but if you are a rapid-tapper like me, you may find yourself spending more time correcting errors than you are used to.

Third, the dialer application which is attached to contacts is essentially two separate apps, yet they appear to be one. What I mean by that, is as you enter the dialer, you’ll see tabs (which I’ll get to in a moment) for Keypad, Logs, Favorites, and Contacts. Should you press the Contacts tab, it actually opens up the Contacts app rather than a new tab, so there is a delay before it shows you anything as it takes time to process and open the Contacts app. Once in the Contacts app, the top tabs change to Phone, Groups, Favorites, and Contacts. That’s right, the tab that used to say Keypad, now says Phone. Can we get some consistency? Again, tapping “Phone,” then opens up the dialer app and takes an additional few seconds to load. It’s slow, clunky, and pretty damn ugly.

 The settings menu in this new version of TouchWiz is quite confusing. Samsung decided that the vertical scrolling approach to the settings menu on any other Android device is not quite easy enough to understand. So instead, they created four tabs and their own categories for settings, which are mostly a jumbled mess. It has taken a week to figure out where certain items are that I visit on a regular basis because the organization is so random. Like, why is Accessory, Call, and Display in the “My device” section, but Storage, Battery and Date & Time are schluffed off into a “More” category. Don’t those items all have to do with “My device” as well?

Last, Samsung still designs apps and menus as if they were built in 2010 for Gingerbread rather than Jelly Bean. For example, in the settings menu that I just complained about, you have a tabbed few of categories, yet you cannot simply swipe between them. Instead, you are forced to tap each tab to enter a new category. And it’s like this all over the place, including in the previously mentioned dialer and contacts applications. Dear Samsung, we are in the era of Holo UI with swiping gestures, action overflow menus, and slideout navigation menus. Tabbed UIs are out.

The Galaxy S4 is yet another Android phone that needs a third party launcher (along with any other third party replacement application you can find) on day one.

Very Similar to the Galaxy S3

I know that I just spent an entire review trying to sell you on this being different than the Galaxy S3, but I couldn’t help but think time and time again over the last week that this is nothing more than a slightly bumped up version of last year’s flagship Samsung phone. It looks very similar and has mostly the same exact software outside of a few new feature add-ons that will eventually come to the Galaxy S3. When navigating around it, thanks to the exact same navigation setup and custom skin, a non-tech savvy person probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the two. I mentioned at the top of this review that on paper, the GS4 is quite different, however, in reality for everyday usage, you could argue that it’s not.

Navigation Button Setup

Samsung going with a physical home button coupled with menu and back soft keys isn’t necessarily offending me as it used to. In fact, I’m completely comfortable with them after having used them for months on end. However, that doesn’t mean I’m a fan. What gets me the most, is having to physically press in a button to do the most often-asked-for task of returning home or exiting an application. I can get down with the soft menu and back keys, but I’m not sure I’ll ever be a fan physical buttons that protrude out from the bottom of a phone. Samsung seems to have found a way to upgrade this home button, as it presses much tighter than previous phones, but I’d still prefer they do away with it.

Other Notes

• Performance: I typically include a “Performance” section with my reviews, but since the unit I have from Samsung is technically running pre-launch software, I didn’t think it was fair after noticing some stuttering and other lag. At this time, with this device in its current state, the camera lags when taking pictures, I’ve noticed time and time again a lag in the folder animation, and jumping in and out of apps isn’t as smooth as one would expect. I’m also finding all sorts of bugs in Samsung’s take on lock screen widgets. So for now, until this phone gets an update or I hear from Samsung that this is actually final software, we’ll leave these notes here.
• WatchON TV app:  When compared to the TV application on the HTC One, WatchON can be very frustrating. With the One, it took a couple of button taps and I had the device connected to every single piece of home entertainment hardware in my living room. With WatchON, I tried and quit after five minutes when the app started asking questions that I would have had to get up or research to find the answers to. It’s also not as seamless or user-friendly in terms of finding favorite shows and then making sure you know they are readily available to watch.
• HTC One comparison:  Below, you’ll find a video comparison of the Galaxy S4 to the One, but we won’t be stopping there. In the coming days, we’ll have a full-on comparison that should give you our thoughts on which device will be sticking around the DL offices.
• Sprint’s network:  I feel bad for anyone stuck with a contract on Sprint. I haven’t had to use a Sprint phone in some time, and now I know why. They have almost zero 4G LTE foot print in this country, but to make matters worse, only have a 3G CDMA network to fall back on. Coming from HSPA+ and LTE, this is like returning to the 90s and AOL free dial-up. Ugh.

Gallery

Videos

Hardware and Software Tour

Click here to view the embedded video.

Vs. Galaxy S3

Click here to view the embedded video.

Vs. HTC One

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Verdict

After all that, should you buy the Galaxy S4? Sure, why not. It’s a really, really good smartphone – probably in the top two or three at this point in the game. Should you decide to buy one, you’ll get a beautiful 5.0″ FHD Super AMOLED display, plenty of horsepower thanks to a quad-core processor, a serviceable 13MP camera, all sorts of interesting software features, a removable battery, expandable storage, and the most recent version of Android. There are few things to dislike about this phone. It’s also coming to every major carrier (including Verizon) and will have more accessory choices than any other phone on the planet aside from the iPhone 5.

With that said, the HTC One and its premium body is out there for the taking. As previously mentioned, you can’t go wrong with the Galaxy S4, but you also can’t go wrong with the HTC One (review) or even Nexus 4 (still my personal favorite) for that matter. It’s a great time to buy a smartphone. Go get them all in your hands before making a decision.

Samsung Galaxy S4 Review is a post from: Droid Life

When HTC announced the One all the way back in February, we couldn’t help but think that this might actually be their savior. With a premium build quality not seen in any phone outside of the iPhone, a new set of gimmicks software features to market, and an underdog attitude, HTC seemed poised to come back in 2013 like fire. Unfortunately for the One, manufacturing delays have left it out of the hands of those interested, leaving open the opportunity for Samsung to swoop in and steal their attention with the Galaxy S4, a device that should arrive in the U.S. around the same time. Is it too little too late for HTC? Probably, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t released a really great Android phone. Or have they? Boy am I split on this one. Let’s talk about it. 

The Good

Hardware

Oh hardware, where do we begin with you? From a specs standpoint, the HTC One enters the game as what I would consider the best phone in the business. Again, from a specs standpoint. We’re talking the newest processor (Snapdragon 600 quad-core), 4G LTE, 2GB RAM, a 4.7″ 1080p display with 468ppi, 2300mAh battery, and a body made of aluminum. Hell, it even has an IR blaster so that you can use the phone as a entertainment and TV controller. And for those who care about technology being “future proof,” the One also has  802.11ac, which will eventually become the new WiFi standard. There are no other phones on the planet that match the One in overall quality and completeness when it comes to hardware. If you want next-gen everything, which includes a glorified 4MP camera, the One has it all.

Design

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m torn on the design of the HTC One. I know that every other media personality on the planet is claiming this to be designed by some religious figure, but I’m just not fully feeling it. On one hand, it’s aluminum zero-gap unibody frame is stunning to look at. I have to give credit where it’s due – HTC has made the most premium Android phone ever, in both looks and materials used. The white and silver color scheme, mixed with a pitch black display, subtle metallic HTC logo, and soft chamfered edge, are something quite extraordinary.

On the other hand, I find the device to be too tall and also do not find it to feel all that pleasing in hand when compared to phones like the Nexus 4 or even last year’s HTC One X. Call me a metal phone hater or a plastic lover, but a metallic object in my hand hundreds of times per day is…eww. It’s slippery more often then I’d like, is constantly in need of adjusting while using one hand (something I wasn’t expecting from a 4.7″ phone), and is a pain to navigate thanks to a minimal Home and Back button navigation setup, which I’ll get to later.

I’m fully aware that I am in the minority here, so that’s why I’m still leaving design in the “good” section. HTC really has done something remarkable here, that we can only hope will be an inspiration to other phone manufacturers. For me personally, it’s just not my cup of tea, but I would imagine that most of you will love it.

Display

The 4.7″ FHD LCD (1080p, 1920×1080, 468ppi) display on the One is a great display. At that high of a resolution, you’ll never see a pixel (except on the photos it takes, which isn’t the display’s fault) and the tiniest of details will become your specialty should you stare at it for long enough periods of time. The colors are accurate, blacks are black enough, and the viewing angles are top tier. I do have one complaint though, and that’s HTC’s extra dim auto-brightness tendencies. I eventually had to take off auto-brightness and manually set it because the display was never showing enough light for my liking in any situation. I personally prefer the LCD on my Nexus 4 to this, even at a lower resolution, and am incredibly excited to spend some quality time with the FHD Super AMOLED on the Galaxy S4. Still, the LCD used on the One has little flaws, if any, especially if you are looking for a much more realistic and natural representation of colors in general.

Macro shot for fun.

Full resolution

Battery Life

Battery life on the One, for me, has been better than I expected from a phone with a quad-core processor, 1080p display, and 2300mAh battery. If I spent a day hammering on the phone using data only, no WiFi, I was able to see around 8 hours of use before I hit the 15% warning. On a typical low usage or “normal” day, I was easily hitting anywhere from 12 to 16 hours before I was in the red. That may not be day-and-a-half-life like you’ll see with the RAZR MAXX HD, but seeing as the specs on the One trump that phone in every conceivable way other than the battery, I’ll take it any day. As I mentioned previously, I found myself having to uncheck the auto-brightness box to get the device to levels that my eyes found more appealing, so this obviously took its toll on battery life. Still, I rarely felt as if I was about to run to the nearest charger.

On a related note, the One takes forever to fully charge. I’m not sure why that is, but no matter what charger I seemed to grab when needing some juice, I found myself checking the status of the battery meter far more often than on other phones in my possession.

Camera Software (Zoe, Highlights, and other Software)

*Note – I had initially planned to do a fairly thorough camera comparison of the HTC One to a variety of devices including the Nexus 4 and Galaxy S3. Unfortunately, my HTC One became worthless over the last 24 hours as the display’s digitizer appears to have died. The phone is almost useless as it constantly registered screen touches if I try to accomplish any task. So consider these camera thoughts my pre-in-depth view. Assuming I can quickly get a replacement, I will update this section with my final thoughts.

The camera of the HTC One is clearly going to be one of HTC’s focuses when marketing this device to customers. With a freshly minted “UltraPixel” marketing term attached and a set of tricks up its sleeve, the camera is certainly worth talking about. From my first moments with the One, all I wanted to do was snap photos, create Zoes (mini 3-second clips), and then find ways to combine shots, utilize on-device editing tools, and share with friends and family. While I’ve definitely grown fond of the flexibility that a Zoe can provide, especially in terms of creating HTC Highlight videos, the camera itself has left me unsatisfied at times. I’ll get to that in the section below, but for now, I want to focus on the good things.

The One’s camera is somewhat of a winner in my book simply for the fact that it offers features that no other device has really even imagined. In fact, the amount of camera settings is so robust, that after two weeks with the phone, I haven’t even had a chance to explore them all yet. Photos can be manipulated in more ways than most photo editors allow you to, and yet this is a smartphone.

As my note suggested, I’m hoping to give you more in this section once I get a replacement device. For now, here is a Highlight created from stills and Zoes that were captured at a recent Portland Timbers match.

Click here to view the embedded video.

4MP Camera (UltraPixel)

*Update (4/23) – My HTC One is still currently broken, but I was able to put it to work against the Samsung Galaxy S4. After seeing pretty favorable results against that phone, I can’t help but move this section into the “Good” as it is more than capable of being your everyday mobile camera. Couple the sensor, which destroys any other phone in the dark, with a suite of software enhancements not found on any other device, and you have a winner in my book. This section has been slightly tweaked from its original state.

The camera on the HTC One, as I have said many times, is essentially a glorified 4MP camera. HTC is calling it the “UltraPixel” because it takes photos with 2.0 micron pixels, which are much larger than the norm of today which sits around 1.1-1.4 micron pixels. With a bigger pixel, the camera can let in more light, thus the sales pitch of “Our camera takes great low-light shots!” But for me, as someone who takes a minimal amount of low-light shots, this can be somewhat of a downside. You see, at 4MP, you have images with a smaller resolution, that when blown up, aren’t going to have the amount of detail you are used to from any modern day camera. There are less pixels (and bigger ones at that) after all. I work everyday on an iMac that has a pretty high-resolution display, so when I open up a picture from the HTC One, I immediately go, “Is that an oil painting?” And I don’t expect those comments to stop with just my PC, as mobile device screen resolutions continue to climb as well.

It’s definitely not all bad, though. In fact, I’ve changed my mind quite a bit on the One’s camera over the last few weeks. As I mentioned above, the camera software on the One has some nice tricks up its sleeves. I would also argue that it takes photos that have much more realistic light than other smartphone cameras. For example, below I have a comparison of a shot I was able to take today with the Nexus 4 and One. While in the full-res images, you will see some of that “oil painting” effect on the One image with less crisp lines, the lighting trumps the blue-ish hue to the Nexus 4 shot.

Nexus 4 (left) – HTC One (right)

Full resolution:  Nexus 4 | One

Overall, the One’s camera isn’t the worst and actually has some upsides that have made me like it more and more each day. If you need to take a lot of pictures in darker situations, this phone will dominate all other phones. The picture may look like a mushy mess up close, but you’ll at least be able to make out the objects when other cameras may not be able to produce a shot at all. It’s also the start to something bigger, assuming HTC can figure out a way to carry over similar technology to say an 8MP sensor, which I believe to be the sweet spot on mobile phones.

Also on a positive note, with 4MP stills, you get much more manageable photos in terms of size that can be easily shared through your favorite social networks, a point I’m sure HTC will make at some point.

Here are a bunch of real-world samples. These are a mix of still shots and some pulled from frames of Zoes. Some are OK, others aren’t great.

Full resolution: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

BoomSound

Dual amplified front facing speakers – why did it take so long for someone to include these in a phone? The speakers on the HTC One are easily one of my top 3 or 4 favorite features. HTC refers to them as “BoomSound,” which yes, is one of the most ridiculously named items on the phone. But trust me, once you hear them you won’t care if the name is actually BoomBoomRoom. I’m constantly having to keep the volume on the phone at under the half-bar mark or it’s just too damn loud (and that’s not a bad thing).

With the phone lying back-down on your desk, like most people set their phones, you’ll never miss a call or notification. While consuming video, you no longer have to employ the hand-cup method in order to force sound back towards your face from behind the device. With BoomSound, you actually do feel sort of immersed in whatever you are watching, in part thanks to the beautiful display, but mostly because of the incredible sound experience. If you need a spurt-of-the-moment speaker for situations that call upon your favorite musical playlist, the One could stand alone and impress a crowd.

Seriously, folks, the speaker experience isn’t something we typically talk about when doing phone reviews, but with the One, you can’t avoid it.

Performance

Thanks to a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad-core processor clocked at 1.7GHz and 2GB of RAM, you won’t find many stutters when cruising around the UI of the One. Transitions are snappy, app switching happens in a flash, and running processor intensive tasks through spots like the camera are hiccup-free. This is the most powerful smartphone on the planet for the time being. If you are into benchmarks, yes, it wins them all. If you are into gaming, yes, it plays them all well – even the graphically intensive ones. HTC and Qualcomm appear to have worked some magic here when it comes to balancing performance and battery life.

Hackability

HTC released a developer edition of the One for those of us who like to tinker with our phones and not feel restrained by carriers. The dev edition runs $650, but also comes with 64GB of internal storage. It’s not often that we get developer editions, especially at the same time we see carrier versions of the same phone launch. HTC definitely got this move right, something we wish Samsung would learn from.

Price

At $199 for the 32GB version of the HTC One on 2-year contract, the phone is priced where you would expect it to be. Actually, in some cases, it’s cheaper than what we would have seen were it released last year. For example, the Galaxy S3 was priced at $199 on almost every carrier last year, yet only came equipped with 16GB of internal storage. So if you take the One’s 32GB and set of impressive specs, one could argue that it’s priced under the standard.

On a related note, the unlocked version of the HTC One that HTC sells directly through their online shop, can be had for $575 without a contract. Most high-end unlocked phones sell for well above $600, so consider this a steal to those of you in the unlocked phone game. As an unlocked device, the One works on AT&T HSPA+, T-Mobile’s 1900MHz HSPA+ band, and should also work on T-Mobile’s LTE once it rolls out to more cities.

The Not-so-Good

HTC Sense

When HTC first announced the One in February, one of the first things I mentioned was that their new Sense 5.0 was terrible. After spending two weeks with the phone, I still feel the exact same way. In my opinion, HTC does everything in its power to turn simple standard Android tasks into some of the most difficult things on the planet. I could rattle off close to 50 examples, but will stick to a few that came up time and time again for me.

The first has to do with expandable notifications. On the HTC One, all notifications start out collapsed and can only be expanded with a two-finger swipe. On stock Android, your most recent notifications tend to always be expanded by default, while older ones will slowly start to collapse on you. Should you want to expand them, a single finger swipe will do the trick. With HTC forcing you to use two fingers, dealing with notifications went from being an amazing new experience, to completely painful.

The second Sense annoyance that I wanted to point out involves the app drawer and dock. On any other Android device, the app dock is a separate entity from the app drawer. What I mean by that, is you can drag and drop items to and from it with ease. There are no tricks. On the HTC One, you can only add or remove items from the dock when you have the app drawer opened up. Then, once you add an app to the dock, it is removed from your app drawer. Should you want to remove one from the dock, you have to manually open the app drawer back up and drop it inside. I’ve tried to find a reason for this, but have come up empty for two weeks now. Talk about taking a simple task and turning it into something far too difficult.

The third has to do with something as simple as changing a wallpaper. HTC decided long ago that the simple long-press-to-wallpaper-change on a home screen wasn’t intuitive and killed it off. Instead, they decided to embed a “Personalize” menu in the device’s settings section which includes ringtone, wallpaper, and theme edits. Organizing all of those things into one area isn’t a bad idea, but forcing users to enter settings and then navigate through a separate Personalize menu seems like far too much to me to change a wallpaper.

The fourth involves the Gallery application. There is absolutely nothing good about HTC’s work when it comes to managing and navigating through photos. The initial gallery menu includes sections for My Photos, Friends (assuming you attached social networks), and Camera Shots. If you tap on My Photos, you get into any number of views for Events, Albums or Locations. Why there are two separate sections between My Photos, Camera, Friends and then Events, Albums and Locations is beyond me. It’s an extra level of navigation that is completely unnecessary. But beyond navigation, try sharing multiple photos on any HTC device. They killed off the simple long-press-to-multi-select that comes with almost every other Android device, and instead ask that you press a share button, choose a service to share to, and then return back to the gallery to decide which photos you want to share. I could go on and on, but you get the point.

Last, their contact management continues to be a disaster after all these years. HTC fully understands that you have multiple accounts plus a SIM card that may contain contact information and have done their best to try and manage them all. Unfortunately, it’s a task they haven’t yet figured out. From recommendations to link this account with that account, to deciding which accounts should even be included in your contact list, are beyond confusing.

And again, those are only a few of the issues I have with Sense. I didn’t even mention the constant and non-removable ongoing notification reminder for Power Saver mode, the fact that BlinkFeed exists, and holding volume down until your phone silences goes straight to vibrate first, but then asks you to press volume up to go to silent mode. Ugh, Sense. Go away.

Old Android

The HTC One will hit stores running Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean). That seems like a decent achievement, since the newest version of Android is 4.2.2, however, as someone who came from a Nexus 4 with stock Android, the difference is pretty significant. Simple things like the lack of quick toggles in the notification pulldown have driven me nuts. But beyond the little things, the big picture here is that Google is likely going to release a new version of Android in a month from now, or a few weeks after the One hits stores, so it’ll be at least two versions behind whatever is current.

If you look back at history, HTC hasn’t necessarily led the charge in updating devices in a timely manner, so should you buy this device, understand that it’ll likely be behind other flagships from the beginning and on through til the end. For example, Samsung has managed to release the Galaxy S4 at the same time as the One with Android 4.2.2 (the most current version).

Navigation Button Setup

HTC appears to be confused about how Android navigation should work. Last year, they went with Home, Back, and Multi-task buttons on their One series of phones, since Google decided to kill off the hardware menu button. I was a fan of the move, but thanks to slow developers who couldn’t code their apps properly, the move seemed to backfire a bit on HTC. So this year, they went a different route altogether and are only utilizing Back and Home buttons. You won’t find a Menu or Multi-task button anywhere on this phone. It’s…interesting.

You don’t get the interactivity of on-screen buttons since HTC continues to use hardware soft keys, so you are instead forced into long-pressing or double tapping to achieve simple tasks. A double tap on Home takes you into your recently used apps list, while a long press on that same button will get you into Google Now. I rarely found long-pressing of Home to work on the first try and instantly became frustrated with the setup. You also can’t map the keys to do any sort of custom actions (like mapping Back to also be Menu with a long-press), so you are stuck with HTC’s confusing vision. With only Home and Back, be prepared to re-learn navigating around an Android device. I’m two weeks in and still tap the wrong button more often than I’d care to.

No Verizon

From what we understand, HTC wanted the One on Verizon, but Big Red decided to pass for the time being. That’s unfortunate for customers and HTC, as Verizon more than likely would have sold more of them than almost any carrier. They also have the largest LTE network in the U.S. that would have been a great companion to this device. It’s a pity really, because the One is one heck of an overall smartphone package that we wish everyone, no matter what carrier they are attached to, had a chance to play with and even consider as their next phone.

Top Lock Switch

When designing the One, HTC decided to turn the power/lock switch into an IR blaster that could be used to turn your phone into a TV remote. It’s a neat idea, aside from the placement of the button being in the worst possible position on any phone in the history of phones. The button is situated at the top left of the One when it’s facing you, making it impossible to press without completely adjusting the phone in your hand. In fact, I gave up on one-handed operation of the One’s power button from the beginning and opted to use two for the most part. The button also sits mostly flush to the phone, so there are times when you feel like two or three presses have gone by without the phone reacting.

This isn’t new for HTC, though, they have long been fans of the top lock/power switch. In fact, I’m not sure they have ever released a phone without one.

No Wireless Charging

During most of 2012, we saw phone after phone introduced with built-in wireless charging. We thought for sure that we would see that trend continue in 2013, however, HTC decided that they weren’t going to include it in the One. This was an odd move, especially after seeing them include wireless charging in both the DROID DNA and Incredible 4G LTE. When we asked an HTC rep about the lack of the feature at the device’s launch event, he mentioned that Verizon was the driving force behind wireless charging, not them. Whatever the reason, it seems like a missed opportunity.

Other Notes

• Dead Digitizer:  The digitizer on my device appears to have died. I can’t tell if this is isolated to me or if this is an issue that others are running into as well. Hopefully it’s just me, as the last thing HTC needs is a hardware problem. I’ll get a replacement and report back should it happen again.
• Camera:  Again, apologies for the short camera review, but I just can’t do anything with the device in the state it sits. Once I get a replacement, I’ll try to come back and fully review the camera.
• Blinkfeed:  I mostly avoid Blinkfeed in my review and that’s because I found little use from it. With that said, it could be an interesting news feed or reader for novice Android users. You can set up content from a variety of sources, attach social networks, and even see calendar notifications through it. It’s one of those features that I wouldn’t be surprised to see catch on, simply because it’s easy to set up and cannot be removed. You are almost forced into using it. Assuming HTC can add some polish and more features, it may not be a bad thing.
• TV app:  The TV app that works with the IR blaster is actually a lot more robust than I had imagined. Within minutes of setting it up, I was able to control my home entertainment center, Blu-ray player, and TV.
• NFC:  The device has NFC, but holy hell is it difficult to find the sweet spot on it. I tried to share a YouTube clip between the One and my Nexus 4 and had to try 8 times before I could get both of their sweet spots together. Just a note, not necessarily a bad thing.
• Internal Storage Only:  As you may or may not know, the HTC One only has internal storage and no additional microSD slot for extra storage. Normally, this doesn’t bother me, but after taking Zoes, simple clips, and processing a few highlights over my two week period, I was able to create 2.5GB worth of media. That’s a lot for such a short amount of time. Storage constraints could happen, so consider the 64GB version, however, only AT&T is selling it.
• Non-removable Battery:  The 2300mAh battery is non-removable. This doesn’t matter to me, but I know it can be a deal breaker for some.

Gallery

Videos

Unboxing

Click here to view the embedded video.

Initial Software Tour

Click here to view the embedded video.

HTC One vs. Galaxy S3 vs. Nexus 4 vs. RAZR HD vs. Galaxy Note 2 

Click here to view the embedded video.

20+ Tips and Tricks for New Users of the One

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Verdict

I mentioned in the beginning that I’m torn on the HTC One. And after running through that entire review of mostly positive things with a few nitpicked quirks here and there, you are probably confused. Rightfully so. It’s an amazing phone. The hardware is unmatched, the design is beyond beautiful for a smartphone, battery life is acceptable, the display is stunning, speakers are mindbogglingly good, and the camera has enough features that it can overcome its own downfalls. There really is so much to like with the One and so very little to be worried or complain about. But for me personally, the size of the device, metallic texture, and functionality of HTC’s Sense 5.0 are not for me. With that said, I know for a fact that this could easily be the phone for so many of you. Should you have a new phone in your near future, you need to consider the HTC One.

HTC One Review is a post from: Droid Life

Oh boy, the HTC One is in the house. After not having touched HTC’s new flagship since they announced it in February, it’s almost as if we have never seen it before. With that said, it feels amazing to know that we can spend the next few weeks leading up to the U.S. launch with it in hand. We’re sure that many of you are strongly considering this device as your next, so we’ll do our best to answer any questions you may have.

To kick off our coverage, which probably won’t stop for the next week or so, we have a standard unboxing. Say what you will about unboxings, elitist media, we still have fun doing them, especially when they are as important-a-device as the One. In this video, it’s all about a tour of that beautiful aluminum unibody design, the specs, the awkward softkey setup, and the BoomSound speakers which almost knock me off my chair.

After you get done watching this, stay tuned for a 10-minute or so software tour. Actually, it’s more like a baby touching something new for the first time, or second time in this case. You’ll get to see me stumble through the oddity that is HTC Sense 5.0. But first, let’s unbox it! 

Video

Click here to view the embedded video.

Gallery

HTC One Unboxing is a post from: Droid Life

After we posted up our full review of the HTC DROID DNA, I was able to get a hold of a second device and take it for a spin of my own. Since it’s such a major device for Verizon, I couldn’t help but share some of my thoughts on it as well. This isn’t a second review, but just a quick list of some things that stood out to me, both good and bad. 

Liking

• Display:  The 5″ 1080p display on the DNA is the best in the business. As I mentioned during last week’s DL Show, you have to see it to believe it. Looking at something as simple as an icon will probably blow your mind. The amount of detail, clarity, and correct color that the Super LCD 3 is able to produce is something to marvel at. We’ve posted up our standard macro shots from it (here too), something you should definitely check out.
• Battery Life:  I was skeptical when first powering on the DNA. I thought, at 2020mAh, there is no way this battery is going to get me through a day. It has proven me wrong each day over the last week or so, easily powering me through days without having to worry about where the nearest power outlet is. On my first charge, I was at 14 hours off the charger and still had 14% left. It has only gotten better since.
• Size:  Coming from the Galaxy Note 2, and deciding that it was far too large for my hands, I figured my opinion of the DNA would be similar. Thankfully, HTC managed to pack in a 5″ screen without making the body of the device enormous. In hand, it’s large, but not overwhelming. When compared to a Galaxy S3 or Nexus 4, it’s only a bit taller, but not wider.
• Build:  I love the build quality of HTC phones. Dating back to the One X, HTC has been doing amazing things when it comes to materials and feel. With the soft-touch finish on the back of the DNA, along with the gentle curve to the backside, you can hold it effortlessly. It does grab fingerprints fairly easily, and is also prone to scratches, but overall, I’m a big fan.
• Design:  This might be one of the sexiest phone designs ever. It’s so simple, yet has enough complexity to keep you looking back for more. The red grills on the sides were unexpectedly beautiful. The cascading edges of the display not only look stunning from the side, but help make it so your finger never feels a sharp edge. Even the volume rocker and power switch have a spiraled metal design that helps with grip, while adding to the finish.
• Price:  At $199, this phone is practically a steal. It sports the newest processor on the block, has 2GB RAM, Android 4.1, the best display in the business, and runs on Verizon’s 4G LTE network. If this phone would have come out in 2011, Big Red would have tried to charge you $400 on-contract for it. To see it drop in at the old standard of $199, which is $100 less than the Galaxy Note 2, it’d be tough to pass it up.
• Wireless Charging:  My life feels close to being complete now that it has wireless charging in it on a regular basis. The DNA, 8X, and Nexus 4 that are in my possession all have wireless charging built-in. I do not remember the last time I plugged in a phone to charge it. And on the DNA, that’s a good thing, since HTC included a cover to the USB port which can be a bit of a nuisance.
• Camera:  Dave wasn’t all that big of a fan of the DNA camera in his review. I on the other hand, don’t mind it. I wouldn’t necessarily call it the best smartphone camera on Earth, but I found it to produce pretty decent images. It’s not all that great in low-light or indoor situations, but with great outdoor light, I liked some of the results I saw. I’m also a fan of HTC’s camera suite of software. You can quickly toggle cameras for selfies, change to filters if you’d like, snap 20 shots in seconds with burst mode, and record full 1080p video. I have some sample shots below (that have been resized). If you want to see sample 1080p video, check out my review of Falcon Pro which was filmed with the DNA.

Not Liking

• Sense 4+:  I’m really not fan of Sense, whether it be 3.5 or 4.0 or 4+. It’s a tired Android skin, desperately in need of a makeover. The keyboard is one of my least favorites from any Android skin, the fact that the notification bar background toggles from transparent to solid black depending on the screen drives me nuts, the calendar app won’t show a weekly layout, you can’t fully customize the lockscreen apps, and the Personalize menu needs to disappear forever with a much simpler option for changing wallpapers or sounds. I could go on and on with the little issues, but will instead just recommend that you grab a third party launcher and move on from most of Sense.
• Hardware Navigation Buttons:  The hardware nav buttons on the DNA aren’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to a phone, but since developers are still building in the legacy menu to their apps, they are still an issue. And for whatever reason, HTC forgot to include the option for mapping the Recent Apps button to be a menu button. Too many times have I see the evil black bar with 3-dots in it.
• Stuttering:  I don’t know if I had something running in the background or if the DNA was begging for a reboot, but during gaming, I noticed the phone lagging on a number of occasions. You would think with the Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor, Adreno 320 GPU, and 2GB of RAM that nothing would have the power to slow this bad boy down. Well, you would be wrong. I’d probably blame that more on HTC’s Sense optimizations (or lack there of) than hardware, though. The rest of the UI had no issues.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I don’t have many complaints about this phone. The few that I do, shouldn’t be enough to deter anyone from considering the DNA. Again, the display is in a class of its own, the price is right, battery life seems stellar, and the rest of the specs and hardware should get you through at least a 2 year contract. There is a lot to like about this phone.

One More Gallery

A Second Look at the HTC DROID DNA is a post from: Droid Life

With the announcement of the HTC DROID DNA last week, we have entered a new arena for our cellular devices. Introduced as one the first smartphones with a 1080p display, we’re talking about full-HD content in the palm of your hand. This latest offering from HTC has Sense, powerful internals and boasts Beats audio integration. The specs are top of the line, but so are other competitors’ phones. Will a powerful display be the deciding factor when it comes to purchasing the device or will the Droid branding be all the drive it needs? Here’s our thoughts on the device. 

The Good:

• Specs:  Most phones have been releasing with top end internals and the DNA is right in line with them. It ships with a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro, a quad-core processor clocked at 1.5GHz, along with 2GB of RAM. This combination offers a powerful and lag-free experience for the end-user. Let’s not forget that it includes a 4G LTE radio which will take advantage of Verizon’s fast, ever-growing network. The device also offers a 5″ 1080p FHD LCD 3 (1920×1080) 440ppi display, NFC, an 8MP camera, 2.1MP front-facing shooter, wireless charging, and Beats audio software .
• Look & Feel:  The first thing you’ll notice about this phone is the very slick, bright red micro-grills on the sides of the device. The front display offers glass that curves around the front edge of the phone to give a very comfortable, nice rounded feel. The back is as plain as they come, with a matte black plastic covering. Despite the screen being 5”, they were able to keep the device size down. It’s nowhere near as large as the Note 2 looks or feels in hand. The side profile of the device is quite thin, so you don’t feel like you are holding onto a brick. The large screen size might give someone with small hands some trouble with one-handed operation, but I was able to use the device without issue. Overall, despite the use of plastic, the device feels solid and evenly weighted for long term use.

• Display:  It’s brilliant. On paper, it’s a 5” FHD 1080p super LCD 3 screen with a pixel density of 440ppi. With so many pixels packed into the space, every image looks clean and text is crisp. The colors have a nice level of contrast, especially when compared to the Nexus 4 which looks slightly de-saturated and dull when placed next to this device. Even with the display brightness turned down, there is not a noticeable decrease in visual performance when it comes to color balance. In terms of other displays, this is definitely one of the top performers available today.

• Speaker/Beats:  Having used the Galaxy Nexus for most of the past year, the speaker on this device just blows it away. You can turn the music up to full with no distortion and it gets quite loud. The speaker also performs well on phone calls, with no reports of echo from the other side. The Beats integration seems to be more of a gimmick than anything else. Music through headphones sounds great, but I get the same performance when using other devices and tuning the EQ manually. That being said, for people that want something great out of the box, the speaker and included Beats audio work wonderfully.
• 4G LTE/Radios:  There’s no questioning that Verizon has really put a lot of effort into making their 4G network a fast performing option for those that can afford it. The radio in the device seems to be a bit sensitive when it comes to areas with low reception. I constantly found the device dropping back to 3G, even when other devices were maintaining a 4G connection, albeit a poor one at that. The big surprise in this device is the inclusion of GSM radios, with the potential to use this device as a world phone. The phone actually ships with Global mode turned on and has the option to switch to LTE/CDMA or even GSM only. Time will tell if Verizon patches this ability or leaves it be.
• Performance:  HTC’s DNA is a powerful device that shows no signs of fatigue through normal or advanced operation. You can be streaming music and playing Angry Birds without a stutter. Scrolling through a G+ feed is as fast as your connection will allow. Despite having the burden of Sense on the device, you will find that multi-tasking and gaming are easily accomplished without hiccups. The DNA is no slouch in benchmark performance either, and given the real world performance I’ve seen firsthand, this device will handle anything you throw at it.

• Wireless Charging:  While I did not have the ability to test this firsthand, I was able to check out the phone’s charging base accessory at the release event. It’s as easy as placing the device on the base and watch as your battery regains its charge. As someone who has a lot of devices and accompanying cables, I hope that we’ll see more and more devices shipping with this capability. The device utilizes the Qi wireless charging standard, so it should work with any charging base that is built to spec, adding that extra layer of compatibility that is always appreciated.
• Jelly Bean 4.1:  The phone is shipping with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and that means that all of the feature improvements from that release will come in the box including expandable notifications and Google Now. The performance enhancements of the 4.1 release, coupled with the powerful specs of this device, will give any user a smooth experience. There’s been no word as to when this device will or won’t see any updates, but Jelly Bean is a great start.
• Battery Life:  Since the day it was made official, the 2020 mAh battery has been the biggest question mark on this device’s spec sheet. With the 5” display and the 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon, is the battery size really enough? For the average consumer, yes it is. I tried to approach the phone a different way each day to simulate various user experiences. One day, I used it sparingly, as one might if they were occupied with other tasks. I spent another day streaming a movie from Google Play and constantly surveying the social network landscape. Even when in LTE, the phone still sips at the battery. I did however find myself in a rough patch at one point, straddling a 3G/4G area. The constant switching of the radio proved to be a drastic drain, and with no ability to disable 4G, I was stuck watching the battery deplete. According to Battery Widget? Reborn! (which I installed on the device when I received it), my average battery charge lasted 21 hours. Coming from a VZW Galaxy Nexus (with extended battery), I’d say this device’s battery manages to handle the screen size and LTE well.

The Not-so-Good:

• Notification LED:  The notification LED appears not only on the front of the device, but also on the backside. The downside to this is that you are never able to avoid the blinking of the notification, despite turning your phone over. To add insult to injury, the included LED is not RGB. You are stuck with either green for notifications/fully charged or red for dying/charging.
• Non-removable Battery:  Despite my positive results with the battery life, there is still no excuse for lack of removable battery. Not only does it deter power users, who may want to carry an extra battery or even an extendable battery, but it’s a consumer unfriendly practice. If your battery decides to fault, you can’t just put in a replacement. The entire device must be shipped out. With our increasing reliance on our personal devices, this is just a risk that some people can’t afford.
• On-device navigation keys:  With the introduction of Google Now, people have become accustomed to a simple swipe up over the home button to be able to access it. With the inclusion of hardware keys, you lose that ability and are stuck pressing down the home button. Not that this is necessarily a difficult process, but it’s a break from the usage pattern present with on-screen keys. Also, let’s not forget everyone’s favorite menu button that keeps appearing within non-compliant apps.

• Camera: As impressive as the 88 degree FFC is, there is no excuse for the quality issues with pictures taken by the 8MP camera in the rear of the device. Despite images looking good on the device, this does not translate to other displays. Even in fully lit areas, there is a considerable amount of pixelation and noise present. I’m not expecting a phone to take DSLR equivalent shots, but there are other phones on the market that prove decent pictures can be achieved. FFC camera offers extra perspective you won’t find on other devices, but with the same pixelation and noise present on the back camera. The camera software is not AOSP stock, so it may be a software issue that can be patched in the future.

• No SD-slot: This seems to be a trend lately among all the manufacturers and I’m not a fan. We recently ran a poll and the results seem pretty divided about whether this matters to you or not. I believe that the lack of expandable storage is not in the best interests of consumers at this time, especially in situations where data caps are prevalent.
• Sense 4+: I haven’t used Sense since back on the Thunderbolt and to me, it doesn’t feel like it has evolved since then. When the changes made to included software seems to be a step backward from Google’s offerings in AOSP, what is the purpose of the skin other than removing functionality? Skins were definitely necessary back in the Froyo days, but with the advancements to core Android, I’m not such a believer now. Little things are missing like swiping from camera to gallery or even multi-selecting in gallery (yes seriously, you can’t). Also, who forgot to tell them that tabs on the bottom was a blatant disregard of the Android design guidelines? Other gripes include an ever present Wifi notification in your pulldown, whether wifi is on or off. Oh and if you have NFC on, you’re treated to an ever-present icon in the notification bar. I could probably keep going, but you get the point I’m trying to make.

• Bootloader/bloatware: Since the announcement of the device, it has come to light that the device can be unlocked via HTC’s portal. This does not remove S-ON and at this point, the future of homebrew development is unknown. Since this device is on Verizon’s network, they have made sure to not only include the full suite of Verizon apps, but also Amazon’s suite, NFL Mobile and other apps. Though most of these can be disabled, it’s always disappointing to see them included on a device.

Gallery:

Unboxing:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Device Overview:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Verdict:

With the holiday season upon us, many of you Verizon users are going to be looking at either the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 or the HTC Droid DNA. Both of these devices are powerful and top-of-line units which are a great investment to end 2012 with.

As I touched on earlier, the 5” screen on this device does not increase the form factor and I believe that many of you will find this device easier to manage than the Note 2. The big deciding factor for you will be whether you want to take advantage of Samsung’s S-Pen and all of the software that comes along with it.

The HTC Droid DNA is definitely an exciting phone to use. If you’ve been looking for a 5” screen, and don’t need the use of a pen input device, then this is the phone for you. The screen itself is beautiful and the phone’s performance is top notch. For only $199, with contract, the price is certainly attractive and just in time for the holidays.

HTC DROID DNA Review is a post from: Droid Life

The LG Nexus 4 wasn’t much of a secret when Google finally announced it. After appearing in a variety of forms and rumors for weeks ahead of its unveiling, we thought we knew all there was to know about it. That of course, was not true. But once we finally got a hold of it, we wondered if there were enough hidden secrets or highlights to make this ultra-affordable Nexus stand out from a crowded holiday smartphone lineup or if the lack of LTE would be a deal breaker? Let’s talk about it. 

The Good:

• Specs:  When it comes to specs, there are few phones that can compare to the LG Nexus 4. It has the latest and greatest processor (quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro), 2GB RAM, an 8MP camera, wireless charging, NFC, and one of the best displays in the business (4.7″ HD IPS+). It may lack an LTE chip, which could be a deal breaker for some, but if you can live with HSPA+ data speeds (which aren’t slow), then you can’t really go wrong here. The Nexus 4 is essentially a brother to LG’s Optimus G, a device we reviewed a few weeks back, and were very fond of.
• Display:  The 4.7″ HD IPS+ LCD display on the Nexus 4 is one of the best in the business. If it weren’t for the new 1080p display in the HTC DROID DNA, I’d argue that it is the best in the business (though the Galaxy Note 2′s display is up there as well). Colors and lines are ultra-crisp thanks to the 320 pixels per inch (ppi), the viewing angles are impressive, it gets very bright for use anywhere, and the blacks are black enough. Beyond how it looks, this display has some other tricks up its sleeves. LG and Google designed it to almost bubble up above the outer frame of the device. What I mean, is that it cascades over the edges of the device, so as you brush you finger across it, you don’t feel a sharp edge, but more of a soft finish. The display itself is also great to touch thanks to a G2 Touch Hybrid technology. The responsiveness is as good as any, and your finger seems to glide easily over it during presses, almost as if you are actually touching what you are seeing. Again, it’s an amazing smartphone display.

(Warning: Gmail picture is a large macro shot.)

• Performance:  Thanks to its quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, and Android 4.2, you won’t find hiccups or stutters while using the Nexus 4. Project Butter (in Jelly Bean) combined with the best processor on the planet, makes for one of the best smartphone experiences. With the on-screen navigation keys, you can quickly jump in and out of apps, access Google Now from anywhere, and make full use of Android’s multi-tasking. There also has to be something said for the fact that it runs stock Android. There is no manufacturer skin to get in the way or to potentially slow down the phone. This is how Google meant for Android and a smartphone of theirs to work. And boy does it ever.
• Android 4.2:  When you buy a brand new Android smartphone, rarely are you running the most current version of the operating system. Well, unless you buy a new Nexus. With the LG Nexus 4, Google launched Android 4.2, the newest and best version of Android to date. It includes all new camera software, improved keyboard, widgets on the lock screen, multi-user support (on tablets), an upgraded Gmail, and a beautiful new clock. Check out the video below to see all of the major highlights.

Click here to view the embedded video.

• Price:  At $299 for the 8GB model and $349 for the 16GB model, you won’t find a more reasonably priced phone than the Nexus 4. I already mentioned how impressive this phone is when it comes to specs, but besides that, Google has made it clear that they aren’t fans of the long-standing carrier approach to phone subsidies. Rather than trying to sucker you into a contract by offering you a low price on a phone, Google simply says, “Here is a phone that you can have at a ridiculously low price and that won’t require you to sign a contract. We’re able to offer you this deal because we can recoup the money in the Google Play store, thanks to the content that you’ll consume.” It’s an approach that I hope lives on forever. Think about what Verizon is doing right now with the Motorola RAZR MAXX HD. They want you to spend $299 on it, but in order to get that price, you’ll have to sign a 2-year contract. Google is selling you a phone that bests the RAZR MAXX HD on multiple levels, yet retails at the same $299 price, but then lets you go find a carrier and data plan that fits your needs, while avoiding a contract.
• Camera:  The stock Android camera software has always been lacking, and it showed in pictures taken with any Nexus device. Thankfully, in Android 4.2, Google decided to re-do the stock Android camera software and make it halfway decent. In my test shots with the Nexus 4′s 8MP shooter, I was able to produce some decent stills. I wouldn’t say the LG Nexus 4 takes as good of pictures as the Galaxy S3, but that’s magic that very few phone manufacturers can figure out. It certainly will do just fine in a pinch. What I really like about this new camera though, is the quick settings that can be accessed by pressing on the viewfinder. You can quickly toggle your flash off or on, change scenes, and manually tweak other settings. Also, the new Photosphere camera feature that Google introduced is incredibly fun to use. Rather than limiting your camera to taking side-sweeping panoramic photos, Google decided that it wanted you to be able to take full 360-degree photos. With Photosphere (an example below), you get to capture entire rooms or scenes. Overall, the new camera software coupled with the 8MP sensor in the Nexus 4 is a giant step forward for Google.

(Click the image below to view it as a Photosphere at Google+.)

• Design and Build:  If you own a Galaxy Nexus, your first impression of the the Nexus 4 is probably that it looks just like your Galaxy Nexus. And to be honest, it sort of does if you lay them down, face up next to each other. Once you pick up the Nexus 4, though, you’ll immediately realize that it is so much better. The front and back are both made of glass, it certainly doesn’t feel like it’s made of “cheap” plastic, there is a soft touch plastic rim around the outer edge that helps with grip, the rounded edges help it fit perfectly in your hand, and the weight is not too light nor too heavy. It’s one of those phones that you find yourself picking up, spinning around, and smiling at. From the Crystal Reflection backside (more on this in a minute) to the all-black finishes and Nexus logo, I have to admit that I haven’t been this impressed with a smartphone design in some time.
• “Crystal Reflection” Backside:  During a couple of episodes of The Droid Life Show, we poked a bit of fun at the sparkly “Crystal Reflection” backside of the Nexus 4. For those new, Crystal Reflection is a process that LG invented which allows them to laser etch patterns or prisms onto glass of a smartphone to give it a high-end “jewel-like” appearance. The reference they make to “jewel-like” is why we giggled a bit at it, however, once I got the phone in hand, my opinion changed to a much more favorable one. The sparkles are so subtle, that you won’t even see them 75% of the time. They are only there when you are really looking for them, which is the way it should be. The Crystal Reflection is one of those design ideas that you couldn’t have imagined that you would want or like, but then once you see a metallic reflection, you’ll appreciate every second of it.

• Unlocked:  Google is selling the Nexus 4 as a SIM unlocked GSM phone that works in over 200 countries. It may not have LTE support for the ultra-fast networks that are taking over the U.S., but the phone should get HSPA+ speeds almost anywhere in the world. It works on T-Mobile and AT&T here, so if you don’t want to sign into a contract with a carrier, you can choose from a variety of prepaid plans that are attached to either of these carriers. It’s smartphone freedom in a time when carriers want nothing more than to lock you up for years on end.
• Hackability:  Nexus phones are a hacker’s dream device. Google leaves them open, meaning you can unlocked their bootloaders, root them, and toss on custom software with a couple of simple commands. We are starting to see more and more carriers force manufacturers into securing their phones and preventing tinkerer’s from fully enjoying them, but with Google making Nexus phones, there will always be an option.
• Updates:  When you buy the newest Nexus phone, and as long as it isn’t tied to a carrier, you are going to get Android updates on it before any other phone. With the Nexus 4, you get Android 4.2 first. But not only that, you’ll get Android 4.3 or 5.0 or whichever version comes next as soon as Google makes it available. There is no middle man (carrier) to interfere. That’s the beauty of an unlocked Nexus device.

• Wireless Charging:  The Nexus 4 has built-in wireless charging. Set to the Qi standard, all you need is a Qi-approved wireless charging pad and you can place the phone down without plugging it in, and it’ll replenish the battery. It’s a technology that has been out for years now, but rather than building the technology into phones, most carriers and manufacturers decided that they should try to make an extra buck by forcing you to buy separate wireless charging backs. With the Nexus 4, Google and LG have gone away from this method and included the technology upfront. Again, all you need is a charging pad and you can wireless charge this phone out of the box.
• Gaming:  The Nexus 4 is a pleasure to game on. With its Snapdragon S4 Pro processor and Adreno 320 GPU, even the most intense HD games play incredibly well at high frame rates. Combine all that with the beautiful 4.7″ HD display and you have a match made in heaven for mobile gamers.

The Not-so-Good

• No LTE:  Andy Rubin made it clear during the unveiling of the Nexus 4 that they could have included LTE connectivity, but that they weren’t convinced that the user experience would have been optimal. After the battery life disaster that was the LTE Galaxy Nexus, Google decided to put their resources in making an amazing phone that had everything the market had to offer, outside of LTE. While they wait for LTE networks to mature, we’re going to be left wondering if this was the correct move or not. Global networks are not as advanced in the LTE department as they are here, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t disappointed. LTE is the future and so is the U.S. wireless market. Part of buying a smartphone is deciding whether or not this phone is going to take you into the future. While most of us can live with HSPA+ speeds, a lack of LTE makes the Nexus 4 feel a step behind, when it shouldn’t. Oh, and let’s also not forget that the phone actually does have an LTE chip inside, but it isn’t active.

• Glass Backside:  If you read my review of the Optimus G, the device the Nexus 4 is built off of, you probably saw the cracked backside. I still cannot figure out how I managed to crack that device, which is why the glass back on the Nexus 4 concerns me. One reviewer of this phone simply knocked his unit off his desk and was able to crack it. What other everyday wear and tear is going to ruin this beautiful backside? After dealing with numerous reports of broken glass backs on the iPhone 4 and 4S, even Apple decided against them. Hopefully, Google has done something extra special here to try and preserve these. I’m already dreading the moment that readers tip us to a forum thread somewhere with 50 pages of users complaining about cracked backs.
• Battery Life:  Look, the battery life on the Nexus 4 isn’t atrocious by any means, but it’s also not all that impressive. With Google’s head honchos telling us that they left out LTE because they wanted to have a phone with exceptional battery life, I expected better. Below, I have screenshots that show a wide range of battery life, none of which were able to get me through more than 15 hours. And that 15 hour day, was all WiFi. Once I switched over to all HSPA+, it was a struggle to get the 2100mAh battery through 10 hours, especially if I took a few minutes out of my day to play a game or two.

(Click to enlarge.)

• Headphone Jack:  The headphone jack on the Nexus 4 is placed at the top of the device and it drives me nuts. In the past, Google has moved headphone jacks to the bottoms of their phones, so I’m not sure why this phone is different. I know this seems like something not worthy of an entire bullet, but as someone that uses a headphone jack on a daily basis, it is a big deal. I’ve ranted about this subject before, so I’ll keep this short. I just wish we could get some sort of a standard going here. Try riding in a car and connecting your phone to both a USB cable to charge and 3.5mm cable which are on opposite sides of the phone – it’s a tangled mess of cords.

Gallery:

Overview:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Verdict:

The LG Nexus 4 is  an impressive smartphone. It packs top-of-the-line specs and is directly supported by Google, which means you get speed and performance along with the latest and greatest version of Android. The camera is much improved, the design highlights are gorgeous, and it comes in at a price that no one in the smartphone game has approached until now. For $299 or $349, you get a phone with arguably the best specs on the planet, but the feeling of freedom from carrier contracts.

It’s not all amazing, though. The battery life isn’t the best, I have some concerns about the durability of the glass backside, and the lack of LTE connectivity is a major disappointment.

Still, the Nexus 4 is probably my favorite phone to date. It stands for all that I believe in when it comes to a smartphone. It’s beautiful, powerful, new, open, and up-to-date. Oh, and it’s incredibly affordable.

LG Nexus 4 Review is a post from: Droid Life

When Samsung first introduced the original Galaxy Note, there were plenty of tech pundits that giggled, poked fun at the product, and then proceeded to make up as many ridiculous tablet-hybrid names as possible. Little did they know that Samsung had a new star on their hands, that would compliment the already massively successful Galaxy S series. So when the Galaxy Note 2 was announced, there were fewer jokes, as it was obvious that Samsung had carved out a special niche in the smartphone game.

In this review, I’ll talk about its unique features that help set it apart from others. But most importantly, we still need to talk about the size, since that’s still the deciding factor here. Is it too big or are you ready to buy into the super-sized phone market? 

The Good:

• Specs:  The specs on the Galaxy Note 2 are second to none. The device has a quad-core Exynos processor clocked at 1.6GHz, 5.5″ HD Super AMOLED display, 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage, microSD slot to expand the storage, 4G LTE (except on the T-Mobile version), 8MP rear camera, 1.9MP front camera, built-in S Pen, NFC, and a 3100mAh battery. If you were looking for “high-end” and “future proof,” this is the phone that meets both requirements.
• Display:  The 5.5″ HD Super AMOLED display on the Galaxy Note 2, at 276ppi, is gorgeous. G.O.R.G.E.O.U.S. It’s no longer PenTile, is obviously massive, and produces vibrant colors in such clarity. It may have more of a cartoonish look than an LCD panel, but I don’t care, it looks amazing. The panel seems to float towards the top of the display, so as you touch it, it sort of feels like you are actually touching it. Touch sensitivity is where you’d expect it to be as well, and with it being so big, almost anything you do seems like it is coming to life. And because we like to, here are a couple of macro shots of the display.

• Performance:  Thanks to the quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM, there are few tasks (if any) that can slow the Note 2 down. In my couple of weeks with it, I don’t know that I have even experienced more than a couple of stutters in the UI or while task switching. The processor and GPU combo handled all of the games I played, jumping between apps is buttery smooth, and all of the add-ons like Pop-up Play and Browser, run without hiccups. No benchmark scores needed here, this phone passes all of the tests with flying colors.
• Device Tour and S Pen Features:  Since the Galaxy Note 2 is more than just a super-sized phone, I thought it was only proper if I put together a super-sized video tour of it. In the video below, I’ll walk you through the outside, briefly talk hardware, and then dive fully into the software side of things. The S Pen and its new list of features are the star of the show on the Note 2, so take a look at this 19-minute video to soak almost all of it in.

Click here to view the embedded video.

• New S Pen:  As mentioned a number of times in the video above, the S Pen on the Galaxy Note 2 has been greatly improved over its predecessor. It has this slick hovering feature called AirView that acts as a mouse (pictured below), while also showing you previews in apps like email and gallery. You can use the S Pen to quickly screenshot items, draw around the specific parts you want, write a note, quickly access apps or tasks using gestures, and more. Samsung is doing things with the pen that I don’t think any of us had imagined. It also feels like the sky is the limit here, and that S Pen features will only grow substantially over the next couple of years.

• More Software Highlights:  Since that first 20-minute video of software highlights didn’t cover it all, here is another short video. Again, the S Pen and new bundle of joy that Samsung including in TouchWiz for the Note 2 are impressive.

Click here to view the embedded video.

• Jelly Bean:  We love it when phone manufacturers release phones running the most current version of Android. Since that’s Jelly Bean (Android 4.1), for now, Samsung gets major props. Android 4.2 will be released to Nexus devices in the coming weeks, but for Samsung to already have a phone hitting stores with 4.1, you should be impressed. Motorola, who is owned by Google, just dropped the RAZR HD on us a couple of weeks ago and couldn’t even get their phones updated to Jelly Bean before launch. As you know, Jelly Bean includes all sorts of enhancements like better notifications, Google Now, advanced Search, Project Butter for improved performance, and more.
• Camera:  The 8MP camera in the Galaxy Note 2 is probably one of the better smartphone cameras that I have used to date. It’s definitely up there with the Galaxy S3′s camera, and rightfully so, as it’s likely an identical sensor. It bests the camera in the RAZR HD by a mile. Pictures are far less noisy and washed out, the focus actually works, and the sheer number of camera features is sort of astounding. There are panorama modes, burst shots, facial recognition tech, sharing modes, filters, and more. Samsung takes its smartphone cameras seriously, something that is obvious with the Note 2.

(Samples are untouched, other than being resized a bit.)

• Battery Life:  Battery life has been more-than-acceptable. I apologize for not having screenshots, but so far, the Note 2 has powered through each and every day that I have used it. Now, I should point out that the T-Mobile version doesn’t have LTE, so my battery life tests aren’t going to matter much at this time. Once I get a hold of the Verizon version with LTE, we’ll revisit this subject. So far though, the 3100mAh of juice is plenty.
• TouchWiz:  Ahh, TouchWiz. Your nature them and noises drive me nuts, but your feature set bests everyone else in the business. I love your buttery transitions, infinite scrolling loops, massive list of customizable features, gesture movements, S Pen add-ons, minor system tweaks (like quick toggles in the notification bar), and stability. But why do you have to put a damper on the situation with these damn water noises?

• Keyboard:  I’m usually the ultimate stickler when it comes to OEM keyboards. In other words, I hate almost all of them. I’m a huge fan of the stock Android keyboard, as well as Swiftkey. But when reviewing phones, I usually try to use the OEM installed keyboard throughout my time, because not everyone knows about 3rd party keyboards and I feel like these need to be reviewed. To me, the keyboard is one of the most crucial pieces to a smartphone’s OS, so I’m actually thrilled to admit that Samsung has done a fine job with their keyboard on the Note 2. It has gesture typing (similar to Swype) built-in, but it also holds up to rapid tapping much better than others. In an added bonus, since the phone is so big, they were able to include a dedicated number row at the top, something I wish almost every keyboard had. I wish it were a little faster when long pressing to get to extra characters, but the rest of the pluses outweigh that one negative.

• Gaming:  If you were looking for the ultimate portable gaming device, the Galaxy Note 2 may be it. With the massive display, it feels like you are holding a mini-gaming center in your hand. It sits between a tablet and normal smartphone in size, so it’s still ultra-portable, but also big enough to change the gaming experience. With a quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, a decent GPU, and one of the most gorgeous HD displays we’ve seen, the top HD games only get better on the Note 2.

The Not-so-Good:

• Size:  Don’t hate me for saying this, but when it comes to size, the Galaxy Note 2 is too big for my liking. Now, that doesn’t mean that you won’t love it and find the form factor optimal – I’m just saying that I prefer a regular sized smartphone. I found myself fumbling with the Note 2 far too often, as it really is a two-handed device. Making calls on it is a bit awkward because of the size, reaching anything with one hand is almost impossible without major hand placement adjustment, and unless you are carrying a bag or purse around, it may feel incredibly odd in your pocket. Again, just my opinion, many of yours may be very different.
• Hardware Navigation Buttons:  It’s almost 2013, a year ago Google introduced the first phone with on-screen navigation keys, in the Galaxy Nexus. As you all know, that phone is made by Samsung. For whatever reason, Samsung has decided that with their two flagship devices – Galaxy S3 and Note 2 – that they would not adopt the new Google standard and instead stick with hardware Menu, Home, and Back buttons. It drives me nuts. While these aren’t adding bulk to the body as they do on some phones, it just seems like we aren’t moving the smartphone game forward. I also can’t stand having to physically press in a home button to get out of an app. On-screen keys on more responsive and flexible. And good luck accessing Google Now in an efficient way.

• Where is Multi-window?:  When I sat down with Samsung a couple of weeks before they announced the Galaxy Note 2 for the U.S., they took me on a software tour of the S Pen and some of the other advanced features that were new. What they didn’t show, was this really cool new multi-window feature that would later be outed in a Korean promo video for the phone. The feature allows you to multi-task like a pro, by splitting up the display into two resizable sections that can use multiple apps at a time. It’s quite brilliant and very well done. Unfortunately for me and this review, the T-Mobile version of the phone does not have this multi-window feature, and it’s disappointing. There is a pretty good chance that it will come at a later date via OTA update, but Samsung seems to be holding back on announcing anything. The good news is that a software leak of the Verizon version showed files that reference “multi-window,” so it may have the feature out of the box.

• No LTE on T-Mobile:  All of the Galaxy Note 2 variants for the U.S. contain an LTE chip. Since T-Mobile doesn’t actually have an LTE network, this version of the phone can’t take advantage of it. Once I get my hands on an LTE-ready AT&T or Verizon version of the phone, I’ll be sure to update many of the sections of this review. Or better yet, we’ll probably just post up a mini-review to reflect any differences.
• Bloatware:  On the T-Mobile version of the Galaxy Note 2, I counted between 15 and 16 bloatware apps. There is a suite of T-Mo’s junk, but Samsung is also at fault here. While their S Note and S Voice apps aren’t going to offend many, they have plenty of others like Samsung Apps, Paper Artist, and Game Hub that I have absolutely no use for.

Gallery:

vs. Galaxy S3

The Verdict:

Oh, boy, the verdict. This is a tough one. The Galaxy Note 2 is an incredible smartphone, there is no denying that. What you will all have to decide is whether or not you can deal with the size on a daily basis. I personally, couldn’t wait to get back to my “smaller” Galaxy S3, but that doesn’t mean that the majority of you won’t love the 5.5″ display and large body of the Note 2. There really are few negatives to this phone. It’s powerful, polished, stable, and Samsung’s best work yet. It’s just one of those hybrid products that there is no way for me to say one way or the other if you are going to love it. You are the one buying your next smartphone, so if you think the Note 2 may be it, I suggest you go get your hands on one. Pocket it. Caress it. Use the S Pen. Snap photos. Navigate around the UI. Hold it up to your head and look in the mirror. Like what you see and feel? Then I think you have made your decision.

Samsung Galaxy Note 2 Review is a post from: Droid Life

Guess what, ladies and gentlemen? It’s Samsung Galaxy Note 2 day. With Samsung (and Kanye) putting together the final preparations for tonight’s big launch party in NYC, you can start your day of Note 2 coverage right here. I have had the T-Mobile version (since it’s the first to launch) for a handful of days now and am close to finalizing our review, however, with the RAZR HDs (our review) taking up quite a bit of time, I didn’t want to short change this phone and will need another day or two. So far though, I’m absolutely loving every minute of it. Let’s talk about it. 

Initial Thoughts

Pros:  When you first open the box and pick up the Galaxy Note 2, you can’t help but say “Holy sh*t, this thing is huge.” You grab it with two hands, pull the S Pen out, start hammering on it, see the fluidity and power, the massive amount of features, and follow up that first comment with “OK, this is pretty cool.”

With it’s 1.6GHz quad-core Exynos processor, 5.5″ HD Super AMOLED display (non-PenTile), 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage, and Jelly Bean (Android 4.1.1), there is nothing stopping this phone. The display is probably the best I have seen to date, or is at least my favorite thus far. I know that many of you love LCD over Super AMOLED, but this thing, with it’s size and pixel arrangement, is absolutely gorgeous. Watching videos, playing games, and browsing the web never looked so good. The extra screen real estate is more than welcomed when consuming media.

The camera is ultra-fast and seems to be on par with the Galaxy S3′s, TouchWiz seems to be faster and more well-rounded on top of Jelly Bean, and the S Pen, with it’s new feature-set, is very polished and fun to use.

This is definitely one of those devices that you seem to find reasons to pull out and use again and again.

Cons:  It’s not 100% perfect, though. First off, it is huge. I still can’t decide if I could make this my daily device or not, and the only question mark really is the size. It’s awesome for at home, but I’m still trying to convince myself that this could be good in everyday, all day situations. The multi-window feature that we first reported on has yet to arrive on this handset, but will likely come in a later update. Unfortunately, that means we’ll have to wait for an update and you know how long those can take in the U.S. I haven’t been able to test battery life with LTE, since T-Mobile doesn’t have an LTE network yet. So far, it holds up nicely with the 3100mAh battery inside. The phone itself, is also quite the fingerprint magnet both on the display and backside thanks to a glossy finish. With a phone this big, I’ve found myself carrying around a cloth to wipe it off a couple of times a day. Last, there are parts of TouchWiz that I still can’t stand – like folder creation.

Availability:  You can buy the device today from T-Mobile. Sprint begins selling it tomorrow, October 25. AT&T opens pre-orders tomorrow, with the device hitting stores on November 9. Verizon, as usual, has remained quiet, although, we are hearing that it should go up for pre-order tomorrow.

Overall:  As someone that didn’t spend all that much quality time with the original Note, I can see why everyone was so disappointed when this didn’t come to all carriers. It’s a fun device to use. Will it be fun when I take it to Blazers games, to a restaurant, traveling, or out on the town? I’m still forming that opinion.

Device Tour:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Gallery:

vs. Galaxy S3

Samsung Galaxy Note 2 Initial Thoughts, Gallery, and Device Tour is a post from: Droid Life

When Motorola first introduced the DROID RAZR HD and RAZR MAXX HD, they coupled the announcement with the idea that this was a “new Motorola.” In the front office, it most certainly is new, however, any industry player knows that these phones are the last to be inspired by the old guard. But before we start looking to the future for what’s next, we can’t look past the new RAZR family, as these are Moto’s final works of 2012. Bigger and better displays, long battery lives, and closer-than-ever-to-stock MotoBlur are all a part of the theme. Are they worth your dollar? 

The Good:

• Specs:  When a phone has top-tier level specs, we like to call it out first thing, so that you know exactly what you are in for. The RAZR HD and MAXX HD most definitely have better than average specs. They both sport 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processors, 4.7″ HD Super AMOLED displays, 1GB RAM, 8MP rear cameras, 1.3MP front cameras, Verizon’s 4G LTE, and massive batteries for best in the business battery life. There may be phones already available and new ones around the corner that have slightly better specs, but these are nothing to be ashamed of. Motorola tried to go high-end with the RAZR HDs and succeeded on paper.
• Battery Life:  It’s no secret that the #1 selling feature for both the RAZR HD and MAXX HD is how long they can last on a single charge. In fact, when we got our review units, it was the first thing we set out to test. The RAZR HD has a 2530mAh battery, while the RAZR MAXX HD has a whopping 3300mAh battery tucked inside. Even with massive batteries like these, Motorola still managed to keep the devices relatively thin at 8.4mm and 9.3mm, respectively. How did they perform, though? As expected, they are both battery monsters, easily getting you through 10-15 hours on a single charge with the RAZR HD and much longer than that with the MAXX HD. At no time did I ever have to worry about plugging either phone in during the day. In fact, I found myself religiously checking the MAXX HD’s life, because it seemed like it should have been dead hours ago. I actually had the MAXX HD top out at 1 day, 10 hours and 47 minutes before I decided to plug it in, as it finally hit me with my first “under 15%” warning. You can see battery results screenshots below.

• Design, Build and Feel:  Motorola definitely has its own unique take on how a smartphone should look. It also knows exactly what it should be made of and feel like. No device is a better example of their style than the RAZR HD. With a soft-touch kevlar backing, metal banding around the outside, sharp-yet-rounded corners and edges, and big black face plate on the front, these phones are beyond removed from the “cheap” plastics used by many of their competitors. The RAZR HD is industrial, yet soft and stylish, and feels great in hand. It also feels like a phone that could be dropped a couple of times and survive. I actually face dropped it onto my hardwood floors and it came away unscathed. Overall, this phone reminds me a lot of the last year or so of Motorola phones, but kicked up a notch on the refinement level.
• Display:  The 4.7″ HD Super AMOLED display on the RAZR HD and MAXX HD is a solid HD display. After having the LG Optimus G for a couple of weeks with its HD IPS+ LCD, I would be lying if I said that the RAZR HD’s came even close to that device. However, it’s still HD, brings the colorful ambiance that is a Super AMOLED, and looks great while watching videos or thumbing through a recent batch of pictures. It has a PenTile pixel arrangement, something we normally can’t stand. But at this point in the HD display game, there are so many pixels per inch that the naked eye won’t be able to pick this up. You’ll see the shared pixels in our macro shots below, but don’t take that as a knock against the display. Like I said earlier, it’s a solid HD display even if it isn’t the best in the business.

(Click for larger images)

• Performance:  Thanks to the dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor and 1GB of RAM, neither phone has any problems on the performance front. Sure, they aren’t rockin’ out with quad-cores or 2GB of RAM like many of their competitors’ new phones, but they still hum along nicely. I do run into slight jitters here or there when accessing some menus. Overall though, I was very pleased with performance. Both the RAZR HD and MAXX HD can compete with most of today’s high-end phones.
• Notification LED:  One of my favorite features on the RAZR HD is the massive notification light under the front speaker grill. It’s multi-colored, and manages to glow wider than almost any other notification light in the business. It seems silly to be so excited over something so small, but this is one area where Motorola really hit it out of the park. Using an app like Light Flow, you can turn this light from light blue to green to purple to yellow depending on the application that wants to use it. Check out the video below to see it in action.

Click here to view the embedded video.

• Speaker:  I’m now a major Motorola speaker fanboy. The external speaker on the backside of the RAZR HD is hands-down, the best speaker in the business. When watching videos, listening to music, and playing games, it almost sounds like surround sound. It’s incredibly loud and clear, and makes any situation that requires sound, so much more enjoyable. If there was one knock against it, it’s that the notifications are almost so loud and violent, that they come off a bit distorted at times. Seriously though, this speaker is awesome.
• Custom UI:  Motorola came out a week ago and admitted that they are trying to make their custom Android skin as close to being stock Android as possible. Unfortunately, carriers want skins to differentiate between phones, but that hasn’t stopped Motorola from keeping theirs super minimal. As you can see in the pictures below, MotoBlur (yes, I’m still calling it that) looks fairly close to stock, with subtle accents or OS design tweaks here or there. The lock screen has been tweaked to provide more options up front, there is a fancy new 3-circle clock widget front and center, home screens are added 1-by-1, the app drawer is minimal with an added “Favorites” panel, and the settings menu is only colored differently. My favorite new Blur feature has got to be the Quick Settings panel that can be accessed with a swipe to the left from your main home screen. Rather than cluttering the notifications pulldown, Motorola went a different direction by giving these options their own hidden page, a move I fully endorse.

• Jelly Bean Updates:  Motorola, under new Google leadership, is all about Android updates. In fact, when they announced the new RAZR family, CEO Dennis Woodside said that the RAZR M, RAZR HD, and MAXX HD would all receive Jelly Bean (Android 4.1) before the end of 2012. For those keeping track, that’s a major update from what they were released with in about 2 months time. It would have been nice to see them launch with the latest and greatest in Android, but we’ll take a holiday update.
• On-screen Navigation Keys:  Thanks to Motorola trying to stick as close to stock Android as possible, they are one of the few phone manufacturers to adopt on-screen navigation keys. I personally enjoy them because they eliminate the need to add room onto the chin of a phone for hardware navigation keys. But going forward, with Jelly Bean, they also allow for easy access to Google Now at any time and any place with the simple swipe up of the home button, something you will never be able to do with a phone that doesn’t have on-screen navigation keys.
• Verizon’s 4G LTE:  Verizon’s 4G LTE network covers more than 400 markets and over 200 million people at the time of me writing this review. By the time you get done reading it, I wouldn’t be surprised if another dozen markets were lit up. The rollout of their’s has been remarkable. The RAZR HD, thanks to its LTE radio, gets to take full nationwide advantage of it.
• Developer Edition:  Motorola is aware that there are tinkerer and developer communities out there that want to do more with their phones. They want to install custom software, remove bloatware, and feel like they fully own a device they just paid hundreds of dollars for. To appease this crowd, Motorola released the DROID RAZR HD Developer Edition. This phone can only be purchased through Motorola directly and at full retail, which means you’ll have to fork out $599 to have full Android freedom. Hey, at least you have an option, right?

The Not-so-Good:

• Camera:  I haven’t had any luck with the 8MP rear camera on either the RAZR HD or RAZR MAXX HD. I’m sort of left wondering if it’s a software issue rather than a sensor issue, though. Pictures come out fine at times (I lied, and really meant rarely), but mostly, they are a noisy and blurry mess. The camera app darkens or lightens sporadically to extremes, sometimes in the same location and under the same lighting. It’s almost always inconsistent in some way or another. I feel like these same issues have plagued Motorola phones for years now. Hopefully now that Google is in charge, there will be a bigger focus on creating software that produces great stills. Oh wait, stock Android’s camera software is awful as well – probably won’t be holding out hope, after all. Here are some samples.

• MAXX Price:  Let’s be perfectly honest here, there should not be two different RAZR HD models. There should be one phone called the RAZR HD, and it should match up exactly to what the RAZR MAXX HD is. The price of $299 for the MAXX version is a bit ridiculous, knowing that you are only getting a battery with an extra 800mAh, along with 16GB of extra internal storage. This was clearly a marketing move, but it sucks for consumers. The Galaxy Note 2 will likely drop in at $299 as well, yet it has a bigger, more advanced, and beautiful display, the same amount of storage, has twice the RAM, and includes a special pen. Poor move here, something that was probably forced by Verizon after seeing the success of the original RAZR MAXX.
• Bloatware:  I came up with 17 bloatware apps that have been preinstalled by Verizon. In their last couple of phones, these weren’t as much of a sore spot because you could go in and disable or uninstall most, thanks to Ice Cream Sandwich. Unfortunately, Verizon and their partners have decided that they don’t want you doing that any longer, and have made most of these apps permanent fixtures.

Gallery:

RAZR HD

RAZR MAXX HD

RAZR HD vs. RAZR MAXX HD

Video Overview:

RAZR HD

Click here to view the embedded video.

RAZR MAXX HD vs. RAZR HD

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Verdict:

Motorola has done a great job with the RAZR HD and RAZR MAXX HD of creating a phone with high-end specs (for the most part) and industry leading battery life. If you are the type of consumer that finds yourself without access to an outlet or charger for much of a day, these would probably be your best options. While testing the MAXX HD, I was able to cruise into a second day of normal use with plenty of battery to spare. Motorola appears to have listened to consumers when it comes to performance and all-day-usage.

It’s not all high scores for the new RAZRs, though. Motorola’s competitors are all ready to introduce the future of smartphones over the next couple of months, which means doubling of RAM, moving onto quad-core processors, and even better display tech. While the RAZR HDs have nothing to be ashamed of, they don’t necessarily even top the Galaxy S3, a phone that was introduced 3 months ago.

I will say, that while reviewing both phones, I ran into very little issues. In fact, these phones very much feel like some of the more complete smartphones I have used in some time. Aside from the camera not living up to my quirky standards, you really can’t go wrong here – unless of course, you find yourself always wanting the best of the best, which should be here over the next month.

DROID RAZR HD and RAZR MAXX HD Review is a post from: Droid Life

Whenever we ask our readers to give us specs that they would like to see in a “dream device,” you would most certainly see a few, if not all of the Optimus G’s listed. Although, LG isn’t pushing the Optimus like Samsung is pushing the Galaxy S3 and you won’t see this device on all four major U.S. carriers. Customers on AT&T and Sprint will only see the device, but more importantly, the next Nexus device is rumored to be based around this phone, so it makes reviewing this device’s hardware and look somewhat more important than others.

If you’re on Sprint, let’s go over why this device may or may not be your next.  

The Good:

• Specs:  Welcome to this device’s main selling point. The Optimus G on Sprint features specs that easily set it ahead of the pack. The phone houses a beautiful 4.7″ IPS+ HD display, 2GB of RAM, a massive 13MP back-facing camera, 32GB of memory (non-expandable), 1.3MP front facing shooter, NFC technology, and 4G LTE capabilities. These specs are awesome. Better yet, this device actually feels like it takes advantage of having them and it’s incredibly fun to use.
• Performance:  Thanks to those amazing specs, this device blazes. Switching between apps, gaming (I touch on that below), and browsing the web are child’s play for this device. In fact, I don’t think I experienced any real “lag” with the device during day-to-day use. The Snapdragon S4 Pro chip is a truly exciting piece of hardware and I’m hoping more devices will begin to use it. It should be interesting to see what NVIDIA, Texas Instruments, and Samsung come up with to counter Qualcomm’s beastly SoC.
• Display:  Kellex reviewed the AT&T version of this device and I promised myself I wouldn’t steal from his review. I lied. K’s opinion on the display matches that of my own and he also has a much better macro lens than I do. I will paste the Display section from his review here to make sure everyone gets just how awesome this display is: “The 4.7″ HD IPS+ display on the Optimus G is stunning. The whites are actually white, brightness levels are very good, the viewing angles are exceptional, and colors pop without looking fake, all thanks to the LCD tech used. LG used ‘Zerogap Touch,’ which eliminates the gap between the LCD and front glass, so that the display looks incredible and also seems extra responsive to touch. With close to 318ppi and a non-PenTile layout, there are few things, if any, wrong with the display on this phone. And as always, here are some macro shots so that you can see the pixel arrangement.”

(Click each image for larger versions)

• Camera:  I haven’t been able to say enough good things about LG’s work with this camera. Sprint’s variant features a 13MP sensor, perfect for shooting almost anything I threw in front of it. When in low lighting, I found performance to be exceptional and I got some really nice shots when I visited a farmer’s market. Unfortunately, around my place this time of year there is zero sun, so I wasn’t able to get too many sunny shots. Of the shots I did take, the resolution was humongous which made for larger files to send and upload, which if you’re on mobile connection and not on WiFi, could spell trouble. Lowering the resolution in the settings may be something most users should look into.

• Size/Feel:  When it comes to smartphones these days, size matters! For some, this device will be simply too big. I handed it off to some iPhone owners and to them, it’s a brick. To me, it’s just right. It’s all about what you grow accustomed to and user preference. There’s no “perfect size” in my opinion. LG was able to fit the biggest display possible inside this body, without sacrificing size and weight. The device in hand feels great, but yes, you will need two hands at times to operate it. If a big display is something you seek, it’s a fantastic choice.
• QSlide, QuickMemo, and Live Zooming: I lied again. Without having to redo the same thing twice, Kellex touched on LG’s custom software that was baked into the Android OS, and although I didn’t get to use it as much as I had hoped, from the time I did have with it, I was impressed. Here’s a quick hands-on video that K recorded. “LG included a handful of new UI features that they hope will help this device, along with others going forward, stand out from the crowded Android world. The three that I found myself using the most were QuickMemo, QSlide, and Live Zooming, all of which I have demoed for you below.”

• Gaming:  With the device’s massive display and powerful Snapdragon chip, gaming is fantastic! It can easily (and I mean easily) handle titles like Granny Smith and Angry Birds, and then kill it with Mass Effect, Shadowgun, and Dead Trigger. With all of that display to work with, your fingers aren’t cramped or fighting for space. I would say it’s the perfect mix of size and speed for gaming when it comes to smartphones.
• Software/Skin:  I enjoy stock vanilla Android just like the next guy, but this LG skin isn’t all too bad. They’ve taken out any excessive junk and basically just threw in some nice visuals. For example, when you’re turning off the screen, you see a circular shape close in on itself which looks fantastic. The launcher is great (minus the annoying sorting of apps feature) and of course, it whips around nicely thanks to the S4 Pro. Another aspect I like about the skin is that it allows many custom options. You can apply pre-made “themes” to your device, which can give your device some personality by changing up color palettes and application icons. It’s an easy change and makes the device that much better for someone who needs more control over the look of the phone. I was hesitant at first about LG’s skin, but this device has helped me see the light.

• Battery:  This thing is a tank. Over my week with it, I haven’t seen it hit zero once. There is a high-density 2,100mAh battery resting inside this slim shell, which was specifically designed by LG and LG Chem for this device. The long lasting battery can also be attributed to the new Snapdragon S4′s quad-core technology, which features “Asynchronous Symmetric Multiprocessing” (aSMP) allowing each core to power up and down independently. When we say this new Snapdragon processor is where it’s at, we mean it.

The Bad:

• Hardware buttons:  By now, this will always go down in my “Bad” section. With Android evolving into one sexy OS, I somewhat expect the OEM’s to enforce that and apply it to their designs. On-screen keys are something I very much enjoy. The buttons function fine and there’s nothing wrong with the way they light up, it’s just the simple fact that they are there is enough for me to be turned off. On-screen keys or bust.

• Keyboard:  The stock keyboard features a Swype-like feature that can’t get a word right even if its life depended on it. If you’re a speed pecker, forget about it. Auto-correction is sub-par at best and you’re much better off simply downloading a third party keyboard from Google Play. Dependability on the keyboard is something they could easily fix in an update, so hopefully they’ll think about spending more time on it.
• Sprint:  In the area of Portland I live, Sprint is somewhat of a joke. We haven’t been blessed with their 4G LTE yet, but let’s hope that it comes soon. The device has been running on their 3G network while I’ve had it and needless to say, doing any kind of web surfing, video streaming, or anything dependent on their network is a serious bummer. While on the go I like to watch YouTube videos and read comments on the site, but with the Sprint 3G, it’s almost stressful to watch the pages load or videos render. I’ve been spoiled by 4G LTE and this phone needs it stat.

• Random bugs and Skin issues:  This is thee most frustrating bug I’ve actually encountered. No screen rotation in apps. Whether it’s just this phone’s sensor is dead or busted, I can’t stand it. For example, I have Screen Rotation turned on and I can’t go from landscape to portrait mode on the homescreen. Not a deal breaker, but that’s just the beginning. In the YouTube app, I scroll through the videos in portrait. I select a video, then tilt the device to watch in landscape. NOPE. No rotation. It sticks to portrait. Another fine example. From the lockscreen I’ll open the camera app, snap a couple shots, then hit the home key. I’m taken to the homescreen, but it will be stuck in landscape. The only way to go back to portrait is to turn the display off, and turn it back on while holding the device straight up. Again, this could be just the phone they sent us, but this is something they will need to fix in an update if it affects all of the phones. It kills me.
• Ice Cream Sandwich:  Plain and simple, this device should come with Jelly Bean out of the gate. Every inch of it is top tier except for the actual OS. Not much else to say. An update to JB will eventually be pushed to the device, but that doesn’t help anyone who wants their fix of Google Now or all of the other goodies Jelly Bean brings.

Gallery:

Software Tour:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Verdict:

Rather than having to explain why people should think about picking this device up, it’s easier (and shorter) to explain why you shouldn’t. Sprint’s network will easily hinder your experience with this phone if you don’t live in an area with their 4G LTE service. It’s as simple as that. These days, where data speeds are uber important to buyers, that’s a deal breaker for some. It’s not the phone’s fault, but my experience definitely warrants me to warn people about jumping onto Sprint for this phone.

Other than that, if speeds aren’t something you’re going crazy over, this device features top tier specs that are unmatched. It has a camera that will surely be able to produce fantastic shots for being inside of a phone, and on top of that, LG’s custom skin doesn’t make me want to die like Blur and TouchWiz.

Will this device bring LG back onto the playground and out of the metaphorical timeout that we as consumers have placed them in? I certainly hope so given the fact that I strongly believe in “the more the merrier.” Welcome back into my heart, LG.

LG Optimus G Review [Sprint] is a post from: Droid Life

When LG first announced the Optimus G, our jaws about hit the floor because of the specs. But as it inched closer to launch, most of us realized that this phone wouldn’t launch on all carriers in a way that we have seen from Samsung and their Galaxy S3, leaving us wondering if we should fully care or not. (This phone, is headed to AT&T and Sprint here in the U.S. (Verizon and T-Mobile customers will be left out of the party.) Thankfully, we have also all come to the realization that the next Nexus phone (possibly dubbed the Nexus 4) will be based off of the Optimus G, so whether or not this is coming to your carrier of choice, you should care about it. With that said, let’s talk about this device in a little more detail. 

The Good:

• Specs:  At this point in the smartphone game, there is no disputing that the Optimus G is the king of specs. With it’s 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, 4.7″ HD IPS+ display, 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage (32GB in the Sprint version), microSD slot for expandable storage (no SD slot in the Sprint version), 8MP camera (13MP in the Sprint version), 1.3MP front camera, 2100mAh battery, NFC chip, and 4G LTE, there are few phones that even come close to matching up to it.
• Display:  The 4.7″ HD IPS+ display on the Optimus G is stunning. The whites are actually white, brightness levels are very good, the viewing angles are exceptional, and colors pop without looking fake, all thanks to the LCD tech used. LG used “Zerogap Touch,” which eliminates the gap between the LCD and front glass, so that the display looks incredible and also seems extra responsive to touch. With close to 318ppi and a non-PenTile layout, there are few things, if any, wrong with the display on this phone. And as always, here are some macro shots so that you can see the pixel arrangement.

(Click each image for larger versions)

• Performance:  Thanks to the quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor and 2GB of RAM, the performance on the Optimus G is second to none. You can zip between apps, home screens, or others tasks in an instant. The camera is ultra fast and gaming has zero stuttering while allowing for max frames per second. It’s the first Snapdragon quad-core phone on the market, so if you want the most powerful phone available today, this is your choice. The only complaint I have can probably be blamed on the software, and that’s a launcher and home screen refresh and lag while leaving some applications. At times, when you press home, there is a launcher refresh that takes a second or two and is a bit disappointing, since we know this phone has the power to cruise through any task.
• LG’s New Custom UI:  Rarely do I praise an OEM for creating a custom skin that is slapped over the top of stock Android, but in this instance, I must show some love. LG and their new custom UI have given me almost everything that I can ask for. Their home screen launcher is like a 3rd party launcher that I would install on my phone anyway. It gives you options for custom transitions between home screens, the ability to customize icons, let’s you tweak the app drawer to your liking (for the most part), and is unbelievably fluid. There are no stutters here, folks. Be sure to see the software tour down below to see some of what I’m talking about.
• QSlide, QuickMemo, and Live Zooming: LG included a handful of new UI features that they hope will help this device, along with others going forward, stand out from the crowded Android world. The three that I found myself using the most were QuickMemo, QSlide, and Live Zooming, all of which I have demoed for you below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

• Styling:  When initially writing up my pros and cons for this review, I had style down in the cons, but as I’ve used the phone more and more, I actually do love the look. Sure, at first glance it appears to be a giant black rectangle, but the subtle highlights and accents, perfectly rounded edges, variations of textures, and deep black front, make this a beautiful phone to look at. To the naked eye or distant onlooker, it probably won’t look like much. However, once you hold it in your hand and slowly spin it under a light, you get shimmering lights, beautiful reflections, and the realization that this device was masterfully crafted.
• Battery Life:  LG claims to have used a new high-density battery technology to make for longer battery cycles. While I haven’t seen anything extraordinary, I have seen pretty decent battery life for a phone with a quad-core processor and massive display. In the couple of screenshots below, you can see there were times when I hammered on the device while pushing through extra long periods of Granny Smith, and others where I backed off for normal use. In one instance, I got through 10 hours and had 15% left – the other was almost at 11 hours with 40% battery remaining. Again, I wouldn’t call this the longest lasting battery on the planet, but at 2100mAh, it certainly appears to be able to get the job done.

• Back Design:  LG used a new Crystal Reflection technology to design one of the coolest back plates we have ever seen. It’s a subtle design, that can really only be seen while looking directly at it or under certain lighting, but it’s really neat. There appears to be some flexibility with it as well, since the Sprint and AT&T versions have different back patterns. The AT&T Optimus G pattern is almost like a field of diamonds and pyramids under a glass sheet. You’ll see it below, in quite the sad photo of that glass covering.
• Camera:  I’ve put the camera on the Optimus G in the “Good” category, but it should probably sit somewhere in the middle between good and not-so-good. It’s a decent shooter, but I haven’t found it to be anywhere near the shooter on the Galaxy S3 – at least out of the box. It’s one of those cameras that has potential to be great, but it’ll take some manual tweaking before it’ll get there. Most of the shots I took on Auto all let in far too much light and washed most of my pictures out. The best example is the dual-shot picture of the camera below where I adjust ISO. This seems to be another case of bad software hurting what should be a decent camera.

• AT&T LTE:  Now that AT&T has lit up their LTE network here in Portland and a bunch of other major cities, it’s like the early days of Verizon’s LTE network – speeds are out of this world fast. It also seems like AT&T turned on LTE when they had full cities covered, rather than just parts of cities. So far, I’m enjoying AT&T’s new network more than anyone’s, and the Optimus G is taking full advantage of it.
• Reception/Call Quality:  As with most smartphones these days, I had no issues with call quality and reception. Thanks to AT&T’s mostly-reliable network and LG’s high-end hardware, I never ran into an issue where I couldn’t make a call or couldn’t hear the person in perfect clarity on the other end.

The Not-so-Good:

• Glass Back Plate:  Ugh. That’s all I can say about the glass piece that covers the back of the Optimus G. As you can see from the image below, I managed to crack it from top to bottom. The really unfortunate thing here, is that I don’t know how I managed to do this. I haven’t dropped the phone, so it either came from me squeezing it too hard, setting it down on my desk, or pulling it in and out of a pocket. I seriously do not know. My situation may be a super limited scenario, but I now understand what iPhone 4 owners went through with the glass plates on the backs of their devices.

• Size:  If you are going to make a phone a giant rectangular box, you probably shouldn’t make it this big. While the weight of the device is on point, I can’t help but admit that it doesn’t feel as good in hand as the Galaxy S3 or One X. Both of those seem to fit perfectly with the contours of your hand, while the boxy feel of the Optimus G seems to want to fight them at times. Don’t get me wrong, this device doesn’t feel awful when holding it, but there are devices that feel better.
• No Notification LED:  LG decided not to use a traditional notification LED light on the front panel of the device. Personally, I’m sad that they made this move, as a notification light is something I count on to show me all sorts of incoming messages or items that need to be addressed. Instead of an LED light on the front, they put a light that blinks sporadically around the Power switch on the side of the device. This thing seems to have a mind of its own and rarely shows me notifications when I expect that it should be. It looks neat while you are charging your phone, but that’s about all it’s good for.

• Some Software Lag:  As I mentioned in the software tour below, there is a bit of software lag at times. What I mean is that when pressing “Home” or leaving an application to head back to your home screen, there is a refresh that takes place that runs a couple of seconds. For a phone that has 2GB of RAM and a quad-core processor, this should never happen. I’m sure it can be fixed in a software update, so let’s hope that happens with Jelly Bean in December or early next year.
• Parts of the Custom UI:  Most of LG’s custom skin isn’t bad, in fact, I actually like a lot of what they are doing these days. It feels much more polished, makes a lot of sense to use, and introduces some really handy features like QSlide. It’s not all pretty, though. App organization in the app drawer is frustrating at times and constantly requires you to sort alphabetically to find anything. The settings menu on the AT&T version also takes a massive turn away from traditional Android, so it’s a bit confusing to someone like me that changes settings on phones many times throughout the day.
• Keyboard:  The stock LG keyboard is some form of Swype or FlexT9 that is painful to use. You can swipe between letters to type quickly, and it will even do its best to auto-correct you. Unfortunately, the auto-correct is way too aggressive and more of a pain than it is helpful. Thankfully, you can switch to the stock Android keyboard through Settings. And of course, since this is Android, you can download one from the app store that’s probably better.

• Only Ice Cream Sandwich:  The device will come running Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box and will be updated to Jelly Bean at a later date. LG has said that the international version of the Optimus G will see Jelly Bean in December, however, we do not know how long before the AT&T and Sprint versions see it. LG has a poor track record of updating phones, so it could be a while. With this being their flagship of 2012, maybe it’ll happen much sooner than later.
• Bloatware:  There are roughly 17 bloatware apps, 6 of which are AT&T branded garbage apps that no one uses.

Gallery:

Hardware Tour:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Software Tour:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Verdict:

The LG Optimus G on AT&T is a fabulous device. The display is one of the best displays you will find on a smartphone, the hardware specs are the best in the business, battery life is above average, it takes advantage of AT&T’s ultra-fast LTE network, and the UI experience, while custom, doesn’t suck. I’m impressed, to say the least.

My “Not-so-Goods” are mostly me nitpicking little things here or there, but nothing really stands out as something for me to not recommend that you check this phone out. The one concern I have now, is with the back glass plate. Mine cracked and I can’t even recall an event that would have caused such damage on any other phone. Glass on the back of a phone is never a good idea in my opinion, so if this is your next phone, be careful or buy a case immediately.

LG, you did a great job at making a high-end phone and you deserve praise for it.

LG Optimus G Review [AT&T] is a post from: Droid Life

The DROID RAZR M by Motorola was introduced last week as a mid-range device with, for the most part, top tier specs on Verizon. It sports an “edge-to-edge” display, dual-core processor, and Ice Cream Sandwich in one of the smaller packages we have seen in some time. Motorola was trying to give this phone something new by keeping the display itself big, but shrinking down the phone to make it much more manageable in one hand. They succeeded and then some. I may as well admit it now, that I’m a big fan of this phone even if the display is only qHD. Let’s talk about it. 

The Good:

• Form Factor:  Even if Motorola doesn’t sell 10 million RAZR Ms, they have a winner in my book. Their vision of an edge-to-edge display is something I am 100% on-board with. When you pick up the RAZR M, you immediately notice how small it feels when compared to other devices like the Galaxy S3, but once you turn the screen on, none of that will matter. Since there is very little bezel, and Moto managed to toss in a 4.3″ display while keeping the overall package small, it doesn’t feel like you are holding a tank or two-handed device. It’s easy to navigate this phone with one hand. After making this my daily phone for the last 4 or 5 days, it has been difficult to pick up anything else without saying, “Damn these other phones are huge.” I also like it that the RAZR M doesn’t feel like Moto flattened or squashed the device just for the sake of saying, “Look how thin this is, even if it is the widest device on Earth!” Yes, I’m talking about the original RAZR.
• Specs:  Aside from the RAZR M having a qHD display, the rest of its insides are top notch on paper. The 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 is efficient and powerful. The 8GB of on-board storage with expandable microSD slot gives you all of the space you could ask for. The 1GB of RAM doesn’t match the 2GB in the Galaxy S3, but should be enough for almost any average user. The 8MP camera sucks, but hey, at least it’s 8MP? It also has a 4G LTE radio so that it can connect to Verizon’s ever-growing network. The RAZR M doesn’t break ground on the spec front, but it also isn’t falling behind.
• Battery Life:  The 2000mAh battery inside the RAZR M coupled with a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor seems like a match made in heaven. Well, almost anything does with this processor, however, this phone seems insanely good with this combo. I have two screenshots to talk about below that have led me to this conclusion. The first one on the left is the RAZR M after I took it through a standard day of checking emails, Twitter, snapping a few photos, making a few phone calls, listening to some music, keeping WiFi off, and not doing anything that would completely hammer on battery life (like gaming or video streaming). As you can see, a full day of use was not an issue. The screenshot on the right is day of travel and over an hour straight of Granny Smith domination with Google Music playing in the background while on a plane. I still had 33% left and probably could have made it through the rest of the day if I needed to. Now, with my Galaxy Nexus, should I have played over an hour of any game with music streaming in the background, I would have been dying to find the nearest outlet so that I could toss some juice into it. This phone is incredibly efficient.

• Display:  I’ve been hard on qHD displays for almost 2 years now, but I’ve got to admit that this qHD display on the RAZR M isn’t bothering me like others have in the past. It could be that Motorola selected the perfect set of wallpapers to show off color pops that distract me from picking out pixels or maybe, the fact that there isn’t blurring and ghosting at every turn like on the Incredible 4G and other qHD devices, that has me feeling good. Viewing angles are great, it gets plenty bright, and the size really does feel nice for such a small framed phone. Colors are vibrant since it’s an AMOLED and sensitivity is as good as any display I have touched in a while.

• Performance:  The RAZR M has been a pleasure to use because Motorola has apparently fine-tuned their custom OEM skin since the Atrix HD, which runs a similar build. There are stutters or hiccups here and there, but for the most part, this phone flies, thanks to the Snapdragon S4 processor inside. We aren’t usually that big on benchmarks, but to visually give you an idea as to how this phone stacks up to the competition, we thought we would include a couple (Yes, it topped the list in Quadrant.). For a $99 phone, you can’t help but be impressed. It’s not perfect, but the few hiccups I saw can all be fixed by software updates in the future, which new Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside told us would be here before the end of the year.

• Price:  If you don’t have $200 to spend on a phone, you should buy the RAZR M. At $99, it almost seems like you are robbing someone. The Incredible 4G, which doesn’t even stack up to this phone on any level other than the camera, is $149. Motorola’s new direction involves pricing phones in areas that can reach massive amounts of consumers, something the price point for the RAZR M clearly demonstrates. It’s a bargain-bin price for one of the better phones of 2012.
• 4G LTE:  LTE is standard in all Verizon smartphones these days, so it’s no surprise that the RAZR M has been taking full advantage of the network while I’ve had it in my possession. Unlike some of Verizon’s previously released LTE phones, this one has no problem holding a signal. I’ve spent time in airports, between cities, on trains and in low coverage areas over the last few days and rarely ran into a lack of signal. If I left a coverage area, connection was quickly restored moments after returning to one. You see DL readers rave about Motorola radios in the comments on posts throughout each day, and there is a reason for it.
• Blur:  During my Atrix HD review, I had mostly positive things to say about the direction of Blur. In fact, I still think this is the best version of Blur yet. With that said, Motorola needs to find a style or layout and stick to it for a while. This version of Blur is completely different than the ICS Blur we saw hit the original RAZR. We like innovation, but let’s try to find something we can build off of without having to completely flip the switch and start over. Likes:  In this new build, you can swipe left and find a new notifications panel which I really like. It’s a much better way to display this info than through the pull down menu. After that, you can swipe right to get to other home screens which don’t exist right off the bat. You have to add them by either choosing from a Moto pre-set layout or a blank screen. I can’t help but also admit that I really like how close this is to stock Android. Dislikes:  I am sad to see them already eliminate the quick preview windows that were included in the Atrix HD’s build, though. For certain apps like Phone or Contacts, you could swipe up on the icon and see a preview of information. It was handy, to say the least, but it’s now gone in this new version of Blur.

• Jelly Bean Soon:  During the announcement of the RAZR M, Motorola announced that Jelly Bean would be available as an update before the end of the year. If you looked at a calendar, that only gives them a little over 3 months. They must feel confident in the process because it took them 8 or 9 months to get Ice Cream Sandwich out.
• Developer Edition:  Motorola is trying to win over customers again after pissing them off for the last 2 years. In order to do that, they feel that they need to win back the developer community, by releasing “developer edition” phones. While these are a great gesture and idea in principal, very few will likely buy these as they can only be purchased off contract at full retail and likely without much of a warranty. Thanks for the option, I guess.
• On-screen Navigation Keys:  Motorola is one of the few Android OEMs to adopt on-screen navigation keys, something that Google first introduced with the Galaxy Nexus last year. It’s no surprise that Moto has gone this route, since they are owned by Google and all, but since we have seen other manufacturers continue to use hardware buttons, we need to give Moto props. On-screen navigation keys will allow for a better Jelly Bean experience while also allowing for a smaller device profile and more screen real estate.

The Not-so-Good:

• Style:  Look, I’m a fan of the front of this device along with the industrial accents on the sides, but Motorola, it’s time to do away with the cheesy kevlar backing. Every time I flip this phone over, I cringe. The kevlar really serves no purpose other than as a talking point during sales pitches. This phone, for the most part, looks like a step in a new design direction for Moto, until you get to the back. It was a fun gimmick while it lasted, but let’s go ahead and turn the page to something new, shall we?
• Display:  OK, as much as I can handle the display on the RAZR M, it still is a qHD PenTile display. If you use Motorola’s wallpapers, you may come away thinking this is one of the better displays ever made, however, if you change it up and throw on something a little more subtle and less vibrant, you will immediately see text becoming less clear with pixels shining through. And no, it didn’t take a blown up macro shot for me to be able to see this, I am simply showing you this picture so that you can see the display technology at work. I wouldn’t consider this display to be a deal breaker, but just know that even if it is “edge-to-edge,” that it’s not as good many others on the market. Then again, you are only paying$99 for it.

• Camera:  I have been disappointed with the 8MP camera in the RAZR M. It seems to adjust lighting at freakish rates even when it doesn’t need to, leading to below average stills. Pictures with controlled lighting also rarely seem to come out as clear as you would expect. I was able to capture some decent outside shots in the sun, but anything inside turned out noisy and plain bad. I figure the camera is probably the same sensor that we saw in the original RAZR, however, it doesn’t come close to performing like it.

• Bootloader:  The bootloader on the RAZR M that you will buy from Verizon for $99 is going to be locked down. This means hacking is going to be a pain in the rear, unless you want to fork out $549 and buy the developer edition directly from Motorola. Verizon will continue to come up with excuses as to why they are locking down their phones from the “hackers and tinkerers” that even Motorola has realized are important, and we will continue to tell them how wrong they are. Verizon, you are wrong, again.
• Bloatware:  My official bloatware count reached 23 on the RAZR M. Now that Verizon has partnered with Amazon, their suite of apps easily adds 6 or 7 to Big Red’s ever-growing list. They also aren’t letting you uninstall these anymore, so if you want them gone from your app drawer, you have to go into Settings>Apps>All and disable them. This new Amazon partnership is definitely a step in the wrong direction in the battle of bloatware.

Unboxing and First Look:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Gallery:

The Verdict:

As I mentioned earlier, I’m a huge fan of the DROID RAZR M. The form factor with the edge-to-edge display has been a treat. You still get a big beautiful screen, but without the extra baggage that normally comes with one. At $99, the price seems more-than-reasonable, especially when you consider that it packs many of the same specs that high-end phones are launching with these days. The RAZR M is a great option for those who have been frustrated by the mega-phone movement.

Motorola DROID RAZR M Review is a post from: Droid Life

Motorola’s Photon Q has been out for about a week now on Sprint and we are ready to put up our “official” opinions and thoughts on the device. As someone who never owned another QWERTY phone after the OG DROID, it was interesting to say the least to go back to a phone that doesn’t feel ultra thin such as the One X and Galaxy S3. The Photon Q looks to take the throne above all other full keyboard-toting devices and does so with relative ease. But of course, the phone is not without its faults though, so let’s get right into it. 

The Good:

• Specs:  On paper, the Q looks to draw you in with its enticing specifications. Oh, a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 and 1GB of RAM? 8MP camera that shoots 1080p video? And what about that fancy 4.3″ display with Motorola’s “ColorBoost” technology? That sounds like something I want to have in my pocket! Alas, this device does sport some high-end device specs. Along with Ice Cream Sandwich, NFC capabilities, and 8GB of on-board storage (expandable to 32GB), the Q can easily handle its own against some of Samsung’s or HTC’s better offerings, but that’s on paper.
• Battery:  From my time with it, it’s one of the better battery experiences I have had. I easily spent a good hour playing Organ Trail the other day and hardly noticed a toll on the device despite a small warmth coming from its backside. The phone features a non-removable 1785 mAh battery, which actually shocks me every time I am reminded at how bulky the device is. You’re telling me I have to carry around this brick and it doesn’t even come with more juice than a DROID RAZR’s 1780 mAh? Some how, Moto has made it work.
• Build:  Given Motorola’s exceptional track record at making hardware that everyone loves, this device is no different. It’s a beast. It’s a tank. I am certain that upon dropping this off any reasonable surface, that it has a pretty darn good chance of surviving the fall. The backside’s hard plastic feels great in hand and none of the buttons come off as being “janky” or “loose.” For example, there’s nothing more unsettling than a loose power key. All of these feel very sturdy and will easily last a couple years of abuse. Overall, the phone feels great in hand.

• Full QWERTY Keyboard:  Well, it’s a full QWERTY. That’s why we’re here, right? The keys feel good and they give an excellent “click” sound when pressed. In additional, they each light up extremely bright, so if you’re trying to text in the movie theater, you’re sure to get a few stares. The keys are spaced perfectly and don’t feel cramped like many of the older DROID keyboards did. Down below in the gallery I have a nice picture of the Q sitting next to famed OG DROID. It’s a good comparison shot.
• Sprint LTE Connectivity:  If you live in an area supported by Sprint’s 4G LTE network, then that’s a major plus. Unfortunately for myself and millions of other Americans, that is not the case. Maybe one day we’ll see it in these parts. Until then, it’s a 3G-only device.
• NFC:  The Q does have an NFC chip inside, but weirdly enough, Google Wallet is not supported. When and if it ever will be, I have no idea. I have it added as a plus since I am hoping that since the technology is inside, that down the road the Q will embrace G-Wallet and allow for mobile payments.
• Slider:  The slider aspect of this device really rocks. You can flick it up and down real fast and rest assured that it isn’t going to snap on you. The top part was definitely screwed on tight and I love that aspect. It’s a fluid slide and it’s nice not to feel any jerks or rubs going on while sliding it.

• Bootloader:  This bad boy is unlockable! As of just a couple of days ago, Motorola released a web-based tool for you to unlock this device’s bootloader. Once unlocked, rooting and adding a custom ROM will be much easier if that’s something you’re into. For hackers, this is the biggest selling point before all others.

The Not-so-Good:

• Display:  You won’t be seeing any pixel shots here, folks. But I will say this – “It’s a trap!” The Photon’s 4.3″ qHD “ColorBoost” (960 x 540 pixel) display is rather hard to look at after reviewing phones such as the Galaxy SIII and One X. With the bare eye, at certain angles you can see the pixels glaring at you and it’s no fun to look at. If a super high-tech display is not something you need though, it will most certainly get the job done for your Angry Birds and YouTube video watching.
• Camera:  I will let this picture speak for itself. This is a full quality shot taken of my non-moving boxer (Usually he’s a spazz). I have left it at full resolution so you can see just how awful my experiences have been. This is the best example I could get of a well-lit shot being practically ruined by the overall “blur” effect that the camera adds.

• Blur:  Just because it’s better than the old version of Blur, doesn’t make it any more fun to use. There are a few useful additions it brings such as swiping up on icons and contacts to reveal shortcuts, but overall, it has bogged down my experience and if this wasn’t a review unit, a 3rd party launcher would be the first thing I installed from Google Play. For some reason, every time I am dealing with Blur it just seems to be more of a negative than a positive. One thing I will say is that I do enjoy the additional lock screen shortcuts it provides to applications, but there’s applications that can do that as well. I know manufacturers want to differentiate themselves from each other, but I wish it was more on a hardware level than a software level.

• Performance: On that note, I broke down. I installed Nova Launcher just to see if a different launcher could somehow change this device’s overall feel and speed. To my disbelief, even Nova couldn’t make the homescreen lag go away. When performing simple tasks such as swiping away cached apps and going from games to camera back to games it performs rather well. But if there’s a constant lag just swiping homescreens, that’s a problem for me
• Gaming: As for gaming, I was hoping to find some titles that took advantage of the QWERTY keyboard. Unfortunately, it seems that most developers are just too used to programming games for on-screen controls. Although, as a bonus, Call of Duty: Blacks Ops Zombies (an Xperia exclusive title) did work on this device. Whether it’s because of the keyboard or there was a glitch in the Matrix, it was nice to be able to finally play it.
• Sprint’s LTE:  Seeing as how Sprint’s LTE is only available in very few markets, I would say that is not the biggest sell for the device. I wish I could have tested it out.

Unboxing and First Look:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Gallery:

The Verdict:

The phone does have its ups and downs, but overall, it’s a fine device for most. If you’re in need of the full QWERTY experience, I would look no further. The device is priced at a reasonable $199.99 on a new two year agreement. My only real issue is that if you’re the type of person that needs their phone to have a decent camera, you may want to look at other offerings such as the Galaxy S3 on the “Now Network.” Although, it is hard to resist a Motorola device with an unlockable bootloader.

Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE Review is a post from: Droid Life

The DROID Incredible 4G LTE sort of came at a bad time, just like the Motorola Atrix HD. Both phones were released far too close to the phone of the year, the Samsung Galaxy S3. And just like the Atrix HD, I have had this phone for over a month now, but when the GS3 was released, the Inc 4G immediately took a back seat until things cooled off a bit. Actually, “back seat” is the perfect way to describe this phone. It took a back seat to not only the Galaxy S3, but also the entire HTC One series that was released earlier in the year. It didn’t receive the coveted “One” tag, nor did it receive any of the high-end specs of that series. Hell, maybe we should go with “stepchild” instead of “back seat?” Anyways, let’s talk about it. 

The Good:

• Battery:  One of the few highlights to the Incredible 4G has been battery life. With only a 1700mAh battery inside, I was initially worried that it wouldn’t be able to get me through much of a day, especially while running on 4G LTE. To my surprise, this phone lasted all day and then some. As you can see in the screenshots, with steady usage on nothing but LTE, I had around 46% left after having been up and running for almost 16 hours. You can probably thank the Snapdragon S4 inside that is the most efficient processor on the planet, right now. It’s not the same processor that powers the Galaxy S3, but is instead a 1.2GHz version that could have been underpowered to help extend things like battery life.

• Camera:  The 8MP camera on the Incredible 4G is really good. It’s incredibly fast, sports a f/2.2 aperture, and 28mm lens. You click and it shoots. If the lighting is great, you may not even notice that you just took a picture – that’s how fast it is. Unfortunately, it doesn’t contain the ImageSense chip that came with the One Series, so options like burst mode are not included. Still, you should be able to take some beautiful stills with this camera. If there are two massive highlights for this phone, it’s in battery life and the camera.

• Price:  At $149, the Incredible 4G is priced reasonably well. It could easily go for $99 with its lower-end specs and small frame, but it does have NFC, 4G LTE, and enough goodies to help justify the $149 mark. I’d personally buy it through a dealer who would likely have it for $99 or less. In fact, Amazon is selling it for around $49 as of today.
• NFC:  Yep, this phone has NFC. While Verizon refuses to let it use Google Wallet, you can at least beam links, contacts, and apps to your friends who also have NFC phones. NFC should be standard in all smartphones going forward, especially with more mobile payment options on the way, so we have to give props to Verizon and HTC for adding it in, even though this is a mid-tier device.

The Not-so-Good:

• WiFi Notification:  Before we get into this section, we need to start off by calling out Verizon (again) for the most obnoxious ongoing notification of all time. We aren’t sure if this is a hint for you to get off of their network or because you may have a new Share Everything plan, but the “Tap to turn Wi-Fi on” notification that cannot be removed is easily the most annoying change on any phone in the last year. Seriously Verizon, we get it, we know how to turn WiFi on and off. And even if we didn’t, you should still give us a way to remove this notification, because at some point, we are going to know how and not want this massive notification taking up precious screen space.

• Specs:  Normally we start every review off with specs, because well, most phones have great specs. This phone, does not. It sports a 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor that we have been told is “different” than the Snapdragon S4 in the Galaxy S3 and many other phones. We don’t know what “different” means, but it certainly doesn’t mean “upgrade.” It also rocks out with a low-end 4″ qHD Super LCD display, VGA front camera, and around 8GB of internal storage. I’m calling this a “not-so-good” because the Incredible was at one time a top tier phone, but has since been shoved into the mid-range game.
• Display:  The display on the Incredible 4G is not good. It’s a Super LCD, so the pixel arrangement is what you would want, however at a qHD resolution and incredibly low pixel density, this thing isn’t impressing anyone. Take a look at the picture below and you’ll know what I mean. The colors are also off, with whites looking almost yellow at times. I’d call the 4″ display too small for my liking. I’m sure the iPhone 5 will launch with a 4″ display and the fankids will claim it’s the sweet spot, but for an Android guy who has been using 4.5″ and above displays for months, this thing feels tiny.

• Violent Haptic Feedback:  The haptic feedback on this phone is crazy violent. When you press one of the soft keys, you can actually hear parts moving around. It almost vibrates out of your hand if you don’t hold it tightly enough. OK, that last part was a bit of an exaggeration, but not much of one. When this thing vibrates, you can tell that this is one of the more cheaply made phones in some time. Tone it down, HTC!
• Build:  This bullet is sort of a continuation of the end of the haptic feedback section in that this phone feels remarkably cheap. It creaks, makes odd noises, and scuffs easier than most phones. When the camera focuses, you can actually hear a mini-popping noise, which is scary.
• Sense 4.0:  I really do not like Sense 4.0 any longer. When it was first introduced on the One X, it was a breath of fresh air over previous Sense versions, however, it’s grown to annoy me just like most skins. The 3D animations and sluggishness are not fun to deal with. Now that Google has turned stock Android into a minimal and incredibly beautiful operating system, skins like this just seem like a downgrade. If you buy this phone, please install a 3rd party launcher immediately, to help hide most of Sense. If you would like to see a full overview of Sense 4.0, check out this video.

• Bloatware:  Our official bloatware count comes to 13, a number we gathered thanks to a special “Verizon” tab in the app drawer. It’s a lot less than we have seen on other phones in the past, but with most of them being permanent fixtures unless you disable them, it’s flag-worthy.
• Keyboard:  The Sense keyboard needs a major overhaul. It’s slow, only vibrates with every other key press, and has a row of arrows on the bottom that I have never used one time in my life. It also doesn’t auto-add spaces when you choose word predictions, something that drives me insane. If you force yourself into using this keyboard, at least go into keyboard settings and turn on its swipe/trace feature, as it works fairly well.

• Hardware Soft Keys:  HTC tried to do the right thing when it eliminated the Menu button from its navigation keys, but since developers have been slow to adopt this standard in their apps, you are often left with a black bar across the bottom of your screen with a single button to access menu options. They fixed this issue in the One X with a software update, but have not provided a fix for the Incredible 4G. On a screen that only measures 4-inches, you need all of the screen real estate available at all times.
• Size:  This phone is too small for my liking. Coming from big phone after big phone, it was a struggle to use something this small. Typing on it, browsing the web, and multi-tasking were painful at times because of the small icons and screen size. If you have dainty little hands, you may love this size – I just, do not.

Unboxing and First Look:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Gallery:

The Verdict:

With no reason to beat around the bush, I’ll just come out and say it directly – this phone is a mid to low-tier Android device that you shouldn’t waste your time with. Verizon chose to pass on the One Series and instead gave HTC fans this. It’s specs aren’t enough to make it a powerhouse, and the build quality is so iffy and cheap, that I’d be afraid to attach 2 years of my life to it. It’s $149 from Verizon, but you can pick up the Galaxy S3 for $50 more and hang out with the Android device of the year. It’s battery life is great, as is the camera, but those aren’t big enough selling points to mask all of its downfalls.

HTC DROID Incredible 4G LTE Review is a post from: Droid Life