This week we're going to review about the HTC Droid Incredible 2 from CellHut.com. It took around 3 days to receive the order. The packaging was neat and perfect, thanks to CellHut.com for the excellent service. The predecessor to the HTC DROID Incredible 2 was a doozie of a phone when it first launched. Some would even argue it was one of the best phones on the market, if not the absolute best. There’s a ton of competition these days, though, and HTC in conjunction with Verizon have decided to follow it up with a new device. Its name is the HTC DROID Incredible 2, of course, and even with the lack of 4G it isn’t one to just quickly glance over. We’ve given the phone a deep tissue massage and have jotted our full thoughts below.
Like many of HTC’s other phones – has a tried and true design and doesn’t do much to stray from what works. Design cues are borrowed heavily from other HTC devices and we’re not just talking about the recessed contour racing lines on the battery door that was also seen on the original. (Though it’s less prominent here than it was on the first DROID Incredible with one layer instead of two.) Like many HTC phones, there’s nothing not to be satisfied with when it comes to build quality. It doesn’t feel rigid in the hand, light bleeding isn’t an issue and it feels like it could take more than a few bumps. (Though we’d rather you try and be more safe than sorry.)
Not everything is the same compared to its predecessor, though. For instance, they’ve bumped the display size up to a cool 4 inches opposed to the original’s 3.7. It doesn’t seem like much of a different at first, but 4 inches has really become the sweet spot in handset design. We get added room to type and game without having to compromise comfortability. The resolution is the same, of course, at 480×800 and the device uses a Super LCD panel like the original. (That happened after Samsung failed to deliver AMOLED displays, forcing HTC and other manufacturers to switch over to this technology.) The display here is bright and crisp – totally usable in direct sunlight. It’s a sharp difference from HTC’s 2010 lineup and I totally applaud whoever engineered it.
As far as device performance goes, this thing is equipped with Qualcomm’s 1GHz Snapdragon processor and 768MB of RAM. It’s no surprise, then, that HTC Sense runs with snappiness and ease. (Even more so on the DROID Incredible 2 thanks to the upgraded GPU that sits alongside the CPU.) Gaming performance excelled with smooth experiences in simple games like Angry Birds and more demanding games such as Guerrilla Bob. There’s a bit over a gigabyte of internal storage to use for app installation out of the box, but Verizon includes a 16GB microSD card preinstalled for adequate storage for movies, music and more.
Battery life is something of great importance to many of you and you’ll be happy to know that the DROID Incredible 2 will get you through more than just a day. On days where I barely touched the phone, I pulled over two days’ worth of juice. Even with services such as Friend Stream, Gmail and Skype running and updating in the background, you’ll be able to go to sleep knowing this won’t die on you overnight. In a more realistic day of usage (constantly pulling my phone out to bang out a tweet, email or to participate in lengthy phone calls), I pulled 14-16 hours on average – in line with what is recognized as the industry standard.
There are smaller things that are just as appreciative as factors such as processor and amount of storage. The capacitive buttons, for instance, are invisible at first glance until you power the device on. Furthermore, the buttons rotate when you rotate the phone. It’s nothing huge but it definitely is nice. Still, even with all of this, the HTC DROID Incredible 2 is quite ordinary in terms of hardware and design. It may not be exciting for folks who want a completely different looking phone from the norm, but it’s a safe design with safe internals that HTC has been perfecting over the past few years. Don’t expect this one to give you any gaping issues out of the box.
Other changes include the unfortunate removal of the optical trackpad. This little guy was something of great desire on the original DROID Incredible for many users who wanted a navigation utility outside of the touchscreen itself. It’s not as necessary with HTC’s latest version of sense, though, which has improved text selection and editing features. To my surprise, Verizon asked HTC to include a front-facing camera. It’s uncharacteristic of Verizon who has neglected to include this on devices without LTE radios. (Even the newest DROID X2 won’t have the feature.)
